Are fourth kids the dumbest?

I’m afraid maybe fourth kids are destined to be the dumbest.  I’m a fourth kid, so I think I’m allowed to say that.  I was contemplating this the other day while putting away the basement toys.  There was the little drum that when you hit the top used to sing the ABCs.  And here are the maracas that when you shook them would name off colors in English and Spanish.  In the corner was the barn that used to tell you what sounds different animals made when you opened and closed the doors.  That was the world my first born lived in.  And my second born.  By my third child, the sounds were all starting to get a little lower and slower in that evil sounding way that toys do.  And by the fourth child, the batteries are dead.  The fourth child never knows the toys used to make noise and tried to sing an education into his impressionable brain.  The fridge alphabet letters are only to be batted around and thrown on the floor, never again to sing their lovely songs about what sound each letter makes.  How will my fourth child ever learn?

I had a lot of emotions when we found out we were pregnant with this fourth child (my first biological baby).  Not a lot of them were pretty.  I was taking this pregnancy test in the very same bathroom where a few minutes before I had been cleaning out dirty underwear of my child who was taking for.eve.er. to potty-train.  Did I mention I was potty-training two kids at once?  And my oldest child was not yet old enough to go to school for another year?  That positive on the pregnancy test did not exactly give me the joyful high I had always anticipated it would.  And maybe the overwhelming emotion I felt looking at that test was guilt.

I felt guilty for a lot of reasons.  Let’s be honest, I felt guilty for a lot of dumb reasons.  Guilty that a pregnancy would steal my body from its normal usefulness.  Guilty that pregnancies are expensive. . . especially if you’ve spent years cultivating a wardrobe that celebrates your infertile body.  Guilty that this child would have a biological connection to me that might make the other kids feel bad.  Guilty that other infertile women would be cherishing this moment that was panicking me.  I felt especially guilty that I’d never have enough attention to give all four of these very young kids or to meet all their needs.

And I wasn’t totally wrong about all that stuff.  Does anybody have enough attention to really devote to every need of one child, let alone four?  My mother (who raised five children) often quotes my grandmother (who also raised five children) in advocating “healthy neglect”.  When you give your kids some space, they learn things they can’t learn when you’re hovering over them.  Big families force this reality on you.  There are some days I feel like most of my time is spent in making meals, cleaning up after meals, dressing kids, putting kids to bed, and maybe taking myself to the potty once or twice.  Because I am not able to be all and do all for my kids, they have learned how to do for themselves in a beautiful and healthy way.

The drum no longer sings the ABCs, but my older kids do.  Josh is teaching Danny to count to ten.  Today Danny (3 years-old) was attempting to explain the concept of “birth mother” to Bethany (2 years-old).  I’m not saying he had all the details right, but it was impressive to hear him try.  Being the mom of a lot of little kids means when I teach a skill to one child, they delight in helping teach their younger siblings.  Maybe “delight” is too strong of a word.  They do enjoy teaching each other because it means they get to be the expert at something and who of us doesn’t enjoy that?  A culture of education becomes part of our environment.  And there are still some tasks I’m okay delegating to less relational means- I think Sesame Street handled identification of triangles- now that the toys have died. (And yes, I could just replace the batteries, but have you not been seeing this theme of the ridiculous business?  I never seem to find the time.  And some of the toys were annoying.  Which might be another reason I never find the time.)

So when I’m tempted to feel guilty that I can’t do it all, I try to remember that even if I could, maybe that would be depriving my kids of something they really need.  They need to learn to help somebody smaller than they are.  They need to learn to communicate concepts and lessons they’ve learned in a way that others can understand.  They need to be teachable to someone other than Mom.  They need to have a little “healthy neglect” in their lives that causes them to be creative, imaginative, explorers.  And with three such great teachers in his life, maybe my fourth child won’t be so dumb after all.