Parenthood: Week 408 – The Wrong Dance

Parenting is like a dance .

For the first child, you are learning how to be a parent along with the child. Both of you are new to this dance. For the second child, it’s different. You have been through these stages before. You have a sense of how things go. You know the steps. With more confidence, you can make things happen with your second child. Even though they have no idea what to do, at least you do.

I’m borrowing this metaphor of dancing from a breastfeeding consultant who uses this metaphor to explain why some women have an easier time breastfeeding their second child. I’m not sure who I heard it from, but it might have been from a woman named Faith.

The thing is that even though you may know all the steps of a dance and you are confident taking the lead, every partner is different. Your first child prepares you to parent the second and, in my case, the third child through the stages of a child’s life, but the first child doesn’t prepare you for the unexpected and different challenges each child brings.

Let’s take potty training, for example. Ollie was a fairly easy kid to potty train. I went with a method in a book and spent one of my breaks from school and made the intensive three- or four-day stay-at-home approach. This kick-started the process, and, in a month, or two, Ollie was pretty much set. 

I was pretty confident when Ethan expressed that we wanted to start using the potty that this whole process would be more straightforward than it was with Ollie. Ethan’s teachers at school are very supportive of helping him learn toileting, and so is Ollie. Since I’ve potty training one kid, I figured that I got this down. What’s the big deal?

I was wrong.

It was like I was trying to teach Ethan how to ballroom dance, and he was determined to tap dance. No, no. Let me try that again. It was like I was trying to Ethan how ballroom dance and Ethan was determined to learn how to swim. 

Ethan didn’t calmly sit on the potty whenever I asked him to like Ollie did. He didn’t respond to charts, and candy incentives like Ollie did. And he didn’t take to potty training in a couple of weeks as Ollie did. It took him a couple of months. 

We started this process in October, and recently it’s become clear that he has turned a corner and is getting it. There is nothing wrong with how Ethan engaged and worked on toileting. I don’t think I messed up that either, but I should have been more open to this dance being unique with Ethan and me and not trying to replicate how this went with Ollie. 

Part of getting the opportunity to help each of my sons work through stages of their lives is being open to their process and their journey and be as willing to learn as I did with my first son. 

I'm looking forward to seeing what Lucas brings to this dance.