By KATHERINE SNOW SMITH
Published January 11, 2004
It starts even before they are born. How much are they kicking? How sick is the mother getting? Then as soon as they emerge into the world children are measured and compared in every possible way.
How much does she weigh? How many ounces can she drink at a time? How much hair does he have? When did he lift his head? Roll over? Smile? Walk? Talk? Read? Write? Learn square roots? Kick a goal? Swim a lap? What were her SAT scores? Where did he get into college? How much does she make? How much did her baby weigh? And then it starts all over again.
Sometimes it's intentional. Sometimes it's just small talk. Sometimes it's genuine concern. Whatever the motive, children present a litany of ways for their parents to compare them or compete through them. A friend of my husband's who has children older than ours was recently musing at the way parents compare their children's milestones and worry when their child isn't ahead or at least keeping up with other kids. He was scoffing at what wasted energy it is because by second or third grade they've all evened out and are doing most of the same things.
"By third grade all the kids in our son's class had pretty much caught up with him," he added. Just had to get that in there, didn't he?
When I had my first child I soon learned I was entering a lifelong ball game of sorts because there are plenty of parents who want to keep score on everything. A neighbor had a son 10 days after Olivia was born and she was determined that being born was the only thing my daughter would ever do before her son.
She spotted a smile, not gas, a true smile when he was a week old. He could lift his head off her shoulder at about 10 days. He could hold a book when he was a month old. When he was 3 months old if she handed him the book upside down he would turn it right side up because he recognized the way the pictures - and possibly words - should be.
She called me daily to check how many ounces of milk Olivia had consumed in the night. She preferred to get this information on a per breast basis. No matter what I told her, her son had always had a couple of ounces more.
A reporter friend of mine with older children lamented that she had a baby alongside a very competitive mother, also a reporter. Even before her baby was born she boasted about how much worse her morning sickness was than my friend's.
Toward the end of their pregnancy my friend was assigned to cover President Clinton when he visited St. Pete Beach. She fantasized about possibly throwing up on or near the president since that would probably be the only way to trump her co-worker in the morning sickness department. Though she ate extra cereal with whole milk that morning to prompt her stomach to churn, the Secret Service wouldn't let her within puking distance of the president.
"Competitiveness is a fundamental part of human nature," said Mark Cavitt, a child psychiatrist at All Children's Hospital. "It probably dates back to perpetuation of the species. We are looking for early signs of superiority of the gene pool, that we have passed along traits that will make our child somehow more highly prized than most."
The publication of Dr. Benjamin Spock's Baby and Child Care in 1946 probably spawned much of the comparing that takes place today because before then parents weren't so sure what their kids should be doing at a certain age, he said. Since Spock, there have been thousands of books and magazine articles to aid in measuring and comparing kids.
"There are two edges of the sword. The more you know the more finely tuned you are to what your child needs at certain ages," Cavitt said. "The negative is you get caught up and worried too much because (the children) haven't met what the book says is the date for the milestone."
It seems we're compelled to compare our kids in some aspect or another but be very careful your kids are out of earshot, he warned. Too often they are not.
"Its natural to compare and be competitive," Cavitt said. "We simply need to be aware of it and channel it in ways to promote individual self-esteem - and don't establish a frame of reference that one's self-esteem is based on comparing yourself to others."
My children's pediatrician, Ernesto Meyer, advises parents to remember all kids, even in the same family, are very different.
"So many parents think all (children) should walk or talk at exactly the same time," he said.
He, and many other doctors, measure children's progress on a developmental chart that usually offers a four- to six-month spread on what age children reach certain milestones. For example, most children may walk by 13 months of age, but plenty won't walk until they are 15 months old. Parents are worried when their child's weight or height is only in the 50th percentile range even though that means they are at the same level of half the babies in the country.
"Nobody wants to be average anymore," Meyer said. Instead of a neighbor or cousin, parents should compare their child to their child. If she is making steady progress in her own time that's what matters, he added.
My children have not been the first to walk, talk or say their ABCs. But just try to beat the Smith kids in the teeth department. That's right. You heard me. All three of mine had sprouted a couple before they were 4 months old and could rip apart steak by the time they were 6 months.
The beauty of this, of course, is that they are the first to lose their teeth. And while other children may be reading or playing Mozart on the piano when they're 4, my kids can gloat about the first visit from the tooth fairy.
NOTE: I need to add another activity for preschoolers to the list I compiled recently. KidAc happens every Thursday morning at the St. Pete Beach Recreation Center. Children 6 months to 4 years take part in art, music, parachute play, marching bands, bubbles and more. It costs $6 for members of the recreation center and $8 for nonmembers. Call 363-9245 for times for different age groups.
- You can reach Katherine Snow Smith by e-mail at snowsmith@verizon.net or write Rookie Mom, St. Petersburg Times, PO Box 1121, St. Petersburg, FL 33731.
