1066 All Stars

Anger Management

Becoming a parent is a magical time. For us, it started with the stress of not knowing if we could have children, to the discomfort of IVF to the joy of the positive test followed by waiting and waiting (and waiting) for 9 months to pass, only for our little darlings to arrive early.

And those first few weeks too are like living in a dream world. After all the stress and worry of bringing them into the world, after the mad dash panic call to the grandparents for a lift to the hospital, after 2 weeks of nail biting as they stayed in the neo natal unit, finally they are home. Life will never be the same again. All that matters is them. This is our new world.

Witness the joy as they flash their first smile, embark on their first exploratory crawl, pull themselves to standing, totter their first wobbly steps and garble their first words.

And then, as time goes on, look on aghast as you discover for the first time what it is truly like to be angry.

I like to think of parenting as equal parts love and wanting to punch someone in the face. Nothing in life will bring you a greater sense of joy than seeing the world vicariously through your children's eyes as they discover things for the first time. But nothing will make you as angry as when they rip your newspaper you haven't had time to read, pull all your videogames onto the floor, refuse to wear their coat even though it's raining, refuse to wear jeans, constantly start a conversation with, 'Daddy...' without any plan of what will come next.

And with twins you get the added joy of always wanting whatever the other one has and then, once they get it, discarding it almost immediately, crying because they don't want their twin to play, crying because their twin won't play, choosing their own toy / coat / shoes (delete as appropriate) from the shops and then wanting to play with or wear whatever the other one has.

And here is where mental illness makes life that bit harder, every miniscule drama or complaint magnified by an underlying sense of anxiety, anger manifesting in bursts of frustration, subsequent guilt perpetuating a cycle of depression.

Being a parent is hard work. Sometimes you get things wrong. But you probably get a lot of things right. Be kind to yourself. There is no manual for this thing, all you can do is your best.

Playing Favourites

Having two children of the same age inevitably prompts comparisons between them, no matter how hard you try to resist. With a standard family, siblings brought up a few years apart, there might be a vague sense of, 'Well Little Johnny was crawling by now' or, 'Penelope was on to solids at this age.'

But having multiples presents a unique opportunity for direct comparison. One may be better at colouring, one has clearer speech, one is more stable on a bike. Whatever, it creates an unfair dynamic where your children's development risks being hindered by your own skewed perception.

Twins also allow you to see the nature vs nurture debate first hand. Two children, born at the same time, to the same parents and given the same upbringing will grow to become two very distinct, individual personalities. I try to refrain from branding them as 'the twins.' They have names, they are not a package.

One result of these factors is that you will occasionally be annoyed at one of them and not the other, creating two scenarios.

1) Both get punished for the actions of one. This is tough to avoid depending on the punishment (say, not going to the park) but be careful not to punish both just because it is more convenient to do so. Be careful also to punish equally; one of my girls can be more highly strung than the other which may temper my reaction to her versus her sister in the same scenario. This inconsistency is unfair, in a sense rewarding bad behaviour because I find it difficult to manage.

2) Your mind plays tricks on you, wondering if you are favouring one over the other, if you love one of them more. But these are tricks, exacerbated by my underlying anxiety. Of course they each present their trying moments at different times but there is plenty of love to go round too.

Still to come!

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