Divide and conquer

As far as looks go, our children are very obviously siblings. Personality-wise, however, they couldn’t be more different. I’m not sure whether these different personalities are innate, or as a result of their unique experiences in the birth family and in the womb - one, by virtue of being older, spent a lot longer in their birth family, while the younger one, due to circumstances at the time of birth mum’s pregnancy, probably had a more difficult in utero experience.

Where one is a thrill-seeker, and doesn’t even seem to see danger, the other is naturally over-cautious and really struggles with high anxiety levels. Little will launch herself into a new situation without a backwards glance, and constantly wants to go faster, higher and longer. She relishes new experiences and is very happy with changes in routine. Tiny, on the other hand, hangs back in any new situation. Unpredictability leads to heightened anxiety - sometimes to the point that it makes him physically ill. He has several fears - balloons and loud noises among the worst of them - which make being in the kind of environments that Little loves very difficult for him.

Going into the adoption process, my partner and I marketed the fact that we both have different interests and personalities as a strength, and it has proved to be the case, as often it’s better for the children to be doing different things. This weekend, Little has been to a busy, noisy, bright fireworks display and a balloon-filled birthday party, whereas Tiny has has had a ‘movie night’ and some quiet nurture time at home. While our personalities very much align to the children’s - my partner with Little and me with Tiny, we make sure we change up who does what with whom regularly, to make sure that both children get a chance for quality time with us both. For me, that often means going out of my comfort zone a bit, although there are other sides to the children’s personalities where we each can find common ground. It’s also a challenge sometimes to market the different activities as a positive for both of them - we don’t want to deprive Little of new experiences because Tiny can’t cope with them, but we also don’t want Tiny to feel like he’s missing out when he doesn’t get to go to things. And given the history of neglect, we don’t want either of them to feel like they’re being deprived, as they’re usually both quick to notice and object when the roger get something they don’t (regardless of whether they themselves want that thing or not!)

So the result is often to divide and conquer, with our family of four splitting into two twos. It’s easier for the children, both in the sense that they get their preferred activity, but also because they get one parent’s full attention, without having to compete with their sibling or other parent for it. For us as parents, this has meant putting aside our own images of ‘wholesome family time’ all together, at least for now. At the same time, we don’t want to be forever divided as there’s a lot they could learn from each other - Little would benefit from a little more caution and thought before jumping into things, and it would probably do Tiny good to take a risk now and again. I also wouldn’t mind seeing a little bit more of my partner from time to time...!