Your Second Child Book

I've had a difficult time finding books on this topic. I guess everyone acknowledges that the first child needs a lot of help preparing for having a sibling, but somehow most people aren't thinking the parents might want some information about having an additional child.

This book was published in 1981, so it is extremely dated; an example of its being out of touch include a section on how "bedmates can be helpmates;" i.e., in case it hadn't occurred to you, your husband/partner should get up off his @$$ and help take care of your joint children and maintain your house. What a startling revelation, huh?

Anyway, overall this book was more positive about having a second child than another one I'd read (From One Child to Two) and many of the suggestions for addressing issues were helpful and somewhat detailed. It did strike me as odd that so much time was spent discussing the reasons first and second children are different from one another, including opinions from psychologists. I think, "Duh, they're not the same individual. Why would we expect them to be the same?" Plus, they'll appear to be pretty different when you compare them to one another, and a lot more similar when you compare them to kids from another family with a different family culture.

One thing I really appreciated about the first half of the book was the way the author included widely varying examples of children's interests and behaviors in a very non-gender biased way, and referred equally to the possibility of either child being of either sex. Sadly, by the second half of the book, that attitude had disappeared and the author mostly used he, him, and brother as if females don't exist at all.

I also thought the section on sibling rivalry could have been improved. While her attitude was "rivalry is normal and kids need the experience to learn how to deal with conflict throughout their lives," there were no truly helpful suggestions, such as those included in books like Siblings Without Rivalry.

I was blown away by the part about whether kids should share a room. Perhaps the "me-me-me" ethos of the '80s was responsible for the overall tone that "forcing" your children to share a room would be a disaster for everyone and would stunt their development, but even that was odd considering she opened the chapter with the observation that several generations ago, there would be no question about whether kids should share a room. Anyway, AP parents won't get much out of this section, not will simple living families. Apparently, we should building children's independence even in infancy and we could consider building an additional wing on our homes to store our children's toys!

Still, it's worth a read, or at least a skim-- until something better is written.