I'd rather my children didn't spend time together

I had the opportunity to study my two teenage children in their natural habitat recently and it was a real eye-opener to say the least.

Over recent months, I realised how little I see my eldest two despite being a stay-at-home mum.

They sleep eight hours a day (16 on weekends), spend six hours in school and then much of the rest of their time is spent ‘out’.

Wherever that is.

Trying to keep them within my four walls is a mammoth task, so over Easter when their grandmother was visiting, I insisted they forget that the outside world existed and demanded they spend 48 hours in the company of their younger siblings and elderly relatives.

I know, I know, they’re my biggest fans.

So what did I learn during this anthropological exercise?

Well, a lot if I’m honest.

Some moments merely necessitated a raised eyebrow while other resulted in a dropped jaw.

I was astounded to realise that not only does my eldest son think his younger siblings are his slaves, but they reinforce the notion by bowing to this every whim.

He needs only look at his seven-year-old brother and he jumps to attendance.

His sister needs a little more encouragement, but one mention of a ‘diary’ and she’s asking how high.

And the toddler? Well, the toddler is fair game in my eldest’s eyes.

In addition to this blatant form of hierarchy, I also learned that my teenage daughter exerts her own form of power over her three brothers.

By simply muttering the word ‘period’, she’s immediately left to her own devices and can stretch out to her heart’s content on the family couch.

Watching the four of them interact with each other made my heart swell at times and sink at others.

“Have they no notion how those taunts might affect each other,”  I’d wonder frantically.

“Is that just playful banter or are his siblings setting my second youngest child up for a lifetime of therapy?”

The punishments they mete out on each other is juvenile at best and barbaric at worst. Upon finding my middle two fashioning a weapon out of household items to ‘test out’ on their older brother, I knew I had to step in.

None of my kids were dying on my watch, not in front of my mother-in-law anyway.

I’d never live it down and she thinks little enough of me as it is.

Forcing my children to spend extended periods of time with each, despite their conflicting interests and vast age difference, was a recipe for disaster.

There’s a reason they seek company elsewhere and while I’d hope they can and will foster a significant and meaningful relationship with each other in time, I shouldn’t force it.

And it’s not just their best interests I have in mind here.  

It’s mine.