Raising Children and Rules

When you have one child or an oldest child there is fear. What if something bad happens? So to squelch it, you make rules. Hundreds, maybe thousands of rules. If your child is lucky a sibling arrives, and you can divide the rules between the two; they each get twenty-five rules. A pair of twins next? Great! Every child has a mere twelve and a half rules now. By the time your twenty-first child arrives, you have learned you do not have to make any rules for her. Her older siblings are much more rule-oriented and bossier than you could ever be. So you can sit back and relax. You do not have to give your last-born a curfew either, because all of her friends have parents who give curfews. Making them the bad guys, and you the cool parent Whose child comes home because there is nothing fun to do when her friends all have to follow their big-bad—parents’ rules and go home at their curfew times.