Different strokes for different folks.

The one thing good about having your own mother help you care for your own children is that you and her, well, most of the time, are on the same page with regards to parenting. I mean, a lot of how I parent the twins, I picked up from my mom or from how my mom dealt with me, my brothers and how she brought us up. I'm certain that even then, there will be conflict and differences as to how to bring up the children.

But these differences are exacerbated when the caregivers have had different experiences with child rearing. This has been made clear to me over and over again through the first 2 1/2 years of the twins' life and it was once again illustrated today.

As I'd said before, the twins, especially Evan miss their father. It is unusual for him to burst into tears and throw tantrums but it has been the case the last few days. Because of that, I've been trying to make things easier for him. If his tantrums aren't discipline related (as in he hasn't bonked his sister on the head on purpose), I try to be reasonable with him. This afternoon, he was tearful and asked for my in-law's maid to get him to sleep rather than myself or his grandma. Grandma was mercilessly and brusquely banished downstairs, ordered to "go eat dinner, please" which is his way of telling you to get out of the room. Sometime later, I was given my own marching orders and just the helper to stay behind.

When I came down, I was told that I shouldn't have agreed to him having the helper over us get him to sleep. On principle I agree. But it's not a daily occurrence and he doesn't see her all the time. On top of that, he's usually quite good about either Grandma or I getting him to sleep. But she doesn't agree. On top of that, she lectures me about how, as mother, I should be possessive about my time with him and insist on it, explaining to him that I am his mother and I should be preferred over any other caregiver.

I don't agree with that on many levels. On the most practical level, I cannot just be his sole flavour of the month and be the only one that can feed, bathe, clothe, get to bed, play with, help him pee and poo, play with him etc. It feels nice to be the only person who can do all that for a child but realistically, I have another child and one on the way.

Then I also ask myself on days that I feel like I should be the only person in his life whether it would be healthy for him and whether I am actually doing him a disfavour by making him so dependent and expectant of just one person.

But what resonates with me most of all is my mother's own experience with me which she has shared with me many times. I was brought up by a nanny who lived with us during the week and went home on the weekend. When she went home on the weekend, I insisted on going along, totally insensitive and impervious to the fact that my parents who worked all week would have liked for me to stay home and be with them over the weekend. And rather than fight me on it, my mother allowed it. Her explanation, it would stress me out unnecessarily and my attachment to the nanny was natural since she was with me all the time. She also rationalised that it was a phase and I would grow out of it and I would also instinctively know who my mother was. Everything she said was true and while I loved my nanny to bits, through the years after she'd left us, my fondness for her was more a memory than a real emotion. My relationship with my mother however, grew and she is still the one I turn to, even now, a mother myself, when I am upset or in need of reassurance.

And primarily because of what my mom said about not stressing me (the then child) out then, I practice the same thing with the children; avoid stressing them out as much as possible. Even without that sort of stress put on me as a child, I have grown up relatively high-strung. Would I have already had an aneurysm at 30 had it not been for my mother's early wisdom? Whatever it is, my parenting of the twins has a great amount to do with how I was parented and while it may not make sense to outsiders, it is something that worked for her and is working for me.

Of course, this isn't a free Get Out of Jail card. There are clear lines (not OB markers!) that I have drawn for the twins and when they cross those, regardless of how stressed my punishment makes them, they're going to have to face it anyway. This evening was one such instance.

I'd been mostly understanding about his need to throw tantrums or chuck a fit. But I wasn't going to have it when he told his well-meaning grandfather in no uncertain terms to a) Go home b) Not to follow him to Ah Ma's house c) Not to touch him or carry him. Thankfully, my dad is VERY deaf and only heard what must have sounded like "I go home to Ah Ma's house" because that was what my deaf Dad repeated. I made him apologise any way, puzzling my father and causing him to sulk, pout and ignore me after.

But well, that's another page out of my Mom's How to be a Mom handbook which I swear by most of the time.

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