ALL ARE NOT THE SAME

"I just don't understand him. All of his brothers and sisters turned out fine. You would think he came from a different family."

The truth is, he did come from a different family. NO TWO PEOPLE GROW UP IN THE SAME FAMILY! Before you dismiss this statement as absurd, consider the following family dynamics.

In my family we have three children. They are grown and gone from home, so writing about them will not embarrass them. If they find out that I have used them for illustrative purposes, they will probably ask for royalties. Our daughter is eleven years younger than her older brother (he left home for college when she was entering the second grade). She is eight years younger than her other brother (he was gone from home when we moved to Marshall in her sixth grade year). My daughter and I were having some heated conflict during her older teenage years. It was at a time that her older brother was home for a visit. Our son said to his sister: "Never think that you and I grew up with the same father!"

He was absolutely correct. I was much older when his sister came along. Hopefully I had learned something along the way and had not just marked time for eleven years. In my 50's I knew that some things were not all that important. It may be more accurate to say that I had less energy to expend so I had to pick my patenting issues more carefully.

I remember that "pottie training" was a very important issue when the boys were small. I think we competed with our friends over whose child would be pottie trained first. As I look back, it was Janell and I that got trained to set the boys on the commode at scheduled intervals. When our daughter arrived eleven years later, all that "flapping around" seemed foolish to me at age 37. It may be that I didn't have the energy. I remember saying to my wife, "She will get the hang of it without our help. There are very few first graders that have failed to master this important social skill. If, however, she is the one in 10,000, then we will send her to school with a purse full of clean panties." Well, I am sure you have surmised...she mastered this important social skill at an earlier age on her own than the boys had with my help.

My daughter did have a different father than her brothers. But there are other ways the family in which she grew up was different. My family of origin communicates different messages of expectancy to male children than female children. We lay these expectancies on older male children: he is to be more emotionally controlled, better disciplined, and more achievement-oriented. Our expectancies of younger female members of the family are more relaxed. Think about the molding effects of these expectancies when they are reinforced by extended family.

NO TWO PEOPLE GROW UP IN THE SAME FAMILY! Birth order...gender...age of parents and grandparents all work toward creating different environments for each of us. So if you have a brother or sister who is having a difficult time conforming to family expectations, "cut them some slack." The Bible calls this grace. Remember they had a different family from yours. If you extend grace to that "different" sibling, who knows, they may yet do things the way your family says that they ought to be done.