Sharing

My cousin, his wife and three-year-old daughter are over for a visit. They will stay for a week. Thom has been excited about having another child to play with but after playing for sometime he realized that having another child in the house mean a lot of unnecessary competition. It meant having to share things, having attention taken away from him. It really is no fun. So now the excitement has changed to hate and dislike.

Till yesterday the query was, “When are they coming? Why are they not coming?” And now that has changed to, “Amma, When will they leave? I hate her.”

I expected to have a nice time too, with Thom having someone else to play with but instead I have on my hands a very cranky child, who is upset about every toy his cousin picks up.

A couple of years ago when Thom was not yet two, I remember staying at J’s cousin’s house. They had a four year old and he used to act just like Thom does now and I used to think, “what bad parenting!”.

Thom was always crying because that child would not let him play with any of his toys. And I was proud of my son, as he was the sharing type; he had no problems with anyone playing with his toys.

But I suppose it just meant that he wasn’t old enough to think of things as theirs, and mine but now that, he has learnt to do that, things have changed and people probably think of me as a bad parent.