Kids and Christmas -- Does Fair Mean Same?

If you have more than one kid, you’ve probably worried about being fair as a parent. Having a parent who plays favorites can color a child’s early life. Ask any adult you know who their parents’ favorite kid was. They usually know and it still bugs them.

Kids and equality of parental love can be complicated.

When you’re a parent, you might tell your kids you love them equally, but does that mean always doing exactly the same for them all. Christmas gives you lots of opportunity to worry about this. Most parents enjoy getting gifts for their kids, but the issue of equality can make this complicated. Some parents respond to this by rigidly adhering to a “everyone gets the same” policy. Same pajamas, similar toys. You don’t want to play favorites, especially if you’ve grown up with an adult who did this with you.

Sorting the equality issue through can be challenging as a parent. There are several things you need to consider. First off, there are times you prefer one kid over the other. (It’s just you and I here--You can admit it to yourself.) If you love movies and one of your children loves watching them with you—you’re probably going to feel closer to the kid who shares your hobby. If you vote Republican and you’ve got a kid who worships George Bush—you feel connected and think the kid has her head on straight. If you love sports and your child, either plays sports or avidly watches sports with the same passion you do, you’re gonna really like this child.

It’s not that you love one more than the other, but you might feel closer to one at a given point, and closer to another kid at a different time. Emotions shift. This is normal. It doesn’t mean you don’t love all your kids. But you won’t always feel the same towards them. Get used to it and don’t freak out.

When it comes to parental love, though, children can evaluate equality as being reflected in what you give them. So, gift-giving can be difficult. Parents tend to worry and to try and give their kids the same, or spend the same money on them, but that’s probably not the best answer. Are your kids just alike? Do they have the same interests? Engage in the same activities?

Probably not.

If they’re not the same people, don’t treat them just alike. While it may be scary to think about investing differently in your kids, you need to do the tough thing. Respond to the individual child. Give her gifts appropriate to her, give her what she needs and wants. If your kids feel acknowledged and validated in their uniqueness, they’re probably not going to get crazy about one of them having an extra gift.

Love the kid, give the kid what’s good for that kid.

Friendships, Gifts, and Christmas

Friends add comfort and warmth to life, not to mention fun, but at Christmas time, the gift issue can be stressful. Having someone who you like to hang out with, just makes everything better, but do you buy them a gift? If so, what? How much do you spend? What if you have more disposable income than your friend? Do you buy something you’ll think they like, but costs more than they can afford to spend on you?

Why can’t this be simpler? If this is your friend, you know her likes and dislikes, her hobbies and longings. That might make getting a gift easier when you go shopping or it could make things stickier.

You might want to start with the question of whether you’re getting each other gifts, at all. There are some of us who like tokens of our friendships to be spontaneous and unstructured. This means you want to let an idea hit you and offer the gift to your friend without discussion before hand. It can be a fun, charming experience…or you might be treading on shaky ground. What if your friend doesn’t like the commercialized aspects of gift-getting at Christmas and Hanukkah? You might know this, but not having any conversation about the tradition beforehand, you might not.

What if your friend is on a very tight budget and doesn’t like to talk about it? You might have seen a charming necklace that will go with her favorite outfit and you snapped it up without thinking. Does the gift surprise your friend to the point of you having something for her and her not having a gift for you? What if she belongs to a religion that doesn’t believe in participating in the exchanging of gifts at Christmas?

Talking about gift-exchanging early is probably a good idea. While some people feel this—and the swapping of lists—takes some of the fun out of the season, it might be a safer alternative than springing your idea of Christmas on them. If you and your friends have a disparity in financial resources, talking about everyone’s idea of gift-getting is a good plan, and this is when setting a limit on an amount of money spent on a gift makes sense. It is also a good plan for the one with the tightest budget to set the limit.

This kind of conversation requires tact. You might want to start with “Shall we exchange token gifts this Christmas?” Then, bring up the idea of lists. While the more spontaneous gift-giver dislikes being limited to the items on a list, this can give you an idea of the individual’s needs and preferences. Otherwise, you’re likely to buy gifts you think are cool, but which have greater chance of ending up in their garage sale or charity donations. While the one with the biggest disposable income needs to be the one to mention the idea of lists, the one with the smaller income should be the one volunteering a monetary limit.

This is way more complicated than in previous days when our grandmothers knitted winter hats for their friends or baked cookies for them. Either of these is a lovely gift, even now, but some friends really prefer a gift card to Itunes.

It’s okay to talk about these things amongst friends. Having affection for one another includes avoiding Yuletide embarrassment when possible.

Husbands and Disappointing Gifts

He should know better. Even if he misses your clues that you’ve been hankering after a diamond “journey” necklace, a special perfume or that hot car, he still has to know that you’re not going to be thrilled with a new rifle/washing machine/elasticized polyester pants.

If you’re an avid hunter, the rifle may thrill you. Not so much, when your spouse buys you something he’d enjoy or something cheesy he found in a last-minute trip to the mall. Christmas can end up being more than disappointing…it’s just another big moment when you don’t feel loved.

Despite the commercials to the contrary, not everyone longs for a diamond necklace, but there are things you’d enjoy finding under the tree. Something tailored to you and your lifestyle. Maybe something you wouldn’t get yourself, but you’ve looked at wistfully and thought If I ever win the lottery….

Most adults have responsibilities and—most of the time—these come first. You may not feel okay getting yourself a gift when it’s the season to give to others. On the other hand, you don’t want to have to plaster on a fake smile when it’s time to open your gifts. Lots of people do this and feel horribly guilty that Christmas is mostly about disappointment. After all, you tell yourself, it’s the thought that counts. Unfortunately, sometimes it seems like he didn’t put much of that to use when he got your gifts.

When you live with a person, it seems like he ought to know what you like and don’t like. Maybe you have a secret yen for specialty coffee, but sternly refuse to let yourself to spend the daily family budget becoming an Starbucks addict. It might be nice to get a gift card that enables you to treat yourself without guilt. Or you might have a beloved car or SUV that’s grime-covered and you long to get it detailed. Maybe you have a secret penchant for milk chocolate that you only satisfy when you go to the grocery store alone. (Gotta set an example for those vegetable-avoiding kids.)

A small box of exquisite chocolates…just for you, would touch you and let you know he understands.

Most women have a long list of people they buy for…mothers-in-laws and co-workers. Children and mates. It may seem sometimes like you’re always on your own back burner. If you have a good marriage, you might enjoy looking for just the right gift for him. You love him. Your gift for him is just a reflection of this…but does that emotional significance come back to you?

You might end up splurging on something for yourself at the holidays, figuring someone should, but that can come with a chunk of guilt attached. And resentment, too.

Maybe your marriage needs a tune-up. (Get one before things get ugly. This is, after all, a major life investment.) Or maybe you just need to have an open conversation with your spouse. Have you told him how you feel? Does he even know that his goofy gifts don’t really amuse you or that you could do without the cheap peek-a-boo lingerie? You guys need to talk about this.

Do it without waiting until you want to explode. No good conversation takes place when you've bottled up your feelings until you find yourself spewing all over him. It might be hard to believe that he doesn’t know how you feel, but he really might not have been able to connect the dots. If you speak one language and him another, he might not know how to translate. Help him, and do it without anger, sarcasm or tears.

All he’ll get if you do explode is that you’re mad. And then he’ll likely feel defensive and want to point out all the good things he does(which you don’t apparently appreciate). None of this will help you feel particularly listened to or understood. It’ll be another pointless argument and you’ll end up telling yourself you were right about keeping your dissatisfaction to yourself.

Talk. Remember that you love him and you—overall—feel loved by him. Tell him how you feel and that you know he loves you. He’ll be able to hear you much better if you start from a place of strength in the relationship. Talk. He wants to hear you.

Staying Together after Infidelity

This is really tough to do and, ironically, you may find yourself having to defend the choice to stay. Your friends and relatives will tell you to just end the marriage. But you love him…or you have a history and/or kids together. Maybe you secretly think this is all your fault.

I'm going to have to disagree . You don’t have that kind of power.

Infidelity not only rips up the intimate fabric of a relationship, it signals that something was wrong in the relationship in the first place. Don’t let yourself believe everything was perfect until one of you woke up one day and decided to do the mattress mambo with someone else.

Infidelity doesn't just spring up in a relationship and moving to heal can be excrutiatingly difficult.

Sometimes you just can’t get over the betrayal of the infidelity and it’s really a personal choice whether you get the heck out or stay and try to fix the relationship. If you’ve still got love in your heart for your mate, stay. But there are a few things to consider if the marriage is going to survive.

Is the affair over? This is a big thing. There’s no point in trying to figure out what went wrong in the marriage if the one who strayed still has one foot in the other camp. You have to let go of the other person(or persons) and put all your focus on the marriage.

Can you work on not beating the cheater up all the time? This is a question only the betrayed spouse can answer, but if you’re too mad and too hurt to seriously reevaluate the marriage, get out. There is an almost universal period of grieving that’s very normal, however. After all, the cheated-on spouse probably never thought this would happen. An affair is a blow. For some time, there’ll be questions. When were you two together? What did you do with her/him? And the big one, do you still see or talk to him/her? If your mate works with the other person and can’t change jobs, this is a big on-going issue.

Can you move beyond the betrayal to actually fix the relationship? This is the goal. If cheating happens, then there are problems in the relationship and, since you sure the heck don’t want a repeat, you’ve got to fix the issues between the two of you. First off, get professional help and make sure the therapist you work with has both a belief that couples can heal after cheating, and experience in aiding this.

Then you start looking for resentment. And estrangement. These are difficult issues because they can imply that somehow the cheating spouse had justification for going outside the marriage. So not true. There is no justification for cheating. It hurts everyone and is destructive on all levels. Even when you think you’re in love with an extra-marital partner, you’re just deluded and lying to yourself.

Healthy, happy relationships don’t start as infidelity. Say you cheat, break up with the spouse and end up married to your lover. Even if you tell yourself that you and your extra-marital flame were soul-mates, you’ve always got guilt looming over you. You, also, have the very real possibility, when things get tough in this relationship, whoever cheated once will do it again. So, don’t think it’s all going to be hunky-dory if you can always be with your lover.

Healing the damaged marriage requires you to look at the issues that broke it down in the first place. You can’t just gloss over the transgression with determination and promises that I’ll never do this again. Look at the problems. Look hard, and find someone who can help you fix these.

If you are both working on the relationship, you need to acknowledge the power shift. Suddenly, the wronged spouse is pure and lily-white and the cheater is dirt. If you stepped out on your spouse and see the massive grief and pain this cause, you will probably find yourself groveling and guilt will be your constant companion. We can’t do much about the guilt--you've earned it--but fixing the relationship requires you both to talk about what was happening to you before the affair. What went wrong.

You have to learn to communicate and to resolve issues. This sounds simple, but it’s massively complicated. Most people don’t know how to resolve issues in a marriage, which is why the divorce rate continues to climb. It can be done, however, if you are both determined to learn how to have a different experience.

Think of this as weight lifting for your character. Staying in a troubled marriage and just tolerating the problems isn’t good for anyone, but fixing it, can be the most amazing, empowering experience in your life.

The Favorite Child

Just ask the kids in a family—they know which is their parents’ favorite. Most of the time, it’s probably no big deal. At least, not now. You’ve had a while to get used to it and you’re an adult, after all.

But this can make the holidays complicated and leave you exhausted after time spent with family. You’re supposed to love being with your family, right? Those families that are somewhat functional, anyway. But the currents that lie under family interactions make this challenging for some.

For many, the holidays aren’t joyful.

Some parents are scrupulous in being fair. They give their kids gifts that are equal in monetary value. Sometimes, this is a parent’s way of trying not to be preferential when they do, in fact, prefer one kid. While the gifts are usually appreciated, and the topic of the parental favorite may not be openly discussed, children know. They know what kid is which parent’s favorite and, when talking about it, they can come up with specific moments in their lives when this was very clear. There’s usually a lot of emotion involved in the subject.

This can be a tough situation, even for the kid who is the favorite. In some families, the preferred child suffers negative consequences of this role —from the other parent or from his siblings. Resentment can be strong. Of course, along with this comes some gloating. I’m mom’s favorite, they may have said when they were younger.

Sometimes, parents give more of their time and money to the child who seems to need them most, the one who’s struggling. The unemployed kid or the one who’s perpetually under-employed and financially needy. The kid who has a physical limitation or a bad marriage. While the issues of parental time, money and love are complex, everything is made more difficult when need enters the picture as a significant factor. The complicated role of parent is part of the problem. From the moment of birth, the parent is responsible for the child. Some parents grow very, very accustomed to this. They see their children as a reflection on them—and even when the kids are adults—still try to parent.

Then there’s also the factor that, as parents age, they’re prone to gravitate towards situations where they still feel important. Significant. If an adult child needs a parent for money, or some other kind of help, the parent may feel less loss of power as they get older. Age can suck. With it, comes a diminishing of physical power and changes in financial resources. Parents may cling to a care-taking role that has given them importance.

Still, the other kids--the ones who’ve never asked for a loan or who have always repaid these--can get annoyed when it seems like money pours out on another child. Do you get penalized for success? Your parents’ time and money is spent on the loser kid or on the one who chose not to get a profession? What about the preferred kid who’s always been the “Golden Child”? Never screwing up…always perfect. This kind of favorite can leave the others quietly cheering when they get fired or divorced.

If you’re the preferred child—the one everybody in the family turns to or the one who needs the most—you can change this. You need to look at your own actions. How are you participating in this pattern? Are you glorying in the “beloved” position without seeing the limitations? You may be contributing to the thing you say you hate.

Those non-preferred children may have to accept that parental preference is usually more about the parent, than about the kids. You can find a peace about this if you accept that your parent is a flawed human being, with her own issues, like the rest of us. You still won’t like the preferential thing, but it helps if you don’t personalize it. Having a parent who prefers another child, doesn’t mean anything about you.

Sort this out for yourself before your parent dies. Family law specialists see too many families fighting over a parent’s estate out of emotional issues. Remember, you need to feel okay about yourself. See your own successes. Value your own strengths. Doing this lessens resentment and brings you peace. That’s really what’s most important.

Relay Relationships

Do you only break-up with one lover when you have someone else in the wings? Only when there’s another good possibility cooking? Being alone can be scary. Of course, when you’re in a relationship that really isn’t working, the thought of being alone is great. You daydream about what it would be like to come home and not deal with the crap. But, sure enough, when there’s a break-up looming ahead, your find yourself going out with friends and smiling encouragingly at new possibilities.

For some, the thought of being alone is completely unacceptable.

So, you throw all the unresolved conflicts and bad behaviors of one relationship into the dark attic of your mind and move on to the new thing. The new guy. The one who’s different and won’t go out all the time with friends or make you feel bad about yourself. This time it’ll be better. This one will stick.

Don’t kid yourself. All you’re doing in jumping out of one bad situation into another situation (that’s going to go bad eventually) is building up a history. A really unpleasant string of relationships that haven’t worked. You need a relationship postmortem. An autopsy of sorts. What went wrong?

You need to process the relationship failure, so you don't just repeat it. This processing is important and jumping into a new relationship, the day after ending the old one, gets in the way. This isn't a relay race.

I’m not declaring a specific mourning time for everyone who’s been in a relationship that breathed it’s last. There’s no such animal. No number of weeks or months or years you should wait before jumping in again. And you should jump in. Relationships are important. Folks live longer, healthier lives when they’re married or with a long-term, committed mate. Together is important for humans.

Racking up one flawed relationship after another isn’t good for you, however. It’s wearing on your mental and physical health. To get out of this mind-set, you have to start looking at this differently. It’s not so much a matter of finding just anyone or the perfect “right” one, you need to look at your own stuff first. Every relationship is made up of two people (not counting the kids, step-kids, random family members and friends). You have brought stuff—both good and bad—to every relationship that hasn’t worked.

This is really good news. I know it sounds bad. It sounds as if you’re all the problem, or a big part of the problem, and who wants that? You do, actually. If you can see what you’re contributing to the mess of all these relationships, then you have a chance of changing your experience.

You can make it different.

**Brief, explanatory note here—I’m not saying that you have to power to make any and all relationships work. Or that if you just act right or do everything right, your troubled relationship will smooth out. I’m not saying this. Some relationships are beyond saving.**

You are, after all, only one part of this thing. Your partner gets some say-so in all this, too. He's got his issues, too. But you need to look at your actions. Are your relationship-expectations reasonable? Do you lie and cheat or drink excessively? You need to look honestly at your own stuff.

You, also, need to take a good, hard look at whether or not your reasons for getting into each relationship were deeply flawed, in the first place. Some people with difficult, troubled lifestyles(read drug and alcohol abuse here), choose partners who share that same lifestyle. There’s not much chance of building a strong, supportive loving connection if you’re both busy behaving badly to yourselves and others. Nothing will make this kind of relationship healthy for you.

Getting into a relationship for safety/avoidance of life reasons also makes for a bad prognosis ( i.e. What the two of you really have in common is that you don’t want to be alone or are tired of dating.) Some people choose each other because they don’t want to argue, at all. They don’t want to deal with conflict on any level. While lifestyle differences can be very difficult to overcome, dissimilar personalities can lead to individual and relationship growth.

Arguing is not always bad. Differences on a personality level can be a good thing. When you marry someone who’s too similar to you in personality, it’s like trying to play on a see-saw with you both sitting on the same side. Personality differences tug at you and make you talk and make you think. This leads to conflict, but it’s conflict that makes you stronger, better people.

Don’t jump from one failing relationship to another. You’ll end with a string of failed marriages or broken relationships and you won’t be happy. Look at yourself and the issues you need to address…then get involved with someone who sees things differently. There’s a better chance of success. Relationship success is the golden place everyone’s after. There’s no reason why you can’t create warm, supportive, fun interaction in a relationship that works.

Next on the Marriage Checklist

Is your marriage really okay? You may never argue (and this would be a bad thing, believe it or not) or you may argue all the time. Arguing isn’t fun, but the real test of a relationship is whether or not you resolve the conflicts. Whether both of you think the arguments are resolved. It’s not okay if one of you wins all the time.

Dealing successfully with disagreements can make or break a marriage. Don’t let yourself think you can fight, not talk for a day or two, then go on like nothing happened. Resist the urge to tell yourself that you just got over it! This is not how people in relationships work. What happens is that conflicts sink into a gray underworld place—not resolved, not addressed—where they poison the well-water.

Still, couples do this. They argue and let themselves believe that they can go on without dealing with the issues.

What happens too often is that you go on checking things off the marital check-list, hoping you’ll get over the widening gulf between you. Many people still believe—regardless to research that contradicts the theory—that having children will heal any conflicts between them. Studies show that there is no more stressful time in a marriage than the period during the most intensive child-rearing. Don’t think having children will make your marriage better.

But there’s still the tendency to avoid issues and do the things happy couples automatically do. You marry, finish school (if you haven’t already), get a job that supports you or one that supports you really well, buy a house(American Dream) that you may or may not be able to afford and have kids. There. You should be happy, right?

Surprise! There is no check-list. Not everyone wants a career that requires college. Not everyone who goes to college, finishes. Some who earn a degree, don’t end up with the job they’d hoped for or the salary they’d counted on (to pay off the college debt). With the once-booming housing market going bust, not every couple who bought, or built their dream house, have an investment they can make money on.

Not everyone wants or needs kids to be happy.

Sadly, when many couples have worked through the check-list of marriage/job/house/kids...divorce soon follows. This is hard on everyone, not just the kids. If you have serious or prolonged issues in a relationship, get help. Do this before you move forward—before you marry(if possible), before you have kids. I can make no recommendations about buying a house, except to say that the number one reason for divorce is finances. Get, and keep, yours in order.

Marriage is a terrific journey. It can be filled with laughter and joy, and along with that, challenges that make you want to pull your hair out. There are fun challenges in life you willingly, even eagerly, participate in—this isn’t what I’m talking about. Marriage, if done right, forces you to really look at yourself. Pushes you into being honest with yourself and makes you take a hard look at your beliefs.

Don’t think you can just ignore the stuff that comes up. Feeling consistently like you lose marital arguments is bad for the marriage. You should feel yourself to be on shaky ground if you always win the conflicts, too. This is supposed to be a balancing between two perspectives.

Conflict doesn’t just go away and buying a new house, a new car or a new kid, won’t make it better. Dealing with the issues is what moves a marriage into solid territory.