Many parental figures find it prudent to have more than one offspring. Biologically it makes a certain amount of sense. I mean, the more spawn you produce, the more likely it is that the human race will continue. Not to mention that it’s helpful to have a ‘do over’ in case you irreparably mess up the first ankle biter. If you have more than two, then your averages for producing a decent human being only increase.

However, there is a significant flip side to having multiple offspring. For the sake of brevity, I’ll summarize.

HAVE YOU LOST YOUR EVER LOVING MIND?! Has nothing you’ve been through with the first little terror you’ve unwittingly unleashed upon the world been enough for you to keep it in your pants? You truly want to relive every inadvertent golden shower, every tantrum, every moment of panic all over again?

I digress. Who am I to judge how you choose to punish yourself for whatever heinous skeleton is in your closet?

The real purpose of this particular blog is making sure your first mini human is prepared for the invasions of a more annoying and even more mini-er human.

Now, before you run off to tell your oldest that they weren’t enough for you to love only them, consider these factors for what is bound to be an intense conversation full of tears and blame.

1.       How old is your current offspring? Scientists have proven that the older the first child is, the more they will be personally insulted by another sibling entering the picture. Whereas the younger they are, another drool monster is less of an impact. My advice, any spawn younger than eight years of age, don’t worry about telling them of the new family edition until your little bundle of horror comes home from the hospital.

2.       Have you already had the ‘talk’ with your youngster? You know. The reproduction talk? The buzzing insect and feathered balls of beaks and talons discussion? If you haven’t, then you may need to prepare for a lot of awkward questions that will complicate the whole conversation. However, on the other side, this could be a very teachable moment as far as the “if you allow your hormones to go too far with the lip mashing, then you could wind up like your mother.” It depends on how much you want to drive the lesson home. To really emphasize that premature procreation is a bad thing, you can hand over the second offspring into the care of the oldest as a crash course in parenting.

3.       Do they have friends with siblings? Perhaps to ease the stress of communicating they will no longer be the only child in your universe, you could conscript another set of parents to have the talk for you. After all, they’ve already been through this tough time before and it does take a village...

4.       Has your offspring done something terrible lately? Are they in trouble? If so, you can use the coming of a sibling as a sort of punishment for them. If you make the whole thing their fault (again, it is helpful if you haven’t had the ‘talk’ for this route), it will take their anger and blame off of you and put it squarely on their own shoulders.  

While I don’t agree with your choice to have multiple spawn, I can understand how useful siblings can be in the rearing of your first grand experiment. Good luck with that. As a refresher, you may want to go back to the first blog in this series and up your stock in sanitizer.

Here we go again,

Azra

***Disclaimer***Azra has been around children for centuries. While not having any of his own, part of being an exiled angel means blending in on earth. As he traveled the earth, he picked up on a lot of parenting practices across the globe. This blog is meant to share his parenting wisdom with a new generation. And to win a bet.

*Note: any advice given is meant to be satirical and not to be taken literally. Please do not exercise it upon any living being, child or otherwise.*