Four Against Two

My four girls.  Meg, Mita, Enu and Elle. Sometimes they are four peas in a pod. Sometimes. Other times, I’ll be blunt here, most times they are a circus act.  Hubby and I often say to ourselves, “They are so easy when there are only three of them.  What is it when you add a fourth?”  The funny thing is that it doesn’t matter who you take out of the equation, who has the play date away from home or is at a Girl Scout event.  No matter what three girls are home, they get along better than when they are all four together.  This has been a question we continue to ponder as we raise the girls.

Well, low and behold I have found a resource that assures us that we are not in fact crazy.  There is scientific evidence that raising four girls is the hardest family combination. The Telegraph just published the following article:  Want to be happy? Have two daughters.  Here is a quote  from the article that describes what I have lived:

“It also emerged two girls rarely annoy their parents, make limited noise, often confide in their parents and are unlikely to wind each other up or ignore each other.  By contrast, doubling the number of daughters is likely to lead to a whole world of pain, the report found.”

While the words World of  Pain may seem harsh the the average reader, I can say that I have felt world of pain before. You see, I had that so-called perfect combination. Hubby and I had two daughters.  Five years a part.  I had it easy I must tell you. Meg was the text book oldest child. Over-achiever, helpful, fearless and compassionate. When Elle came along, Meg was about to enter Kindergarten. I had Meg to myself for five years and then Elle and I had our one on one life when Meg was at school.  I am a big proponent for spacing your children for this reason alone.  I had great one on one time with both girls. Meg was independent while I was busy doing the baby thing with Elle.  Two girls were cake to me. I was able to work two days a week, provide insurance for the family and take care of my home.

Something was up in my heart though. I wanted more kids. I wanted to do the adoption that I had been dreaming about for decades. I wanted to open our home up and parent a parent-less child.  I had assumed that Hubby would want a boy to round out our family. He insisted that girl would be a better fit as we already had two and that our house was small. They could share a room if needed and we would save money on hand-me-downs and toys.  We had it all worked out, Hubby and I!

The how we ended up deciding on growing our family from two girls to four is a long 500 word post in itself for another day. The reality is that now we have four girls. Ages 11 1/2, 11, almost 9 and 6.  Using the word drama doesn’t even begin to describe their interactions. Everything is an issue. EVERYTHING.  This is something that most people do not understand. To have four girls is to become an expert on childhood politics.  I could run for Senator with the skills of negotiations and peacemaking I have learned in the last three years.

A crisis can emerge from a simple hair band.  A misplaced earring can throw my family into a day of hell. I. Am. Not.Joking.

I have taken a list from the above mention article and have made my own comments to it.

1.Fight and argue all the time (Yes and yes. It doesn’t matter over what, they just have to be mad about something.)

2.Difficult to reason with (Reason? What is that. You can not reason with emotionally charged sisters.  Then add the PMS! Reason….)

3.Ignore and dislike each other ( It is amazing how they can hate each other one minute and be best friends the next.)

4.Bedtime routine is a nightmare (We stagger bedtimes and this has helped TREMENDOUSLY.)

5.Create a lot of noise around the house  (If my house is quiet the girls are not here.)

6.Rarely confide in you (Yes with two of them, the other two still let me in on stuff. I think.)

7.Hard to deal with when ill (If I get ill they actually act okay for me. If they are ill, we actually get more one-on-one time. God has blessed us in that they have not all been sick at the same time. He knows I couldn’t handle it!)

8.Takes ages getting ready for school (This is getting more evident as they turn into tweens. The straight-iron is on full force in the AM.)

9.Had to buy a bigger house and car (Yes and yes.)

10.Hard to cope with on a daily basis (I have gone mad. Literally. I am a low-key person the daily drama has done more harm to my person than anything else in my life. I stopped working two years ago because of the daily life grind.)

As an adoptive family, I have often blamed our problems on adoption issues. We adopted older children and messed up the birth order for three of the four girls.  After reading this article I now think that maybe our struggles would have happened anyway, just in having four girls. This is something interesting to think about, and maybe I can let go of some of the mama guilt I’ve felt. There is comfort in knowing that this truly can be a tough situation and not just me lacking.

Would I do it again if I had read this article? Yes. I would have laughed haughtily  at this article if I had read it three years ago. I would have rolled my eyes and made a comment about how people need to get a life and do real research.

I love my girls with a fierce mother-bear love that consumes me. I also roar like a bear more than I should. My stress level is all whacked out and I am not always the best parent in the world.  I am trying. On the really hard days I envision life fifteen years from now.  When the girls are out of college, starting lives and families.  We are all laughing about the crazy times growing up. In this vision they are strong, they love each-other and they are friends.  I have to believe that.

There is nothing in this world better to hear than the sound of my four girls laughing together. It happens, not often, but it happens and for that reason alone I would do it all over again.  They make me happy.

*Hey check out the post Jenna posted on Blogher about this article!