My 7-year-old got some devastating news last night. It seems her best friend, already the older of two sisters, is about to have a second sibling. As soon as poor Natalie found out that she was going to remain in the "just one sister" club while her best friend would enter the more exclusive "oldest of three" sorority, Natalie's world began to crumble.
"All my friends are having more brothers and sisters, and I only get one sister! It's not fair!"
Now, when you start off with as logical a statement as that, there's really nowhere to go but up. We started off by pointing out that of all her friends (and there are A LOT), we could only think of two that had more than one sibling. And several were only-children. We also explained how having an additional kid was a very complicated and important decision to make (I believe that was the point I mentioned something about her mom being no spring chicken and getting slapped, but my memory is fuzzy).
We then continued by pointing out that her father was one of two, and her mother was a standalone. and lastly, we explained how, if there was a new baby in the house, Natalie would lose out on all the attention she gets from us now, she wouldn't get anything new because we couldn't afford it, and she'd have to become an auto mechanic when she grows up because we would only be able to afford technical school rather than that exclusive university where she would learn to be an artist, dancer, rescue girl, fire-fighter, and teacher with a minor in English Lit.
None of it worked. She cried for 45 minutes. We were flabbergasted. We had no idea she would react this way. Finally. I offered up a reasonable solution.
Tomorrow, we go shopping for goldfish.
On a side note, when three-year-old Jessica was told the news, she responded with, "aw, we never have any new babies" and went back to playing with her My Little Ponies.
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