Lynn Berger, SECOND THOUGHTS
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[2:03]Lynn Berger is the author of second thoughts on having and being a second child.
[2:08]Lynn is a staff writer at Dutch Journalism Platform, Descoris Spondant, which is probably
[2:13]not how it pronounce that properly, but whatever, where she covers keywords and everyday
[2:17]culture.
[2:18]She holds a PhD in communications from Columbia University and lives in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
[2:23]Thank you so much for coming on mom's turn.
[2:25]Have time to read books to discuss your book second thoughts on having and being a second
[2:30]child.
[2:31]Thank you for having me.
[2:32]Oh, it's a pleasure.
[2:33]I think this is my first podcast with someone in the Netherlands.
[2:36]I have to say, well, I'm glad to be a first on something.
[2:42]Although my future mother-in-law who just is engaged to my husband's dad, she is also
[2:47]from the Netherlands, so I get your accent around us very often.
[2:52]Just in case you're wondering, anyway, okay, second thoughts on having and being a second
[2:56]child.
[2:57]Tell listeners what made you decide to do this, and I know you write about it in the book
[3:02]and how you're some quest for knowledge and research and debunking some myths about
[3:07]second children and got you on your way, but tell us the full story.
[3:11]Okay, yeah, so second thoughts is a work of nonfiction about what it means to have a child
[3:15]for the second time and also what it means to be a second child.
[3:19]The reason I wrote it or how it came about is that, so I'm a journalist.
[3:23]I've also been in academia for a long time, so I'm a writer.
[3:26]It's what I do, but I think first and foremost, I'm a reader, so I mean, I love reading.
[3:31]I always have and I often find it helpful to go to the literature to help me make sense
[3:35]of whatever it is that's going on in my life.
[3:38]So when I became a mother, for the first time I read everything I could find about the
[3:42]transition to parentshood, about taking care of babies, fiction, nonfiction, self-help,
[3:47]literature, you name it.
[3:49]But I found it really helpful just to use that to think through this transformative experience.
[3:55]So then fast forward a couple of years, I'm pregnant again, and I know all these new questions
[3:59]like, well, if that first experience of becoming a parent was transformative, then what
[4:04]does it mean to have that experience again?
[4:07]But also what will it mean for our daughter to become a big sister, for our future son
[4:11]to be a second child, so I figured, well, I'll just go and read up on it.
[4:16]And then I couldn't find anything.
[4:19]I found a couple of really practical and helpful parenting manuals on, you know, preventing
[4:24]sibling rivalry, but they were very hands-on, and I could find stacks and stacks of academic
[4:30]papers by sociologists, economists, psychologists about, I don't know, about the influence
[4:36]that siblings have on each other, about family formation, about the history of family life.
[4:42]What I couldn't find was a book that would sort of synthesize all of that in a way that
[4:46]was accessible and open and curious, but also just no personal and nice to read.
[4:52]And I really wanted to read a book like that.
[4:54]And so then I thought, well, if I want something like that, surely there must be other
[4:58]parents who are expecting a second child who would like to read something like that as
[5:01]well.
[5:02]And so yeah, I ended up writing it myself.
[5:04]Sort of an accidental, an accidental book.
[5:08]Yeah.
[5:10]You might as well use all the research.
[5:12]And I have to say you accomplish that in such exactly what you set out to do, because
[5:16]I love how you interwoke all your own stories and how most chapters begin with some
[5:20]anecdote from your own life or your child or the development.
[5:24]I feel like I was with you on your journey from finding out when you got pregnant, dealing
[5:30]with your son and worrying, perhaps about the different developmental timelines, which
[5:35]every parent of multiple kids has worried about, I'm going to just say that maybe I'm
[5:39]wrong, but I'm going to make that assumption.
[5:41]Anyway, so I love how you, so it's not just for scriptive.
[5:44]It's a narrative.
[5:45]So it made it really fun.
[5:46]Thank you.
[5:47]Thank you.
[5:48]And I am out of the, I actually never really had a second child because I had twins
[5:52]to start with.
[5:53]Oh, but I loved how you talked about the assumption that everybody thinks you're having
[5:57]not everybody, but many people feel they're having the second child to benefit the first
[6:01]child.
[6:02]Yeah.
[6:03]And yet it can also be the worst thing ever for the first child.
[6:06]Yeah, exactly.
[6:07]You had some quote, you said, the assumption, for instance, that a child is better off
[6:11]without a brother or sister than without, but also that with the arrival of the second,
[6:15]we were not just giving our first child something.
[6:17]We were taking something away as well.
[6:20]And there was the assumption that our second, who would never experience the exclusivity
[6:24]of which we were about to deprive the first would start out with a one to zero disadvantage.
[6:29]Second place, consolation prize runner up, yeah, I felt really bad for a second child before
[6:35]he was even born.
[6:37]But yeah, it's just strange thing, right?
[6:39]When you ask people why they decided to become parents, the answers are so varied.
[6:45]It goes from, well, I was just really curious or I always saw myself as a parent or I
[6:49]just really wanted to know what it was like or it's just nature.
[6:53]But then when you ask people why did they have a second child, it's almost always the
[6:56]answer is so that the first one would have a sibling.
[6:59]And it suddenly, so I mean, it was the same for us, but then when I was pregnant with
[7:03]the second child, I was like, wait a minute, why do we believe it's good for kids to
[7:07]have siblings?
[7:08]And what about all of these horror stories about, you know, sibling rivalry and competition?
[7:13]And when did we come to think that this is so important?
[7:16]And you even had a study that I'd love you to describe a little more that showed how
[7:22]your sibling relationship was like as a child affects the parenting and how you make your
[7:27]children get along later.
[7:28]Tell me a little bit more about that.
[7:29]Yeah, that was a wonderful study.
[7:30]It's by Laurie Kramer, who is a developmental psychologist in the U.S. and she interviewed
[7:36]mothers of two children and they themselves had also in part of a two child family.
[7:40]And she asked the mothers to reflect on their own sibling relationship.
[7:44]And so some of them said, well, it was all warm and lovely and fine.
[7:47]And some of the mothers had sort of, you know, more difficult memories that they had fought
[7:52]a lot or they had been a lot of rivalry.
[7:54]And so then she looked at the children of those mothers and how they were around each
[7:59]other.
[8:00]And she noticed that if the mother had had a good sibling relationship herself, then her
[8:07]children, their relationship was often less warm, less intimate and had more arguments
[8:13]in it than the relationship of siblings whose mothers had bad memories of their own sibling
[8:19]experience.
[8:20]And so she realized that if your own sibling experience has been in whatever which way
[8:25]is fraught, then you as a mother will try really hard to make the relationship between
[8:30]your children a good one.
[8:32]So you will help them to work through conflict and so on rather than assuming that it's
[8:35]all going to be fine because it was fine for you.
[8:37]And I found it really amazing that sort of, you know, it was one of those moments where
[8:41]it clicked like, oh yeah, you're not just parenting, you know, parenting doesn't start
[8:45]when you have a child.
[8:46]Like it already started when you were a child.
[8:49]Wow.
[8:50]So I was doomed to be the parent that I am today.
[8:53]Is that right?
[8:54]I don't know.
[8:55]Maybe so.
[8:56]Well, what was the upshot of your research?
[9:00]Did you find anything that really shocked you about whether what the benefits were of having
[9:05]second children?
[9:07]So I would say that, you know, the findings in the science are pretty nuanced as, you
[9:12]know, social science findings often are.
[9:14]So it turns out that, yeah, having a sibling can be really beneficial in a lot of ways.
[9:19]It can be siblings can influence each other's mental development, cognitive development,
[9:24]moral development, having a sibling also provides a training ground for having arguments
[9:28]and working them out without, you know, just losing the other person right away.
[9:32]And also having a warm sibling relationship can be like a, it's like a buffer in times
[9:37]of stress.
[9:38]So for instance, when parents get a divorce, if the sibling relationship is fairly strong
[9:41]then the kids often end up doing better than when the sibling relationship is not as good.
[9:47]On the other hand, when sibling relationships are not warm and intimate, they can also
[9:52]have, you know, sort of go together with rather bad effects for the kids in question.
[9:57]I mean, look, I have more mental problems, more behavioral.
[10:00]problems. So it's like, you know, it could go either way. And also
[10:04]sibling relationships can be really good training grounds for delinquent
[10:07]behaviors, which you know, I mean, it makes sense. A bigger
[10:11]sibling can be an example for the good, but also for the
[10:13]bad. But then there were also a couple of things that really
[10:16]surprised me. And they had to do, for instance, with birth order,
[10:20]because I had always assumed that since in, you know, I have a
[10:24]younger sister, that since I was the oldest, that sort of
[10:27]explained the fact that I was quite conscientious, a little
[10:30]bit neurotic. I always worked really hard in school, whereas my
[10:33]sister was more of a social outgoing rebel. And I was sure
[10:36]like this is because of our birth order. And I also thought
[10:39]it was sort of advantageous for me to be the first born,
[10:43]because you know, it's just better to be the striving type
[10:46]a personality. And I'm sure people disagree with that. And I
[10:49]you know, looking back, I think it's a bit of a strange assessment,
[10:52]but that's what I thought. But so then we were about to have a second
[10:55]challenge. I was like, but is that true? Does birth order really
[10:58]determine personality? And so I started reading up on the
[11:01]history. It's quite old this idea. And on sort of the most recent
[11:05]findings, and they basically say there is no evidence that
[11:10]birth order shapes personality, even though so many of us
[11:13]believe that it does. But what it does determine for a lot of
[11:16]people is, but it does have an effect on other things than
[11:19]personality, including height and likelihood of allergies,
[11:24]but also things like IQ and test scores in school. So there is
[11:28]so where your place in the family line does have an effect on you,
[11:33]just not on personality, but on other things.
[11:35]I'm a first child too. And I share your personality type and and I
[11:40]shared your assumptions for a long time. I find usually an
[11:44]immediate sort of common bond shorthand with other first
[11:47]children. You just kind of get that mentality. And you know,
[11:51]I've actually come to believe I think third children really
[11:53]really have won the jackpot. I think third children are so
[11:59]well adjusted, relative to the other two, because and like you point out in
[12:03]your book, your parenting for each subsequent child is what
[12:06]dictates so much of the development. It's not the fact that
[12:10]their first children are less prone to allergies. It's the fact that you're
[12:14]so much more laid back about what you let the second children even do.
[12:19]So I don't know. I still I mean, anecdotally, it seems like
[12:23]birth order does play a role, but yeah, it does. And I
[12:26]feel the same and everyone is like, but surely it must be true.
[12:30]But I think this is also I read this one scientist who said, who
[12:35]compared it to horoscopes, where once you believe that with a
[12:39]certain astrological sign comes certain behaviors, that's what you
[12:42]recognize in other people. You sort of filter out everything that's
[12:45]contrary to your assumptions. But what also plays a role is that
[12:51]firstborns are often assigned different roles than secondborns. So they might be
[12:55]asked, you know, can you look after your brother or could you
[12:58]could you please help me at least you know, you're the oldest one. And so
[13:01]they might behave differently, but that behavior is not necessarily an
[13:04]expression of their personality, right? It's an expression of the
[13:07]role they've been given. So yeah, and it's hard to
[13:11]disentangle behavior from personality. But yeah, it's I
[13:16]still find it so so fascinating. Well, what is your astrological
[13:20]sign and how how closely does it sort of drive with who you are?
[13:24]So this is where I'm not a native English speaker comes in because I
[13:28]don't know the English word for my question. When is your birthday?
[13:33]It's April 26th, the end of April. Oh, it's almost it's coming up.
[13:37]Yeah, birthday. Yeah, exactly. But what does that make me? It's
[13:42]taurus, taurus. And what is what are the typical? Yeah, it
[13:46]meant to be stubborn. And I do recognize that.
[13:51]That's funny. Maybe I should start asking every guest what their astrological
[13:54]sign is. I could do my own study actually. I can see if it's really true. I
[13:58]don't know. Anyway, my sample audience here. Awesome. So how are your kids
[14:03]getting along now? Well, I mean, I think they're getting along fine
[14:07]for siblings. You know, I mean, the relationship is pretty warm. My
[14:10]daughter is now seven and a half. My son is four and a half. They fight.
[14:15]But I think it's perfectly within reason and definitely a lot less than I
[14:18]used to fight with my sister. And and I can yeah, and the things I can
[14:23]really see sort of that I also read about in the research is that
[14:26]the oldest one is really training the youngest one. Like he's always looking
[14:29]up to his big sister and sort of copying her and trying to do the things she
[14:33]does. And the other way around, she doesn't obviously doesn't do that with him.
[14:36]So she's the teacher. He's the student. I have that exact same thing with my
[14:40]little guys. I have a seven almost eight, well, seven and a half
[14:43]year old and a six year old. And this morning, he woke up and immediately
[14:46]like went to the bathroom right next to us, like in the bathroom, obviously.
[14:50]But he didn't close the door all the way. And so before they even set
[14:53]hello to each other, my seven and a half year old daughter was like,
[14:57]you didn't shut the door. And then kind of like push the door. I was like,
[15:00]and I went over there. And I was like, how would you like it? It's like,
[15:04]you woke up. And the person who you looked up to most in the world
[15:07]was rude to you before you could even go to the bathroom and say good morning. Like,
[15:11]what kind of day does that set you up to have? Like, would you like that if you
[15:16]walked walked over to me and I immediately was rude to you? Like, no, you would
[15:20]probably then turn around and be rude to someone else in the whole world.
[15:22]It'd be like a worse place. But just because it's him, like, that doesn't mean you can do that.
[15:27]So anyway, I think she was finally like, okay, okay. But it's true. The relationship is so uneven,
[15:36]especially when they're young. It's just there's always this age gap. It also means a gap in power,
[15:41]in knowledge, in, you know, manipulative skills. It's really dramatic.
[15:46]Yeah. I mean, imagine that you were always like, it would be like, you know, always being in
[15:51]class with someone who's like two or three grades ahead of you. Like, and everything you did,
[15:55]you'd always feel like you were behind. I was like, young for my grade and I felt behind just
[15:59]by a couple months. You know, yeah, a couple of years you missed. Anyway, well, oh, well,
[16:04]so so much for second children. We didn't have to worry about them. I guess they'll be fine.
[16:09]In the end, they'll be fine.
[16:11]Wait, tell me you mentioned at the beginning that you love to read and that you've always
[16:15]loved to read. What are what kind of things do you love to read and like, what genre and what
[16:19]authors event or what's when do you like to read? Oh, it's all over the place. So I'm really into
[16:25]sort of the, you know, literary essay essayists. I actually I quote some of them in the books.
[16:30]So for instance, Rachel Cask wrote this beautiful book about becoming a mother, Zadie Smith,
[16:35]Leslie Jameson, the sort of US and UK female essayists who work. But then I also just love novels.
[16:43]You know, I'm happy with a 19th century novel. I'm happy with one that just came out. And then
[16:48]I usually read at night. So we forth sleep, but I also read during the day, but that's for work,
[16:51]because I'm a journalist, right? So I will read, you know, academic papers about family formation and
[16:57]stuff like that. But yeah, and tell me more about your journalist's work.
[17:03]Yeah, so I write for the correspondence which is an online journalism platform based in Amsterdam
[17:08]and I cover care, but not health or not just health care, but care in general. So also informal
[17:13]care, like the care that parents give to children or that one might give to friends. And sort of
[17:19]my, my working thesis is that, you know, without care society wouldn't exist. Like we can't live
[17:25]without people taking care of us and us taking care of other people. So it's incredibly fundamental
[17:31]and at the same time incredibly unappreciated, right? So we'll, you know, professional care
[17:37]takers often don't make a lot of money. Parents have to squeeze care in between, you know,
[17:44]work basically. So I'm trying to figure out how, you know, so what is it about care that makes it
[17:50]so important and yet so invisible? And what would we need in order to take proper care?
[17:56]I love that. Is that your next book? Yeah, good. Yeah, stay tuned. Okay, stay tuned. That sounds great.
[18:05]And such an important message. I mean, I feel like if anything this past year has highlighted the
[18:09]need for that, especially when so many supports are ripped out from underneath so many people
[18:14]Yeah, it does feel timely, which which for a journalist is always nice.
[18:21]So what advice would you have for aspiring authors? Well, what was really helpful for me
[18:26]in writing this book, which was my first book, was telling myself that I was writing a book
[18:32]and not the book. And so it didn't have to include everything I had ever thought of. And that
[18:37]made it really easy to sort of make choices about what students shouldn't go in. And as sort of
[18:42]practical everyday writing. So I had been doing research and making notes from, you know, from
[18:47]the moment I was pregnant with my second child basically, but then at some point I took some time off
[18:53]to really sit down and write it. And I would just every week I would just type up random disjointed
[18:58]paragraphs. And then at the end of the week, I would send them to my editor who didn't read them
[19:03]and also didn't reply to them, but who still because of this arrangement made me feel like I
[19:08]was being held accountable. And so it was a really good motivation to just write something down
[19:13]every week. And then after, you know, a couple of months I went back into my mail, found all those
[19:18]dispatches printed them off and arranged them. And what emerged was like not a book, but something
[19:24]that could become a book. And that felt like it had written itself sort of in bits and pieces rather
[19:29]than through sort of concentrated hours and hours of writing. And I mean, yeah, it really depends
[19:36]on what kind of rights are you are, but for me that was really helpful. That's great.
[19:39]How did your, this is such a random question. How did your family end up in Amsterdam? Like, how
[19:43]did you end up there? Oh, I was, well, I was born here basically. And I studied in Massachusetts,
[19:49]which is in the south of the country. And then I went to New York for a PhD and then met my partner
[19:55]while, you know, while I was back in Amsterdam on summer break, then he moved to New York with me.
[20:00]we had a blast, and then figured that if we wanted to have children, we may prefer to have them
[20:06]close to our family, so we moved back. Yeah, been back here ever since.
[20:09]Wow. What do you think? I don't know. I'm really so interested in how people end up all over the
[20:14]world and anyway, random, as I said. Okay. All right. Well, Lynn, thank you so much. This has been
[20:21]really interesting, and your book was really interesting, and thanks for your,
[20:25]literally, I feel like you did a service for everyone else, but you could have easily
[20:29]left all that information, you know, on your desk and, you know, tucked away, and instead,
[20:34]you decided to share it. So that's great, and now so many people can benefit anybody who's
[20:39]thinking of having a second child, but I also just found this to be a very interesting sort of birth
[20:44]order, you know, I'm not about to have a child, but I found this super fascinating. So this really
[20:48]applies to lots and lots of people. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Well, take care, maybe I'll
[20:55]see you in Amsterdam sometime. So we'll be lovely. Okay. Lovely day. You too. Bye-bye. Bye.
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