Something happened recently that caught me off guard, and I cannot help replaying the conversation in my head. I was having a conversation with my mother and was lamenting about how she makes excuses for my brother all the time because he is her favourite.

Before I knew it, my 15-year-old nephew, who was sitting close by, chimed in by commenting about how my brother is my mother’s favourite child, just like how my baby was my favourite child. I think I whipped my head so fast to look in his direction, I actually cracked something. The baby my favourite child? The baby that can’t walk, can’t speak or do anything for himself?

He didn’t have a defence or explanation for saying that. I gathered it was just from how I ‘baby’ the 11-month-old and I treat my four-year-old according to his age. I cuddle and kiss the baby a lot because that is what babies are meant to be experiencing. Nothing but love and affection for the first year of life. As soon as they start walking and talking, we start implementing the do’s and don’ts. We introduce discipline and consequences. That is exactly what I did with my firstborn.

I believe my eldest child and I have a very deep connection. We have connected since conception. It is weird, I know, but I can track him down from when I started wanting him and what exact time I conceived him. I knew he was a boy since then. I knew he was gifted since then. And I always knew he was going to come out with a difficult character, just like his father. The firstborn spent most of his first year of life with me. As soon as we moved and lived with my husband full-time, they developed their own bond.

Because their characters are exactly the same, the bond between my son and my husband became stronger, allowing them to be very close. Since my husband assumed the friend/parent role, I took on the teacher/disciplinarian parent role, turning me into the ‘strict parent’. On the outside looking in, people assume I am very tough on my eldest, and I am, to some extent. I have to raise him in a manner that reflects our faith and values, yet somehow make him integrated in the country we live in. What no one sees are the private moments I have explaining things to him after punishment. How I cuddle him when he wants or when I need him. How I calm him down after having a rift with his father. I might be the disciplinarian in the family, but I am also the well of emotions for my family.

Meanwhile, at this age, the baby demands more from me as the mother, and I do my best to make sure he has the same mother his brother had.