Phil Goldsmith | Love comes first, and that's an order

A RECENT STUDY reported that the first-born child is likely to have a higher IQ than other siblings. Since I'm not the first born, I immediately dissed the report.

I do believe, however, that birth order has played a factor in how my two daughters deal with my wife and me when it comes to babysitting their children.

Let me give you an example: When my wife and I babysat Matthew, 4, and Katie, 2 1/2 - the children of my older daughter, Michele, and her husband, Chris - overnight a few months ago, we were left with a five-page instructional packet.

Here are a few snippets of the 11-step program on Katie's nap:

1. Upstairs between 1 and 1:30;

2. Bring sippy cup of milk;

3. Put on humidifier (on high) for noise;

4. Read a book of Katie's choice, in chair;

5. Sing "Twinkle Twinkle" or "You are my Sunshine."

As I read the instructions, I asked my wife, Essie, whether we were, in fact, the same couple who had managed to raise and care for two daughters. She assured me we were.

Michele's apparent lack of confidence in us may go back to her earliest years when her first word was "Mommy" and her second was "keys." It was her way of reminding my forgetful wife to take her keys when she left the apartment.

Now, 30 some years later, she obviously feels compelled to leave us instructions that resemble the police operation plans I used to receive for major events when I was the city's managing director.

Actually, there was a part of the babysitting manual that was essential. It was an 18-step explanation on how to operate their television with all its remotes.

As it turns out, though, I didn't have the strength to wade through the instructions. I was too exhausted from singing several renditions of "Twinkle, Twinkle" and quickly fell asleep.

Now, how does my daughter Jill, the second in birth order, and her husband, Doug, deal with the same set of grandparents when we are beckoned to babysit?

They take a more experiential, or trial-by-error, approach. It usually consists of verbal instructions as they are rushing out the door.

I wish I could say it's because Jill has more confidence in us.

Instead, it's probably because Jill has the comfort of knowing that her older sister lives close by and is there to watch over us if need be. It's a protective role Michele has performed for years to protect her younger sister from the vagaries of living with her parents.

The problem with the experiential approach is when one of the parents - in this case, me - is flying solo and has no experience with the issue in question. Take several months ago when I was babysitting my then-6-month-old grandson, Owen.

"Hey, Dad, I need you to bring something to school," I heard Jill say on the other end of the telephone. She is a teacher at a suburban high school and had just returned from maternity leave. "Sure, what do you need?" I asked.

"I need my breast pump," she responded.

"What the hell does that look like?" I asked.

"It's on the counter," she said. "You can't miss it."

I hate when people tell me I can't miss something. It guarantees I will.

Sure enough, when I went to the kitchen counter, there wasn't an object in sight.

Being industrious, I looked in the dishwasher and saw something that I imagined could be a breast pump. So I headed off to high school, Owen and his diaper bag in one hand, breast pump in the other.

Unfortunately, I left one of the key components of the breast pump in the dishwasher. It was useless, I was summarily told by my daughter. I wanted to respond that if she had left me an instructional manual as well prepared as the one her sister gave us, I would have known the configuration of the pump, its essential parts and how they fit together. But I bit my tongue and left the school with the defective breast pump in hand, feeling like a student who had just failed.

Months later, I'm happy to report that Owen survived the afternoon with his Pa even if I didn't know a breast pump from a sump pump. And Andrew, Matthew and Katie have also survived many babysitting encounters with us.

Come to think of it, our daughters have survived years of our parenting quite well. We may occasionally forget the keys, but we always remember the love, and you don't need a high IQ or be the first born to know the importance of that. *

Phil Goldsmith has served in senior positions in the private and public sectors, most recently as managing director of the City of Philadelphia. You can read more about his article on his blog at

www.philgoldsmith.blogspot.com. His e-mail is pgold4110@aol.com.