IT'S A DAD'S LIFE:Second children can feel neglected or even ignored, but the reality is usually more complex
THE YOUNGER child has decided she loves me, but only at night when I'm putting her to bed.
She states she likes me in the mornings, in case I get carried away. This is a massive step up from the outright disdain she threw my way for a while and I'm clutching at anything she gives me. You see, in general, while the second child gets nowhere near the airtime the first received, they make up for it by instilling a sense of guilt in their parents at a primal level we can never expect to shake off.
The second is doomed from the outset, it's well known. He or she can never hope to topple the monarch in pole position and their only hope of a family shake-up involves a third or more arriving.
When that happens the second assumes the role of sullen ne'er-do-well to serious, over-achieving eldest child and the comic genius that is the youngest. Those responsible for this lifetime sentence to obscurity are, of course, the parents.
Having convinced the firstborn they are destined for greatness and having allowed the last one to turn the house into their own personal theme park, and having long given up the pretence of giving a toss, we are overwhelmed by the occasional rush of shame when we remember there was another nipper in the mix somewhere.
A rugger that might have been a contender if he or she hadn't been stigmatised by the scruffy hand-me-downs they were forced to wear, or brutalised by being the ongoing butt of their sharper younger sibling's gags.
And that younger or middle child may well wonder why their parents don't spend most of their time apologising for this deficit of attention.
It's only when they have brats of their own that they realise that we realise what we're doing, we're just too tired to do anything about it.
We do notice their milestones: their first words and steps, their achievements on the field, their advancements into university and on to the board of a multinational. We notice these things, but we've already seen something similar with the other one and we're knackered maintaining the pampered persona we unwittingly created ourselves.
Once, in a boozer with male-only company, still in the throes of new-Dad wonderment, I commented on the exquisite softness of the elder's skin.
She was six weeks old. The silence and uncomfortable butt shuffling slowly infiltrated my adoration and left me in no doubt that this type of talk was to be kept outside of the pub.
Still the awe lasted. I marvelled at her pronouncements as if Buddha had been reborn in her latest incarnation in Ballybough. She didn't learn to swim; she showed form in the pool.
When she picked up a pencil, we buzzed, for here it came, that great Irish novel. When friends recorded their first child's ramblings and used it as their home phone's answer machine message, I still didn't get it. I cringed at the cutesiness of it every time they couldn't (or wouldn't - it could have been a deliberate ploy to spread the word around the world) pick up the phone.
Yet, it took a long time before I equated other parents' infatuation with their firstborn to my own devotion. In the meantime another one had come along.
Now the younger sits in the back of the car and raps away long journeys to entertain us all. But we don't presume Sony will sign her.
The elder started in a Gaelscoil six weeks ago and the younger is near fluent from listening to her sister's tales from the playground. Nothing remarkable there. As she sat and watched the American election unfold and voiced concern at Obama's lack of experience in foreign policy, I tutted and switched over to Scooby Doo at her big sister's request.
I occasionally sensed her antipathy towards me, but put it down to her frustration at not yet beating the Rubik's Cube completion record despite having been at it for a whole two weeks.
Then I began to wonder why she didn't dote on me like the other one did and approached the issue in a mature way. I overcompensated and pouted when she ignored me. She saw through me like an Anne Summer's négligé and made me work.
She instinctively knew her sister would sense a change in the Force and seek to readjust the balance immediately, so she played her cards close. Finally, she grants that she does love me, but only at night, mind you.
It's so worth it. I look up at her painting The Creation of Manon our living room ceiling and think what a great little girl she is.