She Asked Why I Love Her Sister More

My five-and-a-half-year-old was on the floor, refusing to let me help her put on her jammies.

Full meltdown. Tears streaming down her small face, screaming at the top of her lungs.

“Why do you love S better than me?”

It was a long day. Ridiculously hot. New camp with no quiet time. Bedtime already late. Daddy was at a work dinner and not home yet. The perfect storm to completely unravel an already overtired, overly emotional five-year-old.

I knew all of that.

And it still shattered my heart in only the way your child can.

I tried to stay outwardly calm — though honestly, I wanted to lay on the floor and cry right alongside her.

How could the baby I had dreamed of for so long possibly think I love her sister more?

My frazzled, overheated brain heard her words and translated them into something even bigger: she doesn’t feel loved by me. (A topic for another day.)

I took a breath and asked her why she thought that.

“Because you yell at me more than S.” Eyes closed, tears still coming.

That answer could have been a lot worse. It still stung — just for different reasons. (I try so hard not to yell. Clearly not succeeding at that particular endeavor.)

I didn’t have a great answer. I said, “My love, I yell at everybody in this house equally. Daddy. S. The cat. I yell at the laundry. You have heard me yell at the dirty dishes. Mommy is just very loudly expressive sometimes. You know that.”

She didn’t laugh. Neither did I. She was too tired, too sad, too convinced that somehow her little sister had more of my heart than she did.

I added, “Mommy loves you so much. Mommy loves S so much. Mommy loves both of you more than anything in the world.”

And then she said something that really got me. Because apparently this conversation wasn’t quite gutting enough yet.

She said she wished she were still a baby. That she wished she hadn’t been born first.

Ouch.

Here’s the irony about her words.

When I was pregnant with S, I was terrified. Keep-me-up-at-night terrified — in addition to the millions of middle-of-the-night bathroom visits. Not about labor. Not about two under two. Not about any of the practical stuff, though, of course, all of that was there too. (Definitely in my top “to-be-terrified-about” list.)

But what I was most scared of was that I wouldn’t be able to love my new baby enough.

I was scared my heart wasn’t big enough. Because R had all of it. Every single corner. The love was so all-consuming, I genuinely couldn’t figure out how there would be room for another baby. And then I felt guilty for even thinking that.

I remember the first time I heard R’s heartbeat. I was completely smitten. I was finally going to get to be a mom. I watched her grow in my belly in the middle of a global pandemic — terrified and fiercely in love at the same time. As a geriatric mom (the not-so-endearing American medical term for women 35 and older), I had extra visits and extra tests, and I didn’t mind any of them. (Even though her dad wasn’t allowed to come to a single one. Thanks, Covid.) I jumped at every chance to hear her heartbeat or catch a glimpse of her.

When she was born — a month early, tiny, silent, wrinkly, perfect — she didn’t let us hear her voice for the first few days of her life. When we finally brought her home from the NICU, we went through three swaddles that first night because of her tiny size and her impressive ability to store an extraordinary amount of pee somewhere in that little body. She also made up for all the time she didn’t let us hear her cry. My tiny girl had strong lungs, once she decided to use them.

In my exhausted stupor, I couldn’t believe I finally got to meet her and be her mom. Even when she kept me up all night screaming her face off, refusing to latch, and making me question whether I was even capable of doing this — I knew I was the luckiest mom in the world because I got to be HER mom.

So when I found out that I was pregnant with my second, I was excited, of course. And I was terrified. Because I genuinely did not understand the math. R had more than a hundred percent of my heart. What was this new baby going to get?

I remember being at my OB appointment, maybe six months pregnant, trying to figure out how to ask him something without him thinking I was losing it — or worse, deciding I was unfit to be a mother to a second baby.

I finally just asked: “How does this work? How do you love another baby the way you love your first? Because I don’t think there’s space. What if I can’t?”

I don’t even remember exactly what he said. Something about the heart growing. Which is also what every mom told me before I had R — that your heart grows in ways that are impossible to describe. I felt his answer was too simple for how enormous the question felt. But he wasn’t wrong. He was right.

Because both of my girls are fully in there. Not split. Not divided. Both of them, completely, taking up more space than I knew I had.

The math doesn’t add up — but that’s because there’s no real way to quantify infinity. (Math experts, don’t come for me.) Mommy math has its own rules. Clearly.

Funny how a five-year-old screaming on the floor can take you all the way back to a question you were too scared to ask out loud. Motherhood is funny like that. Not ha-ha funny. The other kind. I’m sure you know what I mean.

And then that night happened.

The baby who stole my heart the first time I heard hers — the one I was so scared I couldn’t love her sister enough because of — was sobbing on the floor, convinced she’s loved less.

I can’t get over that irony. I really can’t.

I have to be honest about something else, though. Something her words made me feel an extra layer of guilt about.

I am shorter with her lately. I do raise my voice at her more. She’s five and a half, and she knows better than to randomly hit her sister or snatch whatever toy S is holding. Her meltdowns are loud and long, and they wear me down in a way that S’s don’t right now. And then she gets clingy in this almost aggressive way, and I catch myself almost instinctively pulling away — even though I know she just needs her mommy. I do my best to pull her in instead. I also notice how often I get activated by her and how my already-limited patience disappears entirely.

Hot temperatures plus her meltdowns equals one very dysregulated mom.

S is in this soft, clingy, wants-mommy-every-second phase that is so easy to pour into.

And when R was three — the age S is now — I was in the thick of postpartum. I wasn’t okay. I missed so much of that sweet little stage with R. I didn’t get to enjoy her the way I’m getting to enjoy S right now. On top of that, R only wanted daddy at that age. She was very anti-mommy. I get it — I had been so sick during my pregnancy and wasn’t fully emotionally available. It still stung then. It still stings now.

So yeah. When she cried that she wished she were still a baby, it landed somewhere complicated. Part of me wished for that too. Part of me still grieves missing that time with her.

I know she was tired. I know it was the heat and the long day and all the things. I also knew that after some sleep, she’d probably forget this whole conversation ever happened.

If only I could, too.

She has no idea that her mom once lay awake pregnant, scared she wouldn’t have enough room to love her little sister. That R herself had taken up so much of my heart, I couldn’t imagine making more. That R still takes up that much space — and S does too. My love for R never shrank. It grew. And it made room.

She was always the whole heart.

She still is.

They both are.

Somehow. In that completely illogical, completely real way that motherhood works.

And if any of this is weighing heavily on you right now — whether you’re in the fear, the guilt, the overwhelming love, or somewhere in between — I want you to know something, something that I wish I heard more.

If you’re pregnant with your second and carrying that fear — will I have enough love for this baby, is it fair to my first, how does this even work — the heart grows. It really does. In ways that don’t make logical sense and don’t need to.

And if you’re on the other side, carrying guilt about how differently you show up for each kid on any given day — that’s not evidence that you love them unequally. That’s just motherhood being complicated and real and human. It also shows how much you care and how deeply you love.

You’re not failing. You’re feeling.

If a specific mom popped into your head while you were reading this, that’s not a coincidence. Send this piece to her. Sometimes the most powerful thing we can do for each other is say I was thinking of you — and then actually show up.

If you’re new here, you’re welcome here. I hope you’ll stay.

Related Reading

• Grieving the Life that Was Loving the Life that Is (Part 1)

• Loving the Life that Is Grieving the Life that Was (Part 2)

• Confessions of a New Mom: The Grief and Joy of Birth

A Gentle Resource

If you’re looking for a place to process the hard, beautiful, complicated stuff, my guided journal for moms — You’re Not Failing, You’re Feeling — was made for exactly this. You can find it in the Your Non-Linear Journey Shop.