Chinwe Kalu: How I Discovered My Middle Child

With four kids, who are between the ages of 10 and 16, I must admit that though I mother with basic Christian principles, I am not always sure of what I am doing. If there is a mum who is absolutely sure, I truly envy her.

With my third child and second daughter, I have had even more challenging times figuring out exactly what to do with her. She is my middle child. Please don’t get me wrong, she was not doing anything wrong as such. But I knew something was missing. Let me tell you her story.

She was born almost twelve years ago with a full mane of hair, the right complexion and I was so excited. She looked right. She was pretty. I loved her as soon as I set eyes on her. However, she was born behind two older siblings, a boy and a girl. We got along well. She ate very well. She was quiet, the kind of baby who only cried when she had a problem. She sucked her two middle fingers. That made her even quieter. What more could a mother ask, especially with two older and far more boisterous children. She was supposed to be the last.

We got into the habit of just letting her be. We fed her, tidied her up and put her in her chair. We just thought she was fine. And she was. Soon after, to my absolute amazement, I was pregnant with my fourth child, a girl, who was nothing like her immediate older sibling, my quiet girl. This last one came with a lot of energy and wanted to be everywhere. She talked early and began to walk before she was nine months; a really loud and active bundle of joy I must say.

Where did that leave my quiet baby? Left to herself most of the time. We did not realize what we were doing but she did, and she began to resent it. We had the habit of taking our kids to pre-school before they began school. When we took her there she read it differently. We would drop her off and take her older siblings to school and she resented it. How did she handle it? Every day, she would not say a word for the entire time she was there. On one of such days, her teachers raised the issue with me. They were obviously concerned she was not talking. It got worse, because at some point, she wouldn’t even talk at home.

I got worried and took her to the doctors to complain. They asked us to watch her for a while. I held my peace.

At this time I recognized I had a problem but did not know what it was. I knew I needed to do something but had no idea what. As God would have it, she fell ill and missed school for a day. I was home but she was with our housekeeper. I heard noise from a distance. Then I recognized the nursery rhymes they were singing. Her voice was loud. I was curious and went to the room the noise was coming from, and there she was singing, laughing, giggling and totally happy. I had never seen her like that.

Then it dawned on me that she felt dumped every time we dropped her off at the pre-school. That was why she resented it. She never went back. We moved her to the same school as my older kids even though it cost us more.

Chinwe Kalu