In this and my previous post on my two older daughters, I concentrate on their very different environments (and parents). Later I will tackle the far more fascinating question of persistent individual differences and siblings' impact upon one another. I kept journals and wrote graduate school papers when Emma  and Rosalind were young. I write less about Rose and Carolyn, my third and fourth daughters because I rely on memory.

They grew up in a different world than their older sisters. When Jane was born, I was a La Leche Leader and a fervent believer in attachment parenting. Both were born at home, both nursed as toddlers, both enjoyed the family bed in infancy. Both were carried far more in the front back and back pack than their older sisters. I was no longer captive to the latest book I had read.

Both had wonderful older sisters. When Jane was born, Emma was 5 and Rosalind was 3 1/2. I had absolutely no worries about their trying to hurt her unless they insisted on carrying her around by themselves.. At two months, Jane loved lying on the bed and watching her sisters jump up and down. Emma and Rosalind made nests on the floor for Rose, and they would all play happily for a very long time. Rosalind particularly spent countless hours amusingJane . We seem to have more pictures of Rosalind with baby Jane than we do of me with all of my daughters combined.

Jane's first two years were shaped by  her sisters' schedules. During her infancy, I had to take her out three times a day regardless of the winter weather. Rosalind went to nursery school five long city blocks away, five days a week, 9 to 12.Emma went to grade school in Soho, near the World Trade Center. Her dad took her down on the subway; I had to meet her bus on 23rd St. and 7th Avenue at 3 pm every day. Getting infant Jane and tired, napless, 3 -year-old Rosalind to that bus stop every afternoon was extremely stressful. I put Jane in the corduroy snugli and wrapped an old peacoat of my husband around both of us.

During Jane's second year, their dad took both her sisters downtown. Rosalind  attended a Montessori nursery school two blocks away from Emma's  grade school. In addition to meeting Emma's 3 pm bus, I took Jane in the backpack on the subway every day to pick Rosalind up at nursery school at noon. Because I used the backpack everyday, I could carry Jane until she weighed 30 pounds.

It got easier the year Jane  was 2 and both Rosalind and Emma attended the same grade school. I only had to do the 3 pm bus pickup. Several days a week Rose went to a toddler playgroup a block away. Jane was traumatized by the move to Maine when she was 2 1/2. Before we bought our house in Bangor, we rented an apartment in Hamden Highlands; we had a frog pond right next to the house. Suddenly we owned a car; the kids could play outside without Mommy. I quickly found a playgroup for Jane, and she was excited about the first meeting. We got out of the car and were quickly led into the barn with a cow, horse, pig, and ducks. Jane cried hysterically. Playgroup involved elevators, not barn animals.

Our lives had changed dramatically when Molly was born in 1982. We lived in a house, not in a high rise; we owned a car for the first time. Both Jane and Moly spent lots of time at their sisters' school. Skitikuk, a unique school for 45 children 5 to 18, was in a old barnhouse, with abundant fields around; they even had ducks and three horses. I taught a baby development class with Molly as the experiment. We always went to the weekly talent shows. I found a playgroup for Jane without horses. When when she was 4, she went to nursery school three days a week and took gymnastic lessons.

When we moved back to Long Island, Jane was 5 and Molly was 17 months. Thankfully, the grade school was a block and a half from our house. Molly  went to playgroups until she was 3, nursery school 2 mornings a week when she was 4, and 3 mornings when she was 4. She saw her grandparents at least three or four times a week. She got to be an adolescent and a 3 year old simultaneously, as she was exposed to her sisters' friends, TV, movies, music. She knew all of Madonna's songs and told everyone, "I am a material girl."

 Molly had extremely adoring, doting older sisters until she got to be about 5, and everyone discovered how much fun it was to tease her. She was an incredibly good loser, so she was welcomed to play games with her sisters by the time she was 4. From kindergarten to senior year, any teachers who had all four of them found Molly the most delightful, the friendliest, the best adjusted. Her older sisters  often invited her to their colleges, and I was startled how many young men at Yale knew 15-year-old Molly..