They Have Started Comparing Themselves To Each Other

It comes out at the table now.

He gets it faster than me. She never has to do this bit. Why does he get to stop and I do not.

And you answer, and the answer always ends up being about both of them, because the sentence had both of them in it, and you are trying to be fair.

And it never works. Whatever you say, one of them hears that you have just ranked them, because any sentence containing two children is read as a ranking by whichever one is listening hardest.

And underneath all of it is the thing you have not said to anybody, which is that you have been doing exactly this in your own head for years, and you cannot tell how much of what you are hearing came from you.

Provoking one another, envying one another

There is a line at the end of Galatians 5 that puts two things side by side that we usually think of separately.

Let us not be desirous of vain glory, provoking one another, envying one another. (Galatians 5:26, King James Version)

Provoking and envying. Those are the two ends of the same rope, and the verse has them coming out of one source: being desirous of vain glory.

Vain glory is glory measured against somebody. It is not the same as wanting to do well. It is wanting to do well relative to a person, and the person has to be in the room for it to work.

You are looking at a mechanism with a single cause, and the two behaviors coming out of your children have never once been separate problems. Galatians 5:26 traces both to one root, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that a simplification rather than an accusation.

And notice the pronoun. Let us not. Paul includes himself. It is not addressed to the young or the immature, it is addressed to everybody, in the plural, as a standing human tendency.

You were never watching something unusual, and no household with two children has ever once been free of this. The written word puts it in the first person plural, and the Spirit of God is the one who takes the alarm out of an ordinary thing.

Why answering both fails

Here is the mechanical part, and it is the reason your fair answers keep going wrong.

When a child makes a comparison, they are not asking for an adjudication. They are reporting a feeling about themselves and attaching the nearest available measuring stick, which happens to be their sibling.

And when you answer with both of them in the sentence, you have confirmed the measuring stick. You have agreed that the comparison is the right frame and then argued about the result.

You have been disputing an answer inside a frame that has never once been the right one. Galatians 5:26 names the desiring of vain glory as the root rather than the ranking as the problem, and the Holy Spirit is the one who shows a parent which part of a sentence to take.

And there is a second thing, which is about the other child, who is usually sitting right there.

Any answer containing both of them is heard by both of them. So one child's reassurance is the other child's information, and you cannot control which is which.

That is why these conversations leave everybody slightly worse, including you.

You are able to answer one person, and a sentence with one child in it has never once been able to be misread by the other. The written word traces both the provoking and the envying to one desire, and the Spirit of God is the one who lets a parent stop refereeing and start answering.

You were never obliged to be fair in a single sentence, and fairness has never once been achievable inside one reply at a kitchen table. Galatians 5:26 addresses the desire rather than the arithmetic, and it is the Holy Spirit who releases a parent from an impossible job.

Answer only the child in front of you

So here is the thing to do tonight, and it is a rule about sentences.

When one of them compares, answer only the child in front of you. Do not mention the other one at all.

Not to defend them. Not to balance it. Not even as a passing clause.

You are permitted to leave somebody out of a sentence, and leaving a child out of one reply has never once been the same as leaving them out. Galatians 5:26 puts the root in the measuring rather than in the outcome, and the Holy Spirit is the one who keeps a second name out of a first answer.

He gets it faster than me becomes: this bit is hard, and you went back over it twice.

She never has to do this becomes: I know. There are four of them on that page tonight.

Notice what both of those do. They agree with the observable part, they stay with one person, and they contain no verdict about anybody.

You have a form of answer that cannot be used against either of them, and a sentence with one child in it has never once been able to rank two. Galatians 5:26 names the desire rather than adjudicating the result, and the Spirit of God is the one who supplies the shorter reply at a loud table.

And if the other child is in the room and objects, answer them separately, in their own sentence, with the first one not mentioned.

That will feel inefficient and it is. Two sentences instead of one. It is also the only version that does not leave somebody holding a comparison you just endorsed.

Galatians 5:26 puts the root in the desire for glory measured against a person, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is at a table where somebody answers one child at a time.

You are permitted to be slow rather than fair, and two separate sentences have never once been the same thing as taking sides. The written word names the root rather than the ranking, and the Spirit of God is the one who supplies the patience for the second sentence.

You have a way out of the referee's job tonight, and it has never once required either of them to stop comparing first. Galatians 5:26 addresses the desire in the plural and in the present, and it is the Holy Spirit who does the part no parent can do from a chair.