What to Do When Your Dad Loves Your Older Son But Doesn’t Care About Your Second Child
The screen door smacked shut behind us before my dad even looked up from the porch step. He’d been waiting there ten minutes, he later said, holding the pack of 1990s baseball cards he’d picked up at the neighborhood garage sale. “Jasper!” he said, grinning, and knelt so my six-year-old could launch himself into a hug. I shifted Milo, our 18-month-old, higher on my hip. His socks were smudged with applesauce from the car ride, and he held both chubby arms out toward his grandpa the second we got close. My dad leaned sideways to avoid the sticky hands, then jerked his chin toward the garage. “C’mon, Jasp,” he said. “Got the birdhouse pieces cut out just like I promised.” Milo made a soft, confused noise as they walked away, and dropped his arms to grab a handful of my shirt.
That Sunday was far from the first time. For the first year after Milo was born, I wrote it off. Babies are boring, I told myself. They don’t play catch, they can’t talk about Little League, they spit up on your work shirts. My dad had been the first grandparent at the hospital the day Jasper was born, showed up with a tiny plastic baseball glove and a list of name suggestions before the nurses even finished checking us in. He makes it to every single one of Jasper’s soccer games, even the 8 a.m. ones 45 minutes across town, and keeps a crumpled crayon drawing Jasper made him tucked in his work wallet. With Milo? I mentioned his oat allergy three separate times before he stopped offering him Cheerios off his plate. He’s asked when Milo’s 18-month checkup is four times in as many months, even though I texted him the date twice.
Milo’s first birthday dinner, he showed up with brand-new soccer cleats for Jasper, who’d outgrown his old pair the week before. When my mom kicked his ankle under the table and nodded at the high chair, he blinked, fumbled in his pocket, and pulled out a crumpled $5 bill. “Right,” he said. “Uh. Get him something nice.” I smiled and took the bill, but later that night, when I was scrubbing sweet potato off the kitchen tile, my husband leaned against the counter and said it quiet, like he didn’t want to say it out loud: “He just… doesn’t care about the little guy, does he?”
I almost blew up about it, too. I typed out a whole text once, after he spent an entire park trip throwing a frisbee for Jasper while Milo crawled after him, tugging at his jeans, and got handed an empty granola bar wrapper to crinkle for entertainment. I didn’t send it. I thought about when I was 10, and my little brother was born, and how my own grandpa used to take him fishing every weekend and never once asked if I wanted to tag along. For years I figured he just didn’t like quiet kids who brought books instead of worms. When I was in college, he mentioned offhand once that he’d never learned how to talk to a kid who didn’t want to bait a hook or take apart a lawnmower. He wasn’t trying to leave me out. He only had one way to be a grandpa, and he’d already locked into it with the first grandkid who liked all the same stuff he did.
Big “we need to talk” speeches make my dad retreat to the garage for an hour and grunt through dinner, so I skipped that entirely. I didn’t call him selfish, or accuse him of playing favorites, or demand he love both kids exactly the same. Instead, I picked a random Tuesday when he was over fixing our leaky bathroom faucet, and leaned against the doorframe while Milo sat on the floor chewing on a rubber stopper. I just named the specific, small thing I’d noticed, no drama attached. “Milo’s been reaching for you every time you leave,” I said. “He gets really quiet when you walk past him without saying hi. He doesn’t know you don’t like sticky hands yet.”
I didn’t push him to hold Milo or read him stories or do any of the soft, cuddly grandparent stuff that feels totally unnatural for him. I gave him tiny, low-effort things he could do that fit the way he already moves through the world. The next time he came over to work on birdhouses with Jasper, I set a small, pre-sanded block of pine and a sheet of extra-coarse sandpaper on the workbench next to Milo’s high chair. “You don’t have to watch him,” I said. “Just hand him that block if he fusses. He loves rubbing rough stuff.” He grunted and didn’t say anything, but 20 minutes later, I looked through the garage window and saw him nudge the block toward Milo with the end of his screwdriver. Milo grabbed it, drooled all over it, and rubbed it on his hair for 10 minutes straight. My dad didn’t smile, exactly, but he didn’t take it away, either.
I also started naming his small, neutral actions out loud for Milo, even when they were accidents. If he held the door open for the stroller, I’d say, “Look, Milo—Grandpa held the door for us.” If he passed Milo a cracker without being asked, I’d say, “Oh, you got a graham cracker from Grandpa! Nice.” Little kids don’t automatically connect quiet, unremarkable moves to care on their own, and the lines reminded my dad, no nagging required, that every tiny gesture toward Milo registered. I never did it in front of Jasper, and I never made Jasper feel guilty for being close to his grandpa. I don’t want either kid growing up thinking love is a competition, or that one has to give up their bond to make the other one feel even.
It’s been eight months since that Sunday on the porch. Some visits are still hard. Last weekend, he showed up with two more packs of baseball cards, both for Jasper, and didn’t bring Milo anything at all. He still defaults to calling Jasper first when he walks in the door, still rambles for 20 minutes about Jasper’s soccer swing and doesn’t ask a single question about Milo’s new words. He doesn’t love Milo the same loud, easy way he loves Jasper, and I don’t know if he ever will.
But last week, Milo tripped on the sidewalk outside their house and scraped his knee, and before I could step forward, my dad knelt down, wiped the dirt off with the hem of his work shirt, and pulled a dinosaur band-aid out of his pocket. He didn’t make a big show of it, didn’t say anything sappy. He just peeled the wrapper off, stuck it on, and stood back up like he’d been carrying dinosaur band-aids around for months. Later, I saw the open box in his truck, next to his tape measure and his pack of work gloves. He’d bought them himself.
The two birdhouses he built are hanging in our backyard now. Jasper’s is painted bright blue, covered in dinosaur stickers he helped press on. Milo’s is smaller, unfinished, and smudged all over with the mud he packed into the nail holes last weekend. My dad saw it last Sunday and didn’t tell him to stop, didn’t wipe the mud off. He just leaned against the fence, watched Milo bang on it with a plastic shovel, and tossed Jasper a frisbee.
I don’t wait around for some big, polished moment where he scoops Milo up and says he loves him just as much. That’s not who he is, and it’s probably never going to happen. The dinosaur band-aid is stuck to my fridge right now, next to Jasper’s printed soccer schedule. Some days, that’s enough. Some days, I still have to step outside and take a breath when he walks right past Milo to say hi to Jasper first. We’re still figuring it out. I don’t think there’s a finish line here.
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