Oh yes she did.

Oh brother.

The Telegraph has a recent article on how members of the parenting website Mumsnet coined the above terms, and provided examples of how differently they treated their firstborns as opposed to later children.

The gist of the article is that Moms went completely and obsessively nuts over their firstborn kids.

Another shame-faced member reported how she screamed at her partner and kicked him because he tried to cross the road with their baby in the pram without checking with her if it was safe to do so.

It then goes on to say that indeed, some moms admit there were different rules when it came to the younger children.

Another confirmed the differing hygiene practices used for Child One and Two, saying: “First child, suckable items must be sterilised in Milton or steam after they’ve dropped on the floor. Second child: items must be wiped over with a clean damp cloth.

“Third child: give them to the dog to lick clean.”

Is the Telegraph really taking this seriously? The last quote sounds like someone on a message board trying to be funny. And succeeding mightily, I might add.

Speaking for myself, I am positive that I will treat “Child Two” differently than how I treated “Child One.” You know why? Because I’m not going to be as super-paranoid as I was the first time around. The first child constitutes a very steep learning curve for most parents, and basically, you over-react because you don’t want to screw it up.

Later children are but a gleam in your eye at this point, and you keep saying to yourself, “I’ve only got one shot at this thing, and if I mess up, my child will be in therapy for the rest of their life.” So you do indeed needlessly sterilize things and obesess over minutiae that in the end, is probably rather meaningless.

So I am dubious at the claim that mothers “favor” their eldest children. It’s more of an issue of not knowing any better.

I don’t know about the swimming pool, but I’m pretty sure this happened in the shallow end of the gene pool. The only real question is, how do people like that afford a holiday to Egypt when I have to make do with watching The Mummy over and over? Not that I do that. Never.

Also, why is that Egyptian hotel not capitalizing on this and advertising in fertility clinics all over the world?