Third Child Syndrome

If you're the youngest of three children, you may already know where this is going.

There are certain realities that come with being the third child. You probably get more hand-me-downs. Your parents are considerably more relaxed because the first two children somehow survived. And there's a pretty good chance there are fewer pictures of you.

I call it Third Child Syndrome.

When the first child arrives, they get 100 percent of their parents' attention. Every milestone is a major event - first tooth, first steps, first day of school. There are pictures of everything.

Then the second child arrives. There are still plenty of pictures, but now a lot of those photographs include the older sibling too.

By the time number three comes along, life is busy. Even when the youngest child is the star of the moment - maybe they're dressed for their first school play - somebody inevitably says, "Get your brother and sister in there!"

So the third child is certainly in the family photographs. There just tend to be fewer photographs that are really about them.

I've seen this in my own family. I'm the oldest of three, and there were boxes and boxes of photographs of me. My sister came next - and as the first girl, there were plenty of photographs of her too.

Then there was my younger brother.

Years later, going through those boxes at my parents' house, the difference was obvious. He was there, but there simply weren't nearly as many photographs that were just of him.

Fortunately, there's an easy way to make sure that doesn't happen with the portraits that really matter: create traditions.

If you make a formal portrait of your first child at age eight, do the same for the others when they reach eight. Same idea, similar size, hanging together on the wall. Traditions have a way of keeping us accountable even when life gets hectic.

The third child may never catch up in sheer number of photographs. But they should still have portraits that say, this was your moment.

Third children aren't photographed less because they're loved less. They simply arrive when their parents are more experienced, more relaxed - and a whole lot busier.

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