I am the youngest child in a family of three girls. My older sisters, Ellen and Katharine, are as wonderful as they could possibly be, but being the youngest, even with great older siblings, has its drawbacks.

Being the youngest, particularly when we were little, meant always sitting in the backseat of the van, pulling the other two around in our red wagon and being ridden like a horse whenever we played one of our favorite games, cleverly named "Horses." Of course, they don't typically make me pull them around in a wagon anymore, but I still sit in the backseat on car rides. I am lucky in the sense that my parents have been much more relaxed with me than they were with my sisters (thanks, Mom and Dad) — I didn't have a curfew my senior year of high school, I got an iPhone way younger than they did, and I don't have to share the family car. However, being the youngest now has a new meaning.

Anyone else who is the youngest child will agree that having older siblings usually means constant comparison in the form of questions like, “So are you planning on continuing the famous family legacy?” or, “Are you planning on getting the same job/having the same major/playing the same sport as your sisters?” The people who ask these questions mean well, as they are just inquiring about my future, but they don’t understand that how they phrase their questions makes me feel like an extension of my sisters, rather than like my own person.

Of course, I happily answer these questions by explaining that, yes, I continued the family legacy by going to the same college as my mother and two older sisters, and I continued another legacy by joining the same sorority as the three of them as well. I neglect, however, to explain that I chose my school, not based on my family, but based on size, location, Greek life, cost, academic challenge and all the other factors that high school seniors have to consider. I also don’t explain that during recruitment, I spent hours after each round worrying if I was making my choices based on what was best for me, or if I was just making the same choice as my sisters. For the first couple of weeks after bid day, I cringed a little bit every time I gave someone the news of my choice, and I would get a response like “Oh, well that’s not a surprise since you’re a legacy.” Of course, none of those responses overshadowed the joy that I felt, and still feel, by picking the right house for me, but that response was still annoying enough to leave me a little resentful.

It’s important, though, to point out the main reason that following in my sisters’ footsteps is a real problem — I have been blessed with an amazing family and particularly with amazing sisters. They have both been incredibly successful. Ellen was the president of our sorority. Katharine was a three-sport athlete in high school and was the captain on two of those three teams. And both of them graduated from DePauw cum laude (having above a 3.5 cumulative GPA) and got jobs that began shortly after graduation.

If they weren’t so good at what they do, following them would never have been a problem. However, I do not and have never resented them for it. They have both worked hard for their accomplishments, and they inspire me to do the same. I am proud to say that I follow in their footsteps, because they have laid out such an amazing path for me and have provided me with so much help along the way. Having older sisters means that I can learn from their mistakes and watch them succeed and grow, and I can understand that hard work will always pay off.

So, yes, hearing questions or comments about following my sisters gets mildly irritating, but I don’t mind. Because of the confidence I have gained from watching them, I have been venturing off into the unknown. They were both communication majors, while I have chosen psychology and French. They both graduated with jobs right out of college, and I am currently planning on attending graduate school. However, even though I am finally becoming my own person, I will never be thankful enough for the guidance that they have given me over the years, and I cannot wait to see where the three of us end up.