Whether it’s on social media or in random conversations, it’s always the middle child that manages to win the ‘pity party’—which, in a way, makes some sense. After all, they were the baby till the youngest came along and they don’t get the privileges that come with being oldest either.
But listening to my sister complain how she gets overlooked because she’s the middle kid always puts me on the defensive—because our parents simply don’t work like that. They don’t play favorites and (I kid you not) at 20, I still get the same meager allowance that my younger siblings get at 17 and 9. My younger sister got a cell phone the same year as me and yes, I have a car, but so far I have yet to make it past the vicinity of our suburb–not to mention half my trips are conditional to carting my sister along for the ride.
In fact, I’d go against the grain and say that in our house, sometimes I feel like the eldest is overlooked. I’m expected to ‘compromise for my siblings’ to ‘set an example for them’, sans any of the additional privileges that should come with that responsibility. And I’ll be the first to admit I still feel a twinge when I see my brother on one side of my mother, my sister on the other. In a picture puzzle piece that can only fit two pieces, it’s hard sometimes to feel like I’m not the awkward third wheel.
There are mistakes I’ve made in my life, from selecting classes and getting into college to more hefty life decisions that hopefully my sister will never make because I’ll have her back. But there’s always that lingering “I could have avoided this too if I had an older brother or sister.”
Every time I hear my mother say, “We tried that with our eldest and once was enough,” or “That certainly didn’t seem to work,” I realize I’m sort of the family guinea pig. I appreciate being useful as much as the next person, but it would be nice to feel less like an experimental lab rat.
What irks me the most is that being the nonchalant person I am, none of this ever bothered me much. I was always the only one of us siblings who opted to sleep alone when my siblings decided to party in my parent’s bedroom (yes, I pity them often). Seeing my brother get more of my mother’s physical attention and seeing my sister draw more of my parent’s emotional attention was never something I really concerned myself with, until recently.
Maybe it’s because my sister and I are more at each other’s throats than ever and because her constant complaints about the ‘injustices’ the middle child must endure have had me evaluating just where I fit in on the family totem. Wherever that place is though, I’m convinced of one thing: being oldest isn’t always the best.