There are some days where I wish that I was the middle sibling, or even the youngest. But lately I’ve come to appreciate being the oldest sibling a lot more. There are tons of perks to being the oldest, like being the favorite child (obviously, because you were born first, they’ve loved you the longest).
Being the favorite child means you get to do basically whatever you want, whenever you want, because your parents are so focused on making sure the younger siblings are behaving. Another upside to being the oldest sibling is always being the one to be in charge when the parents go out. There’s no sweeter sound than hearing your siblings shriek when they hear you’re in charge for the night because they already know there’s a list of things we have planned for them to do.
Being the oldest is just fun to say in my opinion. Whether it’s by a few days, a few months or a few years, you’re always going to remind your siblings of it. For example, I have a cousin that’s six days younger than me, and whenever we fight, I always bring up the six-day difference. It usually ends with her beating me up or something like that, but I think you get the point.
Being the oldest also comes with a lot of responsibility, which is being a role model for your younger siblings. You have to watch everything you say, everything you do and everyone you interact with because it will affect your siblings in some way. You might not think so, but I know from firsthand experience that something you said a few years ago can randomly pop up at any point in the future. I feel like it shouldn’t be too hard because you should want to be a good example for your siblings. You should want to encourage them to do well, to be kind to others and to treat those around them with respect.
As time goes on, the younger ones are only going to look up to you more because they’ll see you continuously succeeded and make a life all for yourself. They’ll sit back to realize that their big sibling is who they want to be like when they grow up. I’m the oldest of three girls — there’s an 18-year difference between one of my sisters and myself, and a 10-year difference between myself and my other sister. Obviously, it’s hard to talk about things like physical relationships, social gatherings, and potential career decisions, but we’ve managed to find other things to talk about like what’s going on in school, which boys have cooties, and what’s a dream career that she’s thinking of.
It’s super important to understand that a younger child is always going to copy the older sibling because, well, that’s just what younger siblings do, and without them we wouldn’t be the same.
