I am the youngest of five kids, so growing up was inevitably a roller coaster. All of my siblings and I would argue about who has it the worst: the middle child? the oldest? the youngest? Now I really don’t know which one is the absolute worst, but being the youngest has its ups and downs.

Let’s start with the “ups.” My parents were definitely more strict with my older siblings as they were growing up than they were with me. I remember my teenage siblings complaining about not being able to see an R-rated movie. Luckily, I started watching R-rated movies a lot earlier in life because of my brothers and sisters. Parents always have their rules and regulations that the oldest children have to follow, but after they raise a kid or two, they start to become more relaxed about their youngest children. I mean sleepovers during the school week were a big no-no in my family for the longest time, but for me, starting in middle school, it became regular (as long as my grades were good---some rules never change). Anyways, each child before me had to put in the groundwork with my parents for me to receive more perks.That’s why being the youngest is so great: all of the other siblings complain, argue and persuade my parents so I don’t have to. I mean, when my oldest brother and sister were 16 and 17, they had to share one car for driving. That was a mess, but by the time my twin brother and I were that age, my family had more cars and there were no issues about trying to figure out who can have the car when.

I have to admit: I really do like being the youngest, but in other ways it can be pretty annoying.

Now onto the “downs.” First of all, the older siblings grow up and go to college, which means more attention from the ‘rents for the baby. When they only have two kids to look after instead of five, they notice the things you do more, which for some people could be okay, but not in my case. Also the older siblings are more accomplished than you (because they’re older, duh)... they’ve done more and succeeded at a lot of things, so there’s this expectation of you to follow in their footsteps. The pressure is one thing that doesn’t change. I think parents put equal amounts of pressure on all of their kids, but as the older ones move out of the house, the parents can monitor the youngest more easily and maintain that ruthless pressure. There’s also those little things about being the youngest that can be rough. Celebrating holidays comes to mind. It was always such a big deal when we were younger, and we went all out. As we grow up, holidays aren’t as festive as they once were. My older siblings got to enjoy more years of that type of celebration because when it started to die down a bit, they were probably 15 or 16, and I was only 10.