Feb 27 2009
Ask the Eldest Sibling
So, in a last minute push, “Eldest Sibling” came leaping ahead. Thanks for the last minute cheating. I prefer to have dozens of votes no matter how I get them on my poll.
I am an eldest sibling. I’m not only the oldest of seven children, I’m the daughter of an eldest sibling as my father was the oldest of 12 children. My husband is also the eldest sibling, eldest of four.
What is being the eldest sibling like? Well, it means having twice as many pictures taken of you than of your siblings, including pictures of things you never wanted to do. It means being the recipient of most of your parents worry and hypochondria as well as all the experimenting they did to figure out that whole parenting thing.
You get to do everything first. Every time you screw up it makes harder on the ones that follow. Every time you do something good or over and above, they get the happy fallout.
The eldest is babysitter and example, defender and antagonizer of the younger ones. We are bossy and demanding and impatient, as likely to snatch a job away from someone if they just aren’t doing it right. They get blamed for what the younger one’s do and they always have more responsibility than the younger ones do (or, at least, almost always).
So, if you’ve always wondered what it was like for your older sibling, here’s a chance to ask. If you have a eldest child that is giving you hell, here’s your chance to perhaps find the answer.
In any case, I’m here. Now clean your room and ask me something!
(New blog poll is up!)
Huh! I’m the eldest sibling in my family, and nobody comes to me for advice about anything. If anything, I’m the one everybody points to and says “See what he just did? Don’t do it!” You’re right about being the one who gets to be the guinea pig, though. Hmmm… I guess that means by the time my brother and then my sister turned up, they’d learned better.
I am the eldest of 2 and it seemed whatever my sister did wrong, I got the blame. Didn’t seem to matter if I had nothing to do with it, it was as if I should have known what was going on and put a stop to it, being the eldest and all.
I wonder if the gender, and the number of boys and girls, make a difference somehow. I’m the oldest of three, but I was the only girl. So it was like my brothers were kind of a club of their own, and I don’t recall us interacting like a lot of elder/younger same sex siblings seem to.
I had quite a forceful personality until I was seven, and then the bullies at school beat it out of me for the next 10 years in school. So as it turned out, the youngest brother, who had a similar temperament to me, ended up pretty much ruling the family. It was like he was the oldest sibling. Kind of odd, how all that turned out.
One thing that did seem to remain constant, though, was that the middle siblings — my mom in her family and the older of my two brothers — were the more mild, generous, cooperative types. I’ve heard that the middle sibling tends to be like that, and it certainly held true in my family.
I think you are right. Our just younger sister acted the part of youngest child…attention-seeker, etc.
Interesting depictions. I can’t argue with any of it. I do think, though, that parental reactions are more the result of parents than of the first sibling. A first sibling can do absolutely nothing wrong, and yet parents are still paranoid and reactionary.
As is the case with us.