Give Your Oldest Sibling A Hug

If you haven’t heard, being the oldest sucks… like kick in the crotch, spit-on-your-neck fantastic as Rachel from F.R.I.E.N.D.S would say. Yet, middle and youngest children everywhere will use every living breath they breathe to deny that fact, even when everyone knows it’s true. If given a choice, would one choose to be the oldest? No, you literally never hear that.

I’ll give the middle-kids some credit. It probably sucks being squeezed in-between two people, but being that forgotten story? How about the exact opposite? Literally, everyone loves the middle kid, especially if the oldest and youngest share the same gender than the middle. But the youngest-kids? Uh-uh! You guys and gals literally have no room to complain! You’re given literally everything from the start…the attention…the excuses! Youngest kids could literally murder someone and their parents would be there to back them up saying it was someone else’s fault… probably the oldest.

Being the oldest is like being a parent without any authority.

I feel like half the time I’m getting yelled at like I’m Eric Forman from That 70’s Show (which makes no sense as to why he gets treated like the oldest when he’s the youngest??? Sexist, maybe @Fox?!) or Chris Rock from Everybody Hates Chris. I practically get in trouble for just breathing.

My teenage years consisted of continuous arguments with my parents about the silliest things…which now, my sister, the youngest, doesn’t even have to deal with at all. My brother, the middle-kid, dealt with it partially when he was a teenager, so I’ll give him that. Just the other day, my mom goes, “wow, your sister just has such a fun and easy-going personality! Why weren’t you ever like that?” Wow, I wonder why mom – she’s not constantly getting yelled at every second over stupid sh*t, I savagely thought to myself.

What is this world my sister lives in that wasn’t even possible for me to imagine for myself? It’s not like I was doing drugs, staying out late and being obnoxious when I was in middle and high school or even now. I was a goodie-two shoes…a dork, that tried so hard to get any ounce of respect I could get from my parents since I wanted to be seen as their equal – an adult. After all, that’s how they treated me when it came to some things. But overall, I was immature and a child in their eyes.

I obviously didn’t want to get yelled at for minor, silly things like not folding my laundry or doing the dishes before my homework. But I wasn’t perfect either. Somehow, I think parents think the oldest-kids are supposed to be perfect with how many times they’re yelled at?

Today, my sister is a slob in the room we once shared. Does she get yelled at for not putting her laundry away? No. What the hell is that?! The same goes for my brother, the middle-kid – “oh, he can’t work…he has school…he has swim practice.” I would hear my mom say to me over and over again. “But mom, so did I, and I worked on top of it all,” I would say back to her.

Just yesterday, my dad bought my sister a chocolate bar when he made it clear that he was shopping on a tight-budget. In jaw-dropping shock, I jokingly said in-front of my mom and sister, that if I asked my dad for a chocolate bar, he would have said, “yeah, if you’re buying.” At this point, my mom spit out her water, and nearly peed herself from laughter, knowing that what I said, and who my father is, was completely true. At least she realizes the oldest-child syndrome here. My dad, on the other hand, would tell me to get my tiny violin out because life is just so hard as the oldest, with a sarcastic tone.

From the beginning of time, oldest-kids have repeated this dialogue to parents and siblings of all ages. It’s most challenging when oldest-kids don’t have oldest-kid parents, like myself. My mom is the middle-kid and my dad is the youngest. To my fellow oldest-kids experiencing that situation – save yourself, now. Every debate you try to better your case only makes it worse. And you know this is true, yet your mouth keeps making noises and words.

It’s not just me. Ask literally any oldest-kid…they’ll tell ya!

PSA: I love my parents and siblings from the bottom of my heart, and I’m extremely grateful for their sacrifices to get me where I am now. But, being the oldest does suck, regardless if parents or siblings realize the aggrevation they cause the oldest-kids.