BEING THE ELDEST CHILD –

BEING THE ELDEST CHILD –

Where you are in birth order related to your sibling(s) seems to have a large impact on your personality.

I am the eldest child, and grandchild, on both sides of my family.

Being the eldest is daunting. You spend your first years, until your sibling is born, working on training, teaching, educating, and molding your parents. It is exhausting!!

You are the one who they make their mistakes on. You are the one who accidentally falls when they weren’t paying close enough attention. You are the one who shows them what a baby is really like. You are the one who challenges them daily with the new things you learn, do, and say. You are the one that they swoon over and spoil, at least to some degree. You are the one who pees and maybe poops on them. You are the one who they rock to sleep and comfort even when they don’t know why you are crying.

Then your sibling comes along. The parents that you trained are now experts. But they are tired. They just spent years raising you and now they have added another baby. Between the two of you, they don’t have time to think. Eventually, though, if you are old enough, they put you in charge of some parts of raising your sibling. Now YOU are responsible for making sure that diapers are changed, shoes are tied, food and drinks are provided, and the list goes on and on. You have to grow up quickly because the three of you are now a team in raising the next child. Most of all, though, you are no longer the one getting all of their attention since the baby needs more help than you do. The good part is that you love that baby as much as they do so you don’t mind.

Being the eldest sibling made me strong, stubborn, loving, caring, sensitive, empathetic, thoughtful, bossy, independent, nurturing, rule-following, reliable, confident, and mature before my time. Through everything, though, I wouldn’t trade the honor of being my brother’s big sister for anything!