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The First Team
Mar. 25th, 2013 06:19 pmI was barely 4 when my little sister was born, and I can't remember it very well, but I do remember being disappointed she wasn't a boy, because I thought I had the girl niche pretty well filled. (Why I would think this, I don't know. I was not gender essentialist in any other way.) I wasn't really threatened; I was pretty sure she wasn't going to be as good as me.
In general, I was not into babies or baby dolls even in the slightest, which I think is fairly unusual for a small child. I counted myself as without question one of the adults, and was mostly annoyed that I would now de facto be grouped as one of the kids, because now there was a "the kids." I think this is the point where I decided to form an alliance with Dad, so that while Mom and the baby were a unit, Dad and I would have our own team. But that didn't last long; I think any baby drama was subsumed because right after she was born, we moved to a new state, and then I started kindergarden a year later, both of which were more dramatic changes than having a baby around.
REL and I didn't get along particularly well, but I think that was more an issue of temperament than rivalry, at least on my side. On her side, she had a longstanding fear that everybody liked me better, and was very obsessive about making sure that we were treated equally even at times when the age gap made this nonsensical. She interrupted me a lot, because she'd get anxious that everybody was going to forget her or leave her out. It took decades for this to dissipate, even though we had entirely separate peer groups, no teachers in common, and she received more attention from my parents automatically because I usually was in another room, reading.
We actually got along fine as long as it was just the two of us, and would happily hang out together all day playing games we made up. It was really only a problem if there was a third party - any third party - at which point REL would become start obsessing over whether she was getting a fair shake. This was more infrequent than it sounds like it would be, because we moved a lot and tended to have a much closer tie to each other than to the neighborhood kids, who we were likely (with a few exceptions) to regard as slightly stupid and not really worth impressing.
In any case, I am sympathetic to younger siblings and think it probably is easier to be the oldest, unless there's a significant age gap (in which case it becomes a bit more like sequential only children). Worrying over how hard it will be for a kid to adjust to having to share their parents seems a bit like complaining because people at higher incomes have to pay more taxes. That younger kid is never going to have that undivided attention (barring a tragedy).
Not that I'm sure undivided attention is necessarily so great. A kid with an instinctive understanding of game theory might even seize on a younger sibling as a means of keeping the heat off. I won't say what kid, but a kid might benefit from that. Two kids together might even run an occasional con or scam, for the good of the collective. If they were so inclined.
In general, I was not into babies or baby dolls even in the slightest, which I think is fairly unusual for a small child. I counted myself as without question one of the adults, and was mostly annoyed that I would now de facto be grouped as one of the kids, because now there was a "the kids." I think this is the point where I decided to form an alliance with Dad, so that while Mom and the baby were a unit, Dad and I would have our own team. But that didn't last long; I think any baby drama was subsumed because right after she was born, we moved to a new state, and then I started kindergarden a year later, both of which were more dramatic changes than having a baby around.
REL and I didn't get along particularly well, but I think that was more an issue of temperament than rivalry, at least on my side. On her side, she had a longstanding fear that everybody liked me better, and was very obsessive about making sure that we were treated equally even at times when the age gap made this nonsensical. She interrupted me a lot, because she'd get anxious that everybody was going to forget her or leave her out. It took decades for this to dissipate, even though we had entirely separate peer groups, no teachers in common, and she received more attention from my parents automatically because I usually was in another room, reading.
We actually got along fine as long as it was just the two of us, and would happily hang out together all day playing games we made up. It was really only a problem if there was a third party - any third party - at which point REL would become start obsessing over whether she was getting a fair shake. This was more infrequent than it sounds like it would be, because we moved a lot and tended to have a much closer tie to each other than to the neighborhood kids, who we were likely (with a few exceptions) to regard as slightly stupid and not really worth impressing.
In any case, I am sympathetic to younger siblings and think it probably is easier to be the oldest, unless there's a significant age gap (in which case it becomes a bit more like sequential only children). Worrying over how hard it will be for a kid to adjust to having to share their parents seems a bit like complaining because people at higher incomes have to pay more taxes. That younger kid is never going to have that undivided attention (barring a tragedy).
Not that I'm sure undivided attention is necessarily so great. A kid with an instinctive understanding of game theory might even seize on a younger sibling as a means of keeping the heat off. I won't say what kid, but a kid might benefit from that. Two kids together might even run an occasional con or scam, for the good of the collective. If they were so inclined.
