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Being the middle child...
Sucks! lol Growing up it was my older brother, myself, and my younger sister, so I was stuck right in the middle. Not the first one to experience things so by the time I did them it wasn't exciting, and not the baby so I wasn't the cute one anymore. Then shorlty after my parents divorced my Mom got pregnant by her boyfriend (my stepdad, although they've never married, but have been together like 14 years, so we just say stepdad) and then my stepdad and his three sons moved into our house. I'm still pretty much right smack dab in the middle of the kids but the main 'competition' is still between my full blood siblings and I. Note, there isn't competition between my siblings and I, we think we're all great, but my parents, especially my Mom tend to rank us pretty regularly.
I've always been both of my parents least favorite; my Mom openly admits this lol whereas my Dad would never say that but I can just tell. I'm 26, married, living on my own, yet I still let the whole middle child/least favorite kid thing get to me. Like today for instance, I am having flowers delivered to my Mom's house for an early Mother's Day gift, and I get a text from her around 8:30am thinking it's her thanking me for the flowers, but nope, it's her telling me that my brother is doing the makeup for the CBS Mother's Day Makeover special today. Granted, I doubt she's even received the flowers yet, but it still kind of reminded me that I'm stuck in the middle and now rather than talking to her friends or whatever about the flowers I sent today, she'll be bragging to them about my brother being on TV.
Edit: I am very proud of everything my siblings do/accomplish and love them dearly; my older brother is one of my best friends and my sister and I are pretty close, so please don't think I'm just bitter and jealous of the things they do.
And now I'll stop acting like I'm 5 and move on lol. Do any of you feel like youre the least favorite kid? Do you hate being in the middle like me? What about if you are a baby or an oldest...pros? cons?
Re: Being the middle child...
Honey, it ain't any better at the top of the heap! I'm the oldest of 2, or the oldest of 4, if you count my half-siblings that I never met until adulthood. Either way, I'm the one who always got blamed for my parents overly strict rules. ("oh, we let Erin get away with that and she totally messed it up, so now you don't get to do it"...thanks, Mom!) For some reason, I also tend to get blamed when one of my siblings gets in trouble, too, like I was supposed to stop them!
Now the up-side to this is, I never had to wear hand-me-downs...I was always the one doing the handing down. I also pretty much got away with murder as a kid, because my parents were still "in training". It was also pretty cool to have my sister look up to me like I was a "grown-up" even when I wasn't yet. (There are almost 13 years between my sister and me.) And getting to do everything first was pretty cool, too, so I guess there really are trade-offs!
the problem i have with being the baby is on things like mothers day? My SIL and Sister have been mom's for YEARS....so i've always gotten the *** end of holidays like this......it sucks
it doesnt help that my middle sibling is 13 years older than me....its just...stupid.....they talked about mimosas...and didnt include me on the talk....because they're mom's.....and im not.....)
seeing me as an adult has always been non existant till recently...but even when i was getting married.....i was still getting treated like a child......is been hard to get my footing
Getting fit for IVF!
Unfortunately I don't think we ever outgrow sibling rivalry. I am the second of four and while I don't necessarily feel like a middle child (my older sister is 8 years older that large gap makes me less of a "middle child" I think) I have been the last to do things and it is no big deal. I was the last to get married and will be the last to have kids. My family has a very "been there, done that" attitude about those things and it kind of sucks. Don't get me wrong, I was relieved that there was no pressure from my mom and sisters during the wedding planning period, but pretending to care would have been nice.
I guess looking back as a delayed middle child, I was kind of treated like an oldest child. I didn't get hand me downs because my parents didn't hold onto them for 8 years and my sister and I had totally different social scenes in high school (she was a boy crazy cheerleader and I was a shy bookworm) so my parents created new rules for me, rather than using the ones for her. Also because my older sister left for college when I was in 4th grade, I was given a lot of around the house responsibilities that an oldest child might get.
Sometimes I'm so happy its just my older bro and I, since there is never any reason for competition or rivalry. I liked being his baby sister when we were real young, and I lovedddd being "Mike's little sister" when I was a freshman in HS and he was my Senior - I was automatically cool lol and I love love love that in the last couple years we've become each others absolute support system and each others number one advocate. We know that with each other, we can do anything.
There are times, very few, but I sometimes wish there was a whole troop of us to have around. I absolutely LOVE being with my many cousins, so sometimes I wish I had that in my household growing up. Then I remember how after a week with my crew we're ready for Jersey and and I count my lucky stars that my parents stopped after my arrival.
I'll give the other perspective...I'm the baby of two (my sister is seven years older).
I wrote a long post, and my internet connection went out, so I lost it...so here's a quick summary:
Honestly, I was probably 22 or 23 before we started becoming close. We're very close now, and I love it. Just wish it could've happened sooner!
Megan & Chris
I always wished that I had a big brother who was just a couple/few years older who could "take care of me." Haha!
It's part of the reason I hope that our next kid is a girl so she can have her big brother!
Megan & Chris
I wished for the same thing, Megan. And I HAVE an older brother.
He's never been protective like a normal brother is. In fact, he never talked to any boyfriends and has spoken maybe 3 sentences to DH.
I'll spare you all the details, but we've never gotten along. And I don't see us getting close ever. Sucky situation :-/
Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!
LMAO