Have you noticed? How the elder siblings often seem to be bearing the brunt! How as soon as the little ones arrive, parents start conditioning the elder ones to be more responsible, caring, rule-abiding, parents’ helping hands and perhaps most importantly to be always-perfect! How from very early on, they must always lead, be the idols of the younger ones! How they never can let their hairs down!But first thing first. This is not a parenting post! Heck! No! Did you think so? Err, sorry if it was misleading. It is in fact a rant post! Yeah! Having carried the burden of being the first born child of my parents and successfully sucking at it for more than a quarter of a century, this is where I have finally decided to let my guard down. I am going to babble – bear with me if you can.I HATE being the eldest sibling. And I just have one younger brother, mind you. God save those who have more!I have had him since I was four. One fine day, he arrived in our household with a trail of cooing sounds of oohs and aahs. People went crazy over that small sluggish thing with minuscule limbs! I liked him too really! He was only a little bigger than my favorite doll with a thick curly mop of hair on his head. But then it all started! In every two steps I took, a warning or the other always came my way, “You need to set an example. Your younger brother is watching.”When we squabbled, we both were admonished but later separately, when he was not listening, I was told, “You are elder. You have to learn to take control.”When a chore was to be completed, it was I who was called always because I was more reliable and more responsible while my brother was able to coast on through. But hello, did you notice? I didn’t pop out on the earth as some kind of wonder child having excellent sense of responsibility! You made me that way! By making me bear all the brunt of your parenting strictness! If you think it was a blessing in disguise, you are wrong! Twofold wrong! First, back then, while I was being conditioned to grow up as a responsible person, my brother was let off too easily. Then, I wanted to be able to be like him. A little reckless with a pinch of rebelliousness!Second, even now, my brother is the baby of the family. He just refuses to grow up! He is used to having everyone available to do his chores for him. He still feels that everyone else is bigger and more capable than him and he nonchalantly expects them to do things, take decisions and responsibilities. Now, I want him to be like me. Independent with a lot of self-assurance!And if you think that parents would learn from their mistakes, you are wrong again! No! That is not to be done. Because till date they have yet to stop lecturing me with, “You are the elder one girl! If you do like this, what will your brother learn?”Do you have a sibling? How do you relate to this?Love,
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Riot of Random
