The Oldest Sibling
- Abigail Snow
- Sep 29, 2024
- 2 min read
Updated: Sep 29, 2024
I was an only child for the first fourteen months of my life. Since January 9th 2009, I have been the big sister. Throughout my childhood, I was always the test dummy for my parents. Almost seventeen years later it is still this way. I have gone through many stages of childhood and experienced things that my younger sisters will never get to experience because the world is ever-changing and my parents are getting older as is everyone else. As the eldest sister, there is an incredible amount of responsibility I have and it can lead to many personal issues throughout my life.
It has been proven in many studies that the oldest sibling usually has perfectionist tendencies, the compulsive need to care for everyone besides themselves and to make sure that they are always busy because if not, their time is being wasted with laziness. All of these things I can totally relate to, sometimes I wish that I was not the oldest sister, because the pressure I am experiencing by others and myself makes me just want to crawl into a ball and hide in a dark room for hours. “The oldest sibling feels to meet the high expectations placed on them as well as the stress to feel like they must be the perfect role model for the rest of their siblings” (1) , I believe that this quote perfectly depicts the feelings of being an eldest sibling.
As I have gotten older I have seen the ways that my parents parenting style has changed. I have always been expected to get really good grades, I was taught that if I didn’t get above a ninety that I wasn’t working hard enough. There were many times where I would get my phone taken away or my parents would say that I couldn’t hangout with friends if I didn’t receive a certain grade in a class. Now that Aubrey is at Mount, my parents still expect her to get good grades but as long as she passes and gets an honor roll it's okay. Especially having a learning plan, school has never been easy for me, but I need to do well otherwise I won’t make my parents proud. Avery is in elementary school now and naturally it isn’t that difficult. Because she is younger she is also not held to the same standards as me.
Overall I would not have my life be any different because there are many good things that come from being the oldest. I have learned many ways to help cope with the stress and pressure of it all. I would rate being the oldest sibling a 4.5 out of 5 stars.
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