Poll Are You The Firstborn, Middle or Lastborn Child?

[angel2write]

First born of four. Care-taker, junior parent, hypersensitive, expected to be perfect, black sheep and whipping girl...

The second was my brother, solid, serious, good at everything, good at enduring pain, and emotionally constipated.

Third, my sister, loud, wild, outrageous, undefeatible, a scrapper, frightened, and trusting almost no one.

Last, after a lag of five years, my little brother, my darling. Kind, sensitive, eager to please, artistic, and terribly warped by my parents' coldness and abuse.

 

[livergirl70]

Middle of 3 girls, oldest one was a wild child, youngest is perfect in my parents eyes and could/can do no wrong

 

[Elphaba]

I was the first born. I was a teenage accident. My youngest sibling is 20 years younger than I. Then there is one in the middle which is 8 years younger than I.

 

[LawPhotos]

I am the youngest. Only 20 months separate my brother and sister (the oldest). I am 5 1/2 years younger than my brother. This age difference played out as "them" against "me" throughout childhood. Although, during the worst of times it became every man for himself.

Due to my mother's drunken insanity my mother didn't meet any of our needs. My sister was thrown into the role of pseudo-mom which she intensely resented and she let us know it. When my mother wasn't around (often) my sister also took on her role of abuser, nearly killing my brother once by pushing him down a flight of steel stairs. She sent him to the hospital more than one as the result of their fist fights when we were home alone. I managed to avoid most of her physical abuse by hiding--unlike my mother, my sister didn't bother to look for me. But my sister abused me in other ways that more than made up for any physical abuse that she missed doling out on me.

My brother and sister both moved out at age 18 leaving me behind to bear the brunt of everything alone. It was a long 5 years in that house by myself.

 

[LaurenRose]

lastborn (bio mom/dad)
middle (bio dad step mom)
oldest (older brother sent to foster care)
only child (family rejected me)

 

[incongruent]

I am physically my mother's only child. and my mother's soul idea of the purpose of life- is to bear children and raise perfect children. So it put me in an extremely odd situation. A mix of 'Can do no wrong' with a dash of 'psycho'. I remember us getting into a fight when I was 16 and her 'threatening' (Most of her crazy statements weren't angry statements. They were her inability to deal statements.) to drive over a cliff with the two of us in the car.

However in our family- my sister is my half sister, from my dad's side. So I'm also the 'baby'. There's 6 years between me and my sister, and she's... not well either. I heard plenty of times as a child things like " If you were my daughter- I would have killed you already." "i wish you were dead" which I understand is a relatively normal thing to occur- but not typically when the youngest is 15, and the 21 year old is chasing her out of the house with a knife. We get along 8 months out of the year- because I have no bloody clue what she suffers from, but it's like "Hey- I'm your sister, I love you" for about 6 months at a time, and then she'll spend a month in that stage where everyone fears for their life around her. Rinse and repeat.

 

[Spero3]

I am the youngest of three daughters. My oldest sister is the perfect, golden child. Even now she lives in a bubble and cannot handle anyone else's emotions. My feelings are constantly undermined by her. Yet, everyone is supposed to completely understand her at all times.

My middle sister got most of the emotional abuse. She was the typical troublesome middle one. She rebelled. She really suffered at the hands of both of my parents. She "gets it," and it is safe to talk to her.

I was the youngest who, according to a counselor I used to see, was "supposed to fix the marriage." When married couples have trouble, one thing they do (usually without conscious thought as to why they are doing it) is have another child to fix things. The stress of a third child just made things worse. My mom took her anger out on me with her fists and anything else she could get her hands on. And, I know my father wanted a son. Instead, he got another daughter. I disappointed him, and I was always aware of it.

Spero

 

[Kb3]

First of three. My mother has charmingly described having children as similar to "making pancakes; the first one never turns out right, so you throw it away, the second is still a little funny, but you have the knack of things by the third and they usually turn out all right."

Anytime I start beating myself up for being in therapy for most of my adult life, I think of that pithy little description of her parenting philosophy, and keep going. I may needlepoint it onto a cushion someday.

 

[jasmin]

Well.. I grew up an only child and when I was 15 I found out I have 2 half sisters.. from my father's second marriage. But I didn't meet him (and them) til I was 15 and I never really see them now either, maybe once or twice a year since we met.. so I don't know if I'd count as a first born.. I still feel like an only child.. I voted as an only child..

 

[Kintsugi]

So far this poll has shown me that a huge amount of people who are abusive have multiple children (only 11 votes for only child, though I know a lot of people's trauma is not from direct family).

 

[hazen]

I was the lastborn. The job that I took on myself was to stop my parent's fighting, and to instigate a beating on me if it would stop them from hitting each other. Good times. My sibs dealt with everything rather differently from me.

 

[anni]

I'm the middle of 3 daughters. It's currently a painful subject for me, why I guess I chose the thread. I'm not actually a terribly quiet person but was always the 'quiet one', in the family, the nice one. The older was frankly bitchy, the younger turbulent. I just shushed to stay under both their radars, went my own way- think was somewhat resented because my parents really did disallow my sisters to push me around too much. Now swapped, trying to disallow them pushing the 'rents around. Seriously failing them badly so far and running out of ideas. The axiom on middle children is incorrect, however. We're not always gentle people- get very tired of being squished.