Oldest, Boldest, and Slightly Bossy

There’s something special about being first. The first to cross the finish line, first in your graduating class, the first to be chosen during a game in PE, and most importantly, the first born in your family.

"Being an older sibling feels empowering. I’m looked up to because I’m older. I’m a listening ear to affirm and encourage."

As the oldest child, I find myself striving for the illusion of perfection. I grew up feeling rejected by my father. It took a while for us to find our rhythm and learn our communication styles, and now he is someone that I find to be emotionally available, who believes in me, who tells me that I did a great job raising my boys every chance he gets, and someone that I can share laughs with. But because of my desire to be seen by him as his only child at the time, I worked really hard to be seen by others as a way to prove that I was worthy.

I want to be in control-of the things that I want to be in control of…you’ll catch that later. I don’t like to wait, I want my pillows a certain way on my sofa, I can tell when something is missing from my bathroom closet, and I have a hard time celebrating my achievements. I prefer corrective feedback over affirming feedback because I always want to know what I can do better. I don't like my gray hair to show because it's an imperfection to my blonde hues.

Being the oldest child and harboring insecurities has impacted my self esteem. I want to know what makes the new woman better than me or why another finalist was chosen for a role that I spent months competing to earn.

I was the only child for four years, but six years in my home with my mom, and I thrived on the attention that I received.

Parenting the oldest child is typically lots of trials and errors. The oldest child is tasked with being a role model for younger siblings and making the family proud. As a mother of two children, I can admit that I held high expectations for Jordon. I enrolled him in summer reading programs the summers before both his PreK and Kindergarten years. He began tracing his letters at three years old so that he would have legible handwriting. He claims that when he was six years old, I made him write his name six times before going out to play. That doesn't even sound like something I would do...eek! Sorry, son! BUT for the record, his second-grade teacher told him he had the best handwriting in the class-so there’s that! What I didn’t consider was the impact that being “perfect” would have on him in the long run. He said he felt pressure to always "get it

right", like I didn't allow room for his mistakes, particularly with his grades.

Jordon has admitted that the pressure that I put on him drained him and when he graduated high school, he was finished! Although I raised my boys to have their own minds, it felt like a blow to my "perfect parenting" when he decided not to go to college. Because WHAT-do you realize the sacrifices I made to provide you with the best educational opportunities! But after the initial shock, I realized that he has lived up to my high expectations simply by making a choice that went against the status quo. He didn't allow the promise of a car or other incentives to persuade him to do something that he wasn't fully committed to pursuing.

There are advantages and disadvantages of being in any birth order within your family, or even an only child. For example, the youngest sibling likely had it the "easiest" because our parents were tired by then. I only have two children who are four years apart and I guarantee that Brice didn't have to write his name six times to go outside to play. I reached out to a few first-borns and asked how being the oldest has impacted them.

A sweet 10 year old said-

"It's tough being the oldest sister because sometimes I just want to enjoy myself but I have to watch my little sister."

My line sister Robin shared-

“Being the oldest child made me more protective, and I challenge my children to be leaders and to always have their sibling’s back. I expect a lot from my kids as far as accountability and keeping their word. I don’t expect perfection, but I do expect that they always put their best foot forward in whatever it is they’re working on.

With being the oldest I also had a lot of extra parental responsibility put on me, especially after my parents divorced, so I tried to be mindful of that as it relates to my oldest child and not put that same expectation on him once I had his sisters. I wanted him to still be a child and enjoy all aspects of being a child and not have the burden of taking on adult-sized responsibilities.”

My cousin Levitra noted-

“It made my transition into adulthood very easy. It does make me controlling, I handle a lot of the day to day logistics and it gives me incredible problem solving skills. The downside to that is that I am the problem solver. Chris holds his own, but I feel like I spend most of my time making sure things run smoothly while he just goes with the flow. Drives me crazy that I am unable to relax on certain things. House is always clean-and I cannot function when it is not. I cook every day because I want to be in control of what I eat. There is no one to ever lean on because EVERYONE leans on

me for something. It’s infuriating sometimes. Very isolating at times as there is rarely logic to my thoughts, so I keep them to myself. Things that matter to me don’t matter as much on the grand scale of things. And they really don’t-most of my brain isn’t rooted in logic. It’s me wanting everything to be in order because if I don’t then I feel like a hot mess. And I won’t be a hot mess. Definitely a perfectionist complex-I’ll be PTA president next year and I just moved here. I volunteer at the daycare-and do all of the things to serve my family daily. I definitely get it back tenfold but it’s exhausting sometimes. 

Long story short-batshit crazy and controlling. But my husband doesn’t mind-he benefits immensely from all of this.”

What I enjoy most about being the oldest child and the age gap between my maternal siblings (6 and almost 9yrs), is that there are inside jokes, or movie quotes, or childhood stories that are unique between me and my mother. My kids got the younger, more active, version of my mom as a grandmother. I also got to enjoy high school and college life without social media because .... well let's just leave it at that!

A particularly special advantage of being the oldest in my family is how my siblings, including my brother in love, look up to me. Although they call me bossy...the jury is still out on that...I can share the good, the bad, and the ugly about things they are going through. I was able to use my success as a teacher to influence my baby sister to become an educator and she is the best teacher I know. Both of my sisters are great mothers to my nieces and nephew and I'd like to think that I had a tad bit to do with that as well. My little brother, who is actually an adult, marches to the beat of his own drum, but he will at least listen when I try to advise him.

Sound off in the comments. Do you think birth order has an impact on how we raise our kids, choose partners, perform at work, etc?