Us eldest siblings get the raw end of the deal

Susan says:

02:15pm | 05/08/10

This brings a smile to my face.  My mum regularly refers to me as her ‘practice’ child, and I tell her that she used up all her meanness on me and has none left for my youngest sisters, 10 and 13 years my junior.

James says:

02:23pm | 05/08/10

I love the Minogue sisters.

Macca says:

02:51pm | 05/08/10

I was (am..?) the oldest of my two brothers. Being the oldest means you don’t have to share the car when you are learning to drive, you always get to sit in the front and you don’t have hand me downs. Plus you should be stronger and can beat up your younger siblings which is important when you are 8 years old and want attention

Steven says:

03:24pm | 05/08/10

I have one sister, 12.5 years my senior.  Or do I have two mothers?  Seems like it most of the time.

I tell people that my sister was an accident, not me, and it took Mum and Dad 12.5 years to figure out what actually happened!

Amy says:

03:33pm | 05/08/10

It’s not always peachy being younger, ya know.  My brother is the oldest and I’m the youngest…  He managed to spend years getting away with murder because he’d blame everything on his silly younger sister.  Stuffing the settings on the tv, turning the bass up too loud on the speakers, eating the last of the biscuits in the cupboard, going over the internet usage.  Always my fault.  It was only when I moved out and he stayed at home, but kept trying to blame me, that my parents realised it was him the whole time.  Idiot.  He really should have cut and run on that one.  Oh, and I spent my first 5 years in hand me down boy clothes.  Suck it up older siblings.

Gregg says:

03:36pm | 05/08/10

Maybe Julia can yet learn something from you Lucy
Whether to be the real Julia or Lucy in disguise.
I must admit my older sister was pretty good value though she was too many years apart for us to ever be real close, a good example all the same but elder brother, the lazy bum stole and wrecked my bike I could do without.

Richele says:

03:45pm | 05/08/10

I couldn’t agree more. Had my parents known I snuck a few cruisers now and then while out with my friends when I was 16, I would have been flogged. But my brother, only two years younger, can call and say he’s too wasted to drive home. I’m also the guaranteed baby sitter to my younger sister, they wouldn’t dare pull my brother away from his social life.
Being the eldest is just being the youngest parent, I think. Guess who had to hear both excruciating sides of my parents’ divorce?
Having said that, being my sister’s older sister is a blessing and I couldn’t love anyone or anything in this world more than I love her. (Guess who’s got her this weekend?)

Paul says:

04:59pm | 05/08/10

Yes, well, it’s true that you get all the overparenting because your olds don’t know what to do but then you get everything first and by definition your siblings look up to you.  There’s some weight of expectation but it all wears off after a while - either through you living up to it or underachieving so relentlessly they lower their standards to meet you: win-win.  Having had 2 kids now I have done the same things - slightly overcooked the first one and let the second have more slack, and they have responded accordingly (bit highly strung versus pretty self-reliant).  On average I pass as a parent - job done.

Fiona says:

05:06pm | 05/08/10

My mum says eldest siblings are like the first pancake: best chucked out & move swiftly to the second.
I’m the eldest…

Crusader says:

08:12pm | 05/08/10

How very true. I’m an eldest sibling, and right from a young age I think I may have been one of the strongest influences on my brother’s life and vice versa. Not because we wanted to copy each other, quite the opposite. We wanted to be different. After I learned to ride a bike, I tried to teach my brother how to ride too. We’ve long outgrown the three-wheeler we used to share, I still ride a mountain bike now but he hasn’t touched one since. As we got older, I tried in vain to teach him about morals, ethics and a sense of fairness but he became more stubborn than ever. Years later, he was a strong advocate of me giving up drinking, but now he does. And after him encouraging me to learn to drive, he still hasn’t done it himself. So now I’ve got a stubborn younger brother who goes out drinking and can’t drive or ride home so I’m the one who always ends up picking him up! Good thing being the oldest has taught me patience.

Kate says:

09:27pm | 05/08/10

I’m five years older than my sister. My parents were far more strict with me, I moved out of home at quite a young age to get a bit of freedom so it’s very frustrating to see them being very relaxed with my sister!
My sister could also hit, kick and insult me when we were arguing but if I retaliated it “wasn’t fair” because I was older and bigger.

My sister did get the short end of the stick in one sense though. I have obsessive-compulsive disorder, but wasn’t diagnosed until age 18. My parents grew up with me being extremely neat and fussy about order, routine and cleanliness, and assumed that it was just a teenage ‘stage’ that people went through. Along comes my sister, who is OCD-free and a typical messy teenager, and my parents freaked out thinking there was some problem with her because she made a mess. It made more sense to them once I was diagnosed though.

Lauren says:

07:14pm | 06/08/10

Being the eldest is a hard gig!

I was the child that my parents had high expectations for - and the CONSTANT reminder of setting a good example for my brother and sister was always ringing in my ear.

And if any time I’d act up, or do anything remotely selfish or sulky, it was always about setting the example. When I hit my twenties, my brother and sister, being 18 and 17, still acted as though they were 14 and 15… Or, at least, no where near as mature as I was when I was 17 and doing year 12.

I used to pretend I had an older brother too.