Being Second
By: Abigail Jacqueline
Tags: Life Lessons, Family History, Lifestyle, Self, Family

What it’s like being the second child

I’m eleven. My older sister is fifteen, four years older than me. We’re at a family gathering at my dad’s family’s home, and everyone is standing around my sister and her array of sketchbooks, phone pictures, and talents. I’m sitting with the dog. Fawning is not how I would describe it. My family is melted by my sister’s talents — she’s intelligent, young, and incredibly gifted in art, and she has so much to show for it. Meanwhile, I am an adolescent with greasy hair and ten extra pounds that my doctor has advised my parents “I will grow out of”.

I am thirteen. I go to school with my dad at the high school he works at, and everyone asks me if I am Emily. When I correct them, they tell me they didn’t know my dad had two daughters.

My sister is getting ready to attend prom. My dad, almost euphoric, cries at the sight of her in her ball gown. I take two photos with her, and the rest are of her and her friends.

Fast forward and my sister is graduating from high school. She’s been accepted at a large state university with honors and scholarships. My parents cry when she walks across stage. My grandparents are in attendance, flying up from Florida to see her in her white gown. My hair is too dark by my mother’s standards, and I’ve recently been bumped down from excelled math courses because I was fooling around in class. My mother doesn’t ask for a photo of my sister and me together.

It’s time for my high school graduation. My sister, being four years older than me, is about to graduate from college at the same time and has been offered a well paying position at a large health insurance company, and has plans to move out of the house into a large apartment ASAP. We stay at her graduation for several hours, my mother asking every professor in attendance about their time with my sister. My father has just missed my senior prom photos for a regatta at the high school he works at. My parents do not cry when I walk across the stage at my graduation, and no extended family is in attendance. I take more photos with my boyfriend than with my family.

I’m about to graduate college. My parents attend with my boyfriend, who neither of them approve of. When I walk across stage, I don’t hear them cheer. My mother wants to leave because parking will be so hectic to get out of. She takes four photos of me in my gown.

I am moving to New Hampshire for a job. My family is upset I’m leaving, and doesn’t speak to me for several weeks beforehand.

I am moving back home for another job. My parents tell me I’m not getting paid enough. I get into a graduate program at the same time as my sister. My parents only tell their colleagues about my sister’s graduate program. They mention to friends that I “work with disabled people”, and then continue to pull photos of my sister’s artwork to show the masses.

My family always told me I was planned, while my sister was not. But if I was planned, why do I constantly question my place? I recently received an email from my grandma. She didn’t know I got heart surgery (twice) at the beginning of June, despite my father staying in frequent contact with her. My family always tells me how beautiful I am, as if that is all that matters within my existence. I am not intelligent, successful, talented — I am only “you should do your hair this way”, or “wow you look tan today”. There is no “congratulations”, “how is your graduate program”, “your new job”.

I am a delayed consideration. But that’s OK. According to most, I’ve made it this way with my frequent seclusion and the privacy I feel most comfortable being shaded by. I do not like to be burned, and when I feel as such, I retreat. I infrequently look at my position from other people’s perspectives, and yet multiple considerations are important when it comes to how you feel in life. You cannot understand your own point of view without first understanding those closest to you. I am the second child — my family has already gone through the honeymoon phase with my sister. They fawned over her as a child, and by the time I arrived, babies were old news. I was the youngest of many cousins — by the time I arrived, there was a stack full of hand-me-downs and a bar expected to be met. By all standards of my family, my occupations are unconventional. Healthcare and therapy are myseries to them because nobody has ever pursued the same passions that I do — can I blame them for not being excited about my passions, when they do not share the same?

My parents are both artists of various mediums. Neither of them academics, neither of them writers, and neither of them having much patience. My sister is similar to them — not an academic, little patience, not a natural writer. On the other hand, I seek out the odd crowd. I flood my life with academia, pursue research at the high academic level, enroll in a dozen hard science courses for no other reason than interest. I have engulfed my life with helping others — working at camps for those with disabilities, making life long friendships with those individuals I have chosen to work with. I am pursuing therapy in graduate school, hoping to one day have the credentials to identify and diagnose autism — a field entirely foreign to my parents.

At the same time, my sister has had a passion and talent for art since a young age. In such a medium, it is easy to justify interest. Colorful photos and art styles are everyone’s “thing”, and seeing the talent develop from a young age is nothing short of amusing, if not incredible. For me, articles about my existential crises and scholarly papers about Autism are not everyone’s “thing”. In short words, I am a niche — a special interest — but not my family’s. How can I blame them for their lackadaisical approach to my life updates?

To be frank, I am not as interesting or exciting as my sister — at least not to my family. Nobody wants to hear about my academic conquests or my recent self-published article at Thanksgiving. I cannot force those around me to be interested in what I am doing, nor be excited about it. The fact of the matter is that my family loves me very much, however, I am nothing short of a mystery to them. On occasion, I am a mystery to myself — how could all attempts at producing an artistic child on my parent’s part result in, well, me? On all accounts, I am different from those I am related to. But that’s OK — it is my experiences being an individual that have made me who I am. I should not feel less than or wrong because there is not a party nor a grand display of emotion when something new happens in my life. I should only know and acknowledge that I am loved, but with a different language than my sister.

Perhaps you feel similar in your life, or perhaps you are the child that is celebrated. Perhaps you don’t empathize with my experiences, or perhaps you feel exactly the same. Regardless, it is important to consider that each individual in life is worth something. You have so much to give the world — do not waste your time worrying about the opinions of those around you, yet, consider them for your own sanity. What may appear as indifference may just be a lack of understanding on someone else’s end. You do not have to feel less than another — especially if it is a sibling, or another person you are related to. You only have yourself to answer to, and with that, I’d hope you would be proud of yourself.