Growing Up Geeky: Typical Middle Child over here

Monday, November 19, 2012

Typical Middle Child over here

At only 23 months and {almost} 2 months (yikes - can you believe Aurelia will be 2 months old on the 23rd?) it's not likely that we'll see any effects of our children's birth order on their personalities any time soon. It will certainly be something that lingers in the back of my mind, though, as my sisters and I seem to be the poster children for birth order theories and philosophies.

It might be important to explain that for more than half of my life I was one of 4. My eldest sister Shannyn (Carina's middle namesake) was my Dad's daughter and she was 13 years older than me. She lived with her Mother but spent time with us on the weekends quite often when we were young. When I was 5 she went off to college and we didn't see much of her for a long time, which is something I'll always regret. She passed away after a medical mistake back in 2001. That's a story for another day, though. These post-partum hormones are making me too emotional to relive that all again.

Anyway, because she was so much older and we only saw her periodically, she was more like a cool aunt (at least to me). We didn't have the normal sister relationship which so often includes yelling, fighting, tattling, the silent treatment, grudges, resentment, and so on at some point while you're living under one roof. If you didn't experience any of those joys of sisterhood? I'm truly jealous, or you're lying ;)

Jessica, Shannyn, Amanda, and me. Be jealous of my AWESOME hair.

My sister Amanda is just 15 months older than me, and Jessica is 2 1/2 years younger. I won't go into details (since I know they read my blog periodically), I'll simply say that they exemplify the typical "oldest child" and "youngest child" quite well. LOVE YOU, ladies.

And me? I'm definitely a middle child. Growing up I often felt left out and tried my best to blend in rather than make waves. To this day, when I'm with friends I often feel like I don't belong. The worst part: every now and then I wonder if some of you out there read this blog just to make fun of me or feel better about yourselves. If it's not already painfully obvious - I'm insecure.

{I'm going to preface this with an apology to my family members. I hope you can forgive my feelings here.} I think my insecurities largely stem from the fact that I don't feel like I received as much attention as my sisters when I was young. They commanded a lot of the negative kind from my parents and there just wasn't much time left for me. I tried my hardest to excel in school and never do anything wrong in the hopes that they would notice me.

Now that it's likely that we'll have a middle child (or children?) of our own someday, this is something that I'm going to be vigilant about. It would pain me for my child's insecurities to originate and intensify at home.

Are you a typical oldest, middle, youngest, or only child? Do you think there is truth to the philosophies?

This week's Toddle Along Tuesday co-host is Molly from A Day in Mollywood and the topic is birth order! Has it affected your kids' personalities, or yours? Is there any truth to that philosophy in your experience? There are no rules here, except that you link up a relevant post (old or new) rather than your whole blog.

Add your post to the list!

1. Growing Up Geeky

2. A Day in Mollywood

3. The Kavanaugh Report

4. A Day in the life birth order and twins

5. My Messmerized Life

6. Educating Miss Amber

7. Samantha

8. Candice

9. THE TAO OF POOP

10. My Organized Chaos

11. Blissful and Wishful

(Cannot add links: Registration/trial expired)

Next week's topic is hobbies! We mostly talk about our kids here, so let's talk about ourselves and what we like to do for fun, for once!

If you like advance notice for TAT, check out the bottom right of my blog - topics for the next couple months are listed. Would you like to submit a topic idea and/or volunteer to co-host one week? E-mail me!