regarding the birth order dynamic. They were once only children, the center of their parents' universe. However, as succedent siblings are born, they are dethroned, discarded, and/or placed on the lowest totem pole in comparison to their younger siblings.
In many families, they are asked to be surrogate parents and assume other adult responsibilities although they are children themselves. Oldest children are ADULT from childhood. A normative childhood is a foreign and/or unheard concept in the lives of oldest children.
Parents spend THE LEAST time with their oldest children, figuring that the latter do not need them as much. Many oldest children in families suffer from benign child neglect. They are held to a higher and stricter standard than their younger siblings. They seem to receive no parental quarter and/or levity. They seem to walk the chalk line.
EVERYONE in the family look to them. Oldest children have to be ON 24/7/365. They have NO FREEDOM or AN INDIVIDUAL LIFE. The oldest child is the HARSHEST and oftentimes THE MOST DIFFICULT of all birth orders. Oldest children seem to get the SHORTEST end of the stick! Do you agree with this presentational premise or not? Why?
You know, I gave this post a lot of thought before decided to weigh in. I am the youngest of two. My sister is close to eleven years older than I am. For many years, she got the majority of my mother's attention, and when that wasn't possible, she received undivided attention from my grandparents. After their deaths, my mother married my father, and two years later, I came along. There were many problems that my parents were dealing with when I came along, and my sister very naturally assumed a maternal role toward me. She carried me around with her for almost everything - until I was almost nine. At that time, she had her own children, and sister as mama sort of went by the wayside. But, for my entire life, until my mother's death, it was impossible for my sister NOT to treat me as though I was a child in need of her maternal/big sister instincts.
When our mother passed, we experienced a crazy switch-up. My sister had an epiphany that I had become an adult - and I had the same epiphany - and we both realized that I didn't need her to mother me in any way. Then we became equals, and have remained as such ever since. We are still sisters, but the often automatic mother/child sort of relationship has passed.
We were very different as teenagers. My sister was rebellious, I was not. I can't really say why, except that things were very difficult between my parents then. Once I became a teenager, my parents were divorced, and my mother was raising me alone.
I don't know that Jen's position was the most disadvantaged or not, but I still, at close to 40, look up to her as a wonderful and amazing inspiration. And, in terms of success, her life has been much more successful than mine.
What a loving tribute to an oldest sister. God bless!
by Grace Marguerite Williams 7 years ago
I believe that the oldest child in a family have the toughest and roughest path to go. He/she was automatically dethroned upon the birth/births of a successive sibling/siblings. He/she is often held to a higher and stricter standard than his/her younger siblings, ...
by Grace Marguerite Williams 9 years ago
Why do so many oldest children have a passive-aggressive relationship with theirsiblings? What is the root cause of so many oldest children exhibiting such behavior towards their younger siblings? Analytical answers please.
by Penny Godfirnon 7 years ago
If your were the oldest child in your family were you given huge responsibilities?Were you given responsibilites beyond your years and were you able to accomplish them or did you suffer from failing your parents!
by Jessie Watson 6 years ago
We already know that children can suffer from a full range of learning and mental disabilities if they have not received physical or emotional contact before the age of 5. Since 2017, there is more mounting evidence to support that birth order has some effect on the expression of intelligence in...
by jagandelight 7 years ago
Do you think an only child is better off more than they are with siblings?
by Kevin Peter 7 years ago
Elder children always have a feeling that they are avoided by their parents. What can parents do about it?
Copyright © 2025 The Arena Media Brands, LLC and respective content providers on this website. HubPages® is a registered trademark of The Arena Platform, Inc. Other product and company names shown may be trademarks of their respective owners. The Arena Media Brands, LLC and respective content providers to this website may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website.
Copyright © 2025 Maven Media Brands, LLC and respective owners.
As a user in the EEA, your approval is needed on a few things. To provide a better website experience, hubpages.com uses cookies (and other similar technologies) and may collect, process, and share personal data. Please choose which areas of our service you consent to our doing so.
For more information on managing or withdrawing consents and how we handle data, visit our Privacy Policy at: https://corp.maven.io/privacy-policy
Show DetailsNecessary | |
---|---|
HubPages Device ID | This is used to identify particular browsers or devices when the access the service, and is used for security reasons. |
Login | This is necessary to sign in to the HubPages Service. |
Google Recaptcha | This is used to prevent bots and spam. (Privacy Policy) |
Akismet | This is used to detect comment spam. (Privacy Policy) |
HubPages Google Analytics | This is used to provide data on traffic to our website, all personally identifyable data is anonymized. (Privacy Policy) |
HubPages Traffic Pixel | This is used to collect data on traffic to articles and other pages on our site. Unless you are signed in to a HubPages account, all personally identifiable information is anonymized. |
Amazon Web Services | This is a cloud services platform that we used to host our service. (Privacy Policy) |
Cloudflare | This is a cloud CDN service that we use to efficiently deliver files required for our service to operate such as javascript, cascading style sheets, images, and videos. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Hosted Libraries | Javascript software libraries such as jQuery are loaded at endpoints on the googleapis.com or gstatic.com domains, for performance and efficiency reasons. (Privacy Policy) |
Features | |
---|---|
Google Custom Search | This is feature allows you to search the site. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Maps | Some articles have Google Maps embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Charts | This is used to display charts and graphs on articles and the author center. (Privacy Policy) |
Google AdSense Host API | This service allows you to sign up for or associate a Google AdSense account with HubPages, so that you can earn money from ads on your articles. No data is shared unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Google YouTube | Some articles have YouTube videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Vimeo | Some articles have Vimeo videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Paypal | This is used for a registered author who enrolls in the HubPages Earnings program and requests to be paid via PayPal. No data is shared with Paypal unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Facebook Login | You can use this to streamline signing up for, or signing in to your Hubpages account. No data is shared with Facebook unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Maven | This supports the Maven widget and search functionality. (Privacy Policy) |
Marketing | |
---|---|
Google AdSense | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Google DoubleClick | Google provides ad serving technology and runs an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Index Exchange | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Sovrn | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Facebook Ads | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Amazon Unified Ad Marketplace | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
AppNexus | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Openx | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Rubicon Project | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
TripleLift | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Say Media | We partner with Say Media to deliver ad campaigns on our sites. (Privacy Policy) |
Remarketing Pixels | We may use remarketing pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to advertise the HubPages Service to people that have visited our sites. |
Conversion Tracking Pixels | We may use conversion tracking pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to identify when an advertisement has successfully resulted in the desired action, such as signing up for the HubPages Service or publishing an article on the HubPages Service. |
Statistics | |
---|---|
Author Google Analytics | This is used to provide traffic data and reports to the authors of articles on the HubPages Service. (Privacy Policy) |
Comscore | ComScore is a media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises, media and advertising agencies, and publishers. Non-consent will result in ComScore only processing obfuscated personal data. (Privacy Policy) |
Amazon Tracking Pixel | Some articles display amazon products as part of the Amazon Affiliate program, this pixel provides traffic statistics for those products (Privacy Policy) |
Clicksco | This is a data management platform studying reader behavior (Privacy Policy) |