Why it SUCKS being the eldest child

I hail from an Asian American family so I'm just saying beforehand, my reasoning may not apply to everyone. 

I am the eldest child in my family and as the eldest child, most of the responsibility is pushed onto me in these forms:

1.) Cooking
2.) Cleaning
3.) Helping with basic chores
4.) Expected to know everything or the so called "common knowledge"
5.) Expected to take care of younger siblings
6.) Expected to be the 'role model'
7.) Expected to have all life experiences FIRST just because I'm the eldest

I'm also judged maybe 10 times more harshly than any of my siblings if I do something wrong.  A great example happened today.  I had to fix the curtain rack in my room because it was starting to fall off and asked my mother to help me with it.  She ended up taking off everything, even the curtains and I got worried because my mom loves to procrastinate and if I don't push her to help with some task, she tends to leave it unfinished.  So I ask her where the drill is and she says it's "somewhere in the garage" and that I have to charge it.  I go into the garage to charge it and I place the plastic container that's holding the drill on the hood of her car because it was nearest to an electric outlet.

Well, today I'm busy with cooking side dishes for the Thanksgiving dinner, washing dishes, and vacuuming the house.  So when my mom sees the 'plastic' container on her car, she accuses me of being a b**ch (which I admit, I am somewhat of one), scratching her car when I did NO such thing, and telling me things like how my first priority right should be finding out how to move out (like I've never heard that one before..  I should start keeping a count on how many times she spits out the same old lectures to me.  I'll say this is about the 6th 'move out' speech I've heard).  I simply placed the plastic container on the hood of the car so it was JUST sitting there.  So after accusing me of scratching her car and getting pissed about how disrespectful I was and blah, blah, blah, telling me to say "sorry," (which I did) and I claimed that it was the closest place to the outlet, she then goes on and [note example #4], tells me and I quote, "If you had any brain in your head, you would have known not to do that."  Sticks and stones I tell myself, but there are some times where I'm just thinking this in my head..


Now my siblings have done things much worse than whatever crime I committed here.  One of my siblings leaves all her sh*t scattered around her bedroom floor, leaves dark black mascara crumbs or whatever it is all over the bathroom floor (and VERY near the newly set wooden flooring might I add), and she also straightens her fake hair in the bathroom, leaving bunches of that nasty hair all over the goddam place.

Another one of my siblings literally EXPECTS my parents to have dinner or whatever else it is, available in the fridge each and every f*cking day or else he complains about it, leaves his messes in the kitchen when he makes food, has an overall bad attitude towards helping the family with anything (usually expecting something in return), and regularly behaves like a condescending prick.  He's like this so much that my parents regard his bad habits and behavior as normal!  Can you believe it?

And may I add that all my younger siblings almost NEVER help with any chores around the house and claim that on their days off or after work that they're "too tired" to help and b*tch and whine about how they were working all day/week/whatever and that they can't even do a simple task such as taking out the trash or washing a few measly dishes.

And after all this, my mom or dad never even bat an eye because it's done so regularly and also because uhm, they're NOT the eldest child so they apparently have absolutely NO expectations WHAT-SO-F*CKING-EVER!

Oh, and let me add one last con to my list, AS the eldest child, because so many things are already expected of me, if I were to compare myself to a younger sibling, say we made the exact same accomplishment chances are, my parents will praise my younger sibling incessantly and often times, not regard what I did as an 'accomplishment' so I'm pretty much hardly ever praised for things I do.  In fact, I'm actually sort of put down if I do something.  Say I just finished vacuuming the house, (and usually my mom does this), if she sees me doing this task, she'll make the remark, "shocking!"  Now this seems pretty innocent but if you consider that this task I do is REGULAR and actually not shocking at all, then.................. yeah, wtf?


It's times like these where I wonder what it would be like if I were not born the eldest. Sure, there's a few perks to being the eldest initially as a child such as getting the most trust to do certain things and getting more overall attention. But as you get older, I notice that the only real advantage to being the eldest is that your opinions are more valued which is great and all but with that being the only pro to all the cons I mentioned, I must say that being the eldest child isn't so great unless you're a genius who rarely fails.

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Nuff said.............. and Goodnight-!


Comments

Julia said…
sorry that sounds suckish :P I've heard it's especially worse in Asian families culturally (or is that a stereotype?) :(
MiNapi said…
Yeah, it does kinda suck on "one of those days.." Nah I don't think it's really a stereotype, I do believe it's an 'Asian thing' unless the Asian's in question are REALLY far from their roots. xP

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