Here’s a few more things you’ll understand if you’re the baby of the family…
1. You feel you have a point to prove
Developmentally we spent our entire childhoods jogging behind the pack, so when the playing field levels we have pent up axes to grind. Yes, I know I’m 20 but I’m taller than them now, and dammit I want it marked on the wall.
2. When you see your family, you de-age several years
When families come together, everyone reverts to type. Older siblings attempt to display dominance; middle children act out repeatedly in a desperate bid for attention; and younger children sit smugly needling everybody before crying to mummy when someone reacts.
It’s the natural order of things. Human rights lawyer in the real world; whinging snark machine over Sunday lunch.
3. You still resentfully count the pictures on the mantelpiece
Younger children don’t get many ‘firsts’, and landmarks that once warranted floods of joyful tears now barely earn a pat on the head. You could win a Nobel Prize and it would still be jockeying with your sister’s first steps, and the first time your brother managed not to pee on the floor.
4. You still subsist on hand-me-downs
It’s faintly adorable when a child toddles around in an oversized, inherited sweater. It’s sensibly economical when a teenager steps out sporting hand-me-down trainers. But when you’re going to work in your older sibling’s suit and your first home is filled with their furniture, it might be time to assert some creative control.
5. It gets better as you get older
When you’re young age gaps feel almost insurmountable, but conventional wisdom holds that past a certain point they melt into obscurity. Not so: you will always be a few years younger. Ha ha.
6. You’ll always be treated like the baby
“My, aren’t you getting big and strong!”
“Grandma, I’m 33”
7. You have definitely said, ‘Ow’ before anyone hit you
Long seen by older siblings as evidence of foul play, every younger sibling has yelped preemptively at the sight of a raised palm or readied elbow. It’s simple Pavlovian conditioning, and if you actually hit us we’re telling mum.
8. You are your parents’ favourite
It’s not a stereotype. Repeat parents have had practice, and you’re their magnum opus.
