Middle Child

It's well known that the first born baby in a family is a major event.  The parents fill out a baby book, take hundreds and hundreds of pictures, record every second of the child's life and fawn over that child for a very long time.  As the couple has more children the excitement starts to wear off.  But in a family if you're not the first born and you're not the baby don't you seem to get lost somewhere in the middle??  From personal experience I know this is the truth.  I was the baby for 10 years and then came my little brother.   A few years later I had another brother.  Now I had a older brother, an older sister and 2 younger brothers.  Here I was stuck in the middle.

I was the only child to live with my mother.  We all have the same dad but different mothers.  So at moms I was like an only child.  But me and mom were not as well off as my 3 brothers and sister who lived with my dad.  Growing up I was the average kid.  I didn't wear fancy name brand clothes, I didn't get a car on my 16th birthday and I started working when I was 15.  I got good grades in school and stayed out of trouble.  Here comes the dilemma, at 16 my little brother and older sister both got cars for their birthday.  If my brothers ask for it they get it.  If my sister asks for it she gets it plus some.  If I ask for something.......... I get a look, a lecture and then a hesitant yes or a fast no.  OK OK I know I sound like a spoiled brat but what is it with parents?  Why must parents treat their kids differently?  They are always saying that they won't play favorites yet their actions are different from their words.  Sometimes I wish I had a different child hood and I was the oldest, the baby or just an only child.  

Then there are the middle children like myself who not only have their parents in their lives but also their step parents.  I have had a stepmother since I was 7 years old.  My two little brothers are the product of my father and stepmother.  Now we have the issues of stepparents.   The original parent wants to do for their child from a previous marriage but the new parent has to be consulted first.  This tends to cause problems because the new parent thinks that their children from this marriage should come first before anything.  So the stepmother that I have known damn near my whole life still thinks of me as "his daughter:"  I think that a mandatory class should be taken by women or men that are going to marry someone who has children from a previous relationship.  If you cannot except this child as your own then you have no business being in that child's life.  

I guess this issue can also be applied to life in general.  You can be the first born: the one that everyone remembers first, the one that set the precedent for everyone after them and the one that is spoiled beyond belief.  You can be the baby:  the one that is always right now matter if they're wrong, the one that does whatever he/she wants and the one that gets everything they have ever asked for.  Or you can be the middle child:  the one that gets lost in the crowd, the one that isn't the first and isn't last but is just there, the one that could be exceptional but no one notices.  The only difference is in life we can choose what child we want to be but in family, you are what you are.