The Oldest Child Syndrome

Home is the place where, when you go there, they have to take you in.

Robert Frost

Being the oldest child in a large family is an uphill battle. Thus far, Daughter #1 has handled it with admirable aplomb. Her next younger sibling was born when she was only 18 months old, so she picked up the mantle of responsibility early. We lived in a mobile home in those days (which according to my dad, was just a gentrified version of a “trailer house”). The kitchen/living area was in the center with a bedroom and bath on each end. By the time she was three, Daughter #1 was sharing a trundle bed with her little brother in the room next to the living room. Every night for an hour or so, my husband and I could hear her (through the very thin walls) teaching Son #1 to talk.

“Say, mama,” she’d instruct him.

“Mama,” he’d repeat obediently.

“Say, Daddy.”

“Daddy.”

“Say, doggie.”

“Doggie.”

“Say, aluminum.”

“No.” That’s when the uphill part began.

By age 16, she had six brothers and a sister, most of whom were oblivious to the fact that she was in charge. But she has always been determined by nature, so she kept at it.

Two of our four bedrooms were downstairs directly beneath my husband’s and my bedroom, conveniently connected by heating ducts which doubled as very effective microphones for parent surveillance services. (I chose not to consider whether the sound traveled down as well as up.) One night I overheard Daughter #1 requesting immediate intervention from Son #4 in the bedroom next door for an intruder emergency.

“David. There’s a spider in my room.”

“So?”

“Come and kill it for me. I don’t want to get out of bed. It’s too cold.”

“Kill it yourself.”

“David!” Silence. then the sound of squeaking bunk bed springs. Silence. After a moment, the splat of a shoe against a wall and some growling which may or may not have included a couple of swear words.

“Thank you, David.” Finally, a door slammed so hard against its frame, the bottom of the closet doors in my room swung out toward me. Whether her siblings admitted it or not, Daughter #1 was in charge.

But there were days when the younger kids were happy to have a senior family member running the show. Like the day Son #4 (then a senior in high school) was hit directly in the face with a line drive during a church baseball game. If Son #4 hadn’t been 6’ 8” tall, the ball might have passed right over his head. Instead it broke his nose and a couple of surrounding bones. His face swelled so much, Daughter #1 reported, that it looked round like a basketball—no hollows for eyes or protrusion for a nose.

Since my husband and I were away at the Shakespeare Festival, Daughter #1 stepped in to handle the situation. She figured this was the perfect opportunity for her brother to have a little cosmetic work as long as he was having surgery anyway. So, she called several of his friends, explained the situation, and asked them to vote on what kind of nose restructuring might be most attractive for Son #4? Tom Cruise (already possessed of a broken nose)? Pierce Brosnan? Mel Gibson? Bruce Willis? Son #4’s friends were delighted to cast a ballot. Brosnan won. (Who knew his friends had taste?)

It turned out to be a beautiful nose, and Daughter #1 was quite pleased with herself. Naturally, that was too easy to be the end of the story. Son #4 went on a mission to Argentina where the average height is about 5’ 7”. One nasty winter day, he was walking down a street with a number of small businesses. Shop owners had rolled up their canvas awnings for the season, leaving only the metal frameworks in place—well above the normal-sized Argentinian.  But right in the path of a very tall American. Son #4 wasn’t watching where he was going and slammed into a metal structure, breaking that beautiful nose. Daughter #1 was about 3,000 miles away, so she wasn’t available for consultation. Son #4 pulled out a hankie and stemmed the bleeding. The nose healed itself without the aid of medical treatment.

Daughter #1’s response when she saw her brother get off the plane on his return? “Well, you win some; you lose some.”