oldest v youngest - rights and responsibilities

cheeswright

My eldest kid (14) - frustrated by her younger sibling(10).. threw a wobbly today
and although I've calmed the waters for now...I have come to realise... have no idea what its like to be an older sibling.....
I'm a "younger "- my husband is too- as are both of my parents.....and me and OH both have poor relationships with older siblings.....
I googled and ..................nothing !!!!!

so in the interests of world peace ...if your and older and you have a successful relationship with youngers...what do you consider to be your rights...and responsibilities? - what do you suffer - and what do you get back ????
I've got nothing to offer my DD here and I'd really appreciate your input.

Seanymph

Ask your DD specifically what she things needs changing to make it 'fair'.

I don't know our house, so can't be specific - but do you make sure the older one gets longer up at night with you? Mine have always been allowed only to watch age permitted dvd's, films at the pictures, games on the xbox etc........ so my 14 year old would be watching 12's alone - my younger would not....... with that comes responsibility sometimes, I would expect better behaviour (or different, because sometimes the younger has a different skillset) - the older should always get to have their own hobbies catered for too - and the younger gets a bonus because you've already been through the system once (academic) so that is just a given.. but generally I try to make sure the older has things that set them apart - it's easier to, for instance, put them both to bed together, but it's lazy parenting.

They should both get age appropriate input and guidance.

Spendless

Ok I'll give it a go as I have the opposite of your issue. I am the eldest of my only sibling (by 7 years). DH is the eldest child having a younger sister and we have 2 children. So in our household of 4 3 of us are 'eldest child' and I struggle to see my youngest's pov.

For me, I always felt I resented being put in charge of my younger sister, whilst our parents worked and socialised. As my eldest child has got to an older age, I've realised that that wasn't the case. I was quite happy to 'muck in'. what I resented was that it wasn't valued. I don't remember being thanked for picking my sister up after school, I wasn't paid for babysitting - which went on till I was 19! I also feel that my little sister wasn't made to be independant as they had me to step in as another pair of hands- that's an issue she still has as an adult, and my parents still run round after her.

Is any of this any help?

Sambucus_Nigra

Yup - being the nearly adult whilst the younger one was mollycoddled - drove me nuts at the time. And my bro would be allowed to do almost anything whereas 'because you are older' you don't get away with it so much. And - borrowing my stuff. AARRGGHH.

The weird thing is as adults and bearing in mind we never lived in the same house as adults and live 250 miles away from each other and have done for about 15 years, we both have the same books, read the same paper etc etc - and one year gave each other the same present. Natch, must have been my influence on him.

lika_86

It' hard to be the eldest. I found my sister had such an easy ride compared to me, I had to fight for everything (ie. age I got my ears pierced, age I could go to the school disco, curfew etc), my sister got things easily because I'd already been there and had that fight and my mum had seen that it was ok.

Then again my nan said to me once (after I passed my driving test first time) that I didn't half make things hard for my sister because she had to follow.

Swings and roundabouts, luckily my sister wasn't really into the same stuff I was so no issues of hero worship or anything (maybe we were a bit too close in age for that - 18 months apart).

luxor4t

I'm an 'older', as is DH. My parents were both 'onlies' - Mum was constantly perplexed by the continual clashes between Little Sis and I
In a nut-shell, what was a privilege to be earned by me became her right automatically - bed time, pocket money, staying out late etc etc The older sibling breaks the barriers, youngers just tail-gate easily.
I found it frustrating because even at 7 or 8 she was still 'the baby' whereas I'd become the 'the big one' as soon as she was born, and was expected to look out for her, amuse her and give in to her while taking responsibility for anything she did wrong.

I have started and deleted about 7 paragraphs of examples - I didn't realise just how much resentment was still there

Bogof_Babe

I'm an older but only by two years so we were quite close as regards being allowed to do things. However I had a much harder time with first boyfriends etc., as we were both still "their little girls" when I was about 17, and they couldn't understand that I was growing up into a young woman, with all that entails.

On the plus side, I always got the bigger bedroom, and didn't have to wear hand-me-down clothes!

Spendless

lika_86 wrote: »

It' hard to be the eldest. I found my sister had such an easy ride compared to me, I had to fight for everything (ie. age I got my ears pierced, age I could go to the school disco, curfew etc), my sister got things easily because I'd already been there and had that fight and my mum had seen that it was ok.

Yes, this too ^^^^. Aged 16 I rang my Mum (from a pay phone in town) to ask if it was ok to have my ears pierced for the 2nd time. I had the money, which would have been either pocket money or from my Sat job. She refused and accussed me of already having had it done! I hadn't. Aged 14 she took my sister to the jewellers herself to have her ears pierced.

balletshoes

I'm the oldest, by 18 months, then its my sisters, who are twins.

I don't really remember having many issues solely to do with being the oldest child. As a teenager though, what was most important to me was having my own space and my own stuff, away from my sisters' space and stuff.

luxor4t

So ... not just me then :rotfl:

Spendless

My husband doesn't recall the sort of issues I mention with his sister, but she is only 20 months younger than him and they were in consecutive school years, so maybe a small age gap or that they are brother/sister rather than same sex siblings helped?