Friday, April 22, 2011

Guest Blog - Making Lemonade

          I’m going to drop a little knowledge bomb on the followers of this blog. Life can be awesome for middle children. We are absolutely indecisive, and marginalized, and the list goes on (see older posts). But what I am here to say is that to me, being the middle child means making lemonade.  
            I wasn’t always so positive. My sister is 13 months older than me and my Mom thought it would be a great idea to raise us like twins. (PS. I’m a dude. Get ready for the fun stories). “What does being raised like twins mean?” you ask. Well, it pretty much means that I had to go to everything my sister wanted to do, tag along and keep her company while she got to bail on everything I wanted to do. Figure skating, gymnastics, ballet; name any activity a 10 year old girl would be interested in, and I probably took extensive lessons for it. While my sister was the envy of all her friends, I was trying to convince my friends that baseball players trained in slippers, that only the best football players wore tights, and that something called a “Lacrosse Leotard” really did exist.
            [Quick side note to those who were wondering: Displaying a perfectly formed Pirouette on the playground is not exactly the best way for a youthful member of the male gender to make friends.]
            I was embarrassed of all of these things until I started owning them. What I learned from gymnastics taught me exciting ways to risk my life on a snowboard. Ballet and Figure skating? I became one badass hockey player. Sure I was furious when my sister decided to tell my mom she wanted me to keep her company at acting camp. Right up until I found out the camp thought “Ariel” was a girl’s name, and placed me in a group with 24 other ladies for 3 weeks. Though I’m sure I would have enjoyed that more had I not been 9.
            The advantages to being a middle child didn’t only come from being my sisters surrogate twin. Lurking quietly in the shadow of my siblings, I realized that as long as my sister was dating nefarious characters and my brother was breaking stuff then I had to do relatively little put the imaginary “favorite kid” trophy in my imaginary trophy case. All I had to do was wait for their mistakes and I could do whatever I wanted as long as the damage was less than what they did.
            Being a middle child made me who I am today. I always know where the line is and I know how to cross it and not get caught; I’m independent and responsible; I’m observant and calculating; I can do a really awesome cartwheel. The fact is I never had a choice about being a middle child, so it’s up to me to decide if I want to just bite right into that lemon and spend the next 75 years gagging or juice the crap out of it and drink my deliciously refreshing beverage.
            I’m also majoring in conflict resolution. I guess some things you can’t escape.

[This post was written by a fellow middle child...if you want to hear more check out his blog at arielspursuitofawesome.blogspot.com

Monday, April 11, 2011

SHOTGUN!

Siblings quarrel. It’s a fact. Every parent in the world has accepted it. And more often than not, they choose to take a back seat and let their kids sort it out by themselves.

There are many types of fights that have the potential to break out amongst siblings... Who gets to sit in the front seat of the car? Who gets to push the buttons inside and outside the elevator? Of course everyone knows that the inside button where you push the floor is of higher status, but when there are five children any push is better than none. Who gets to sit next to dad at the table? Who DOESN'T have to bring in the drinks at the meal? Who gets to choose the TV channel? Who gets the biggest bestest chair by the TV? Who DOESN'T have to answer the phone/ doorbell?

These are but a few of the thousands of trivial arguments that erupt as children grow up. Writing them out now, they seem so meaningless, but when you are eight years old this is the only thing that matters: getting one up on your siblings. What a feeling! You have won, and there is nothing they can do about it. Glory is yours. (Until the phone rings again).

As a kid, I often wondered how, in such a moment of great desperation, my parents could just turn a blind eye to the goings on between my siblings and me. Did they not understand the grave importance of me pushing floor five when we went to visit my grandparents? My dignity was on the line, and they looked away? How could they?

As a middle child, if you were not an instigator of any particular squabble, one way or another you managed to get involved. Siblings have a wondrous talent for getting the middle children in on fights and making it seem like the whole quarrel is resting on their shoulders. It is clear that the middle child cannot solve the argument by electing himself to “get the front seat”. But the question is who does the middle child favour? Who do they side with? The older sibling naturally holds more power since they rank higher in the pecking order. Having them on your side will definitely earn you benefits down the line, be it with hand-me-downs, or helping you out with homework, etc. However, there is something about the younger ones... they are favoured, they are loved, they are protected. Being on their side means when they get spoiled, you do too. So, does the middle child want to be seen as the third oldest, or the elder of the younger ones? This dilemma has baffled MCs for centuries. 

Thankfully, the woes of the middle child have subsided in the recent years due to the wondrous phenomenon that is “SHOTGUN”.  The shotgun rule became popular when I was in my teens. Different communities hold different rules regarding the implications of a shotgun, but in my family it can be used for negatives and positives. For example: “Shotgun front seat” would imply that I will sit in the front seat of the car. However when the doorbell rings and we all shout out “shotgun”, that implies we are not getting the door and whoever says it last is the loser who has to get up.

The universal acceptance of the “shotgun” means that in every debate there is a clear winner and an even clearer loser. And these ranks are indisputable according to the rules of shotgun. This further implies that middle children are no longer required to be the peace makers, or get caught between the endless bickering.
So, to the creators of the shotgun rule, whoever and wherever you may be, we, the middle children applaud you. We are eternally grateful!