There are a lot of serious diaries on B.T. this past few weeks. This may or may not be one of them!
This coming week is my little sister’s birthday. She’ll be 49 – about 14 months younger than me. AND despite all of our childhood differences I really like her. She’s the baby of the family and from my perspective was a spoiled little brat. Okay – I’ll admit it – being the `middle girl’ skews my perspective. Having a brother in the middle with me age wise doesn’t count – he was the only boy. So – psychologists will tell you there are all kinds of impacts on your life if you are the oldest, middle, or youngest child. Older siblings are notorious for picking on younger ones. This is no such analytical diary. This both a giggly and serious diary…just for fun and something I was writing to send her for her birthday!
Confession time – and I’ll let all of you mete out my punishment!
Little girl things:
– I used to dig worms out of the garden and dangle them in front of her face – cause she hated bugs and worms. Being a tomboy worms were okay by me!
– I would hide her favorite doll in her bedding…so it would look like she had just misplaced it.
– I pretended she wasn’t around when we saw each other in school – it’s not cool to have little sisters hanging out when school friends are around. Despite being close in age we were two years apart in school. You know 6th graders do not like hanging out with 4th graders!
Teenager things:
– I would ask her leading questions when I came in late – she talked in her sleep and answered whatever was asked without waking up.
– I worked part time and had cool clothes – and wouldn’t let her borrow any of them – even for hot dates!
– I hid all my cool 8 track rock and roll tapes from her!
– When my boyfriend got me free passes to the drag races (he was a mechanic for one of the drivers!) I never got her a pass.
– – – –
I’m sure there are some other things that I could think of – but damn that was a long time ago! Since those days we’ve been bridesmaids at each others weddings, we’ve been there for each other when extended family members died, for each other through medical illnesses and hospitalizations, and just to be obnoxious to each other.
So this a birthday wish for my kid sister…and an apology for all the mean things I did to her – and a thank you for all those times she’s been there no matter how much our lives are different. We aren’t friends particularly but we accept and understand the other one – just as they are.
So – what kind of things did you do to your brothers or sisters?
Cross posted at Village Blue
Thanks for playing!
I have an older brother that was the picker. He took joy in making mine and my two younger brothers lives miserable. Can’t say we’re actually friends, but the wonderful thing about getting older is all my brothers and sister accept each other for who we are and what we are. No there is really no friendship with my older brother, but there is love.
It makes us mellow and thoughtful…and it’s nice that there is love there even without the friendship. We are the lucky ones – the ones that still love our siblings. Some aren’t so lucky and age brings animosity or jealousy or conflict.
I do believe you are right. We are the lucky ones, because in some families it could definitely go a different way.
and the only girl. So of course I was at the other end… the one who was chased with worms and spiders, coaxed (and pushed) up into the branches of high (to me) trees and left there to screech my head off, bullied into changing the water in the little fish bowl – no matter how terrified I was of the flopping fish I inevitably dropped on the floor, the “her” of “send her in first, to see” in all our childhood neighborhood scary adventures, such as sneaking onto the grounds of the “haunted” house, and the one not allowed to tag along with the older kids on the really fun stuff.
Thank heavens we all finally grew up đŸ˜‰
Happy Birthday to a fellow little sis!
Oh yeah – I forgot about that one!
You didn’t mention than one of the older kids or friends would hide and jump out and scare the bejeesus out of you as well!
On behalf of the big sisters – I can say I’m ‘mostly’ sorry for the all the times we picked on you. They are good for giggles now that we are adults though!
Yes, we laugh about most all of it now… good memories, even if it was pretty awful at the time.
Oh, and of course the other older kids (a kid named Junior and I were the youngest on the block, barring babies and toddlers) were complicit in tormenting. I got them back tho… we lived in one of those neighborhoods where if you did something at one end of the block, your parents or babysitters knew about it before you even got halfway home, so often I didn’t even have to tattle! I just made very sure everyone knew that I – the baby girl that everyone watched out for – was the injured party, ;).
Don’t younger sibs also know how to get their piece of the action??
I watch my niece, who is the youngest of 4. She is the absolute vision of sweetness and I love her dearly. But she knows exactly how to push her sibs buttons. Then, she stands back, looking all sweet and innocent, and says, “Who me?”
I think the youngest ones do the ‘who me’ sweet thing routine very well…but I’ve already admitted being biased there! And I know she would dispute it!
Oh, you bet. I certainly did, lol.
My youngest sister still tells everyone how we would distract her while we were playing in the basement, run up the stairs and lock her in. And laugh while she pleaded to be let out. We really WERE mean.
My mom wasn’t much better though. One time, when she was about 4 or 5, we went down to my great grandparents’ house in Kentucky. They had window seats. We were fascinated by them and asked what they were used for. My mother, thinking of the play “Arsenic and Old Lace”, said “for storing dead bodies of course”. My youngest sister, to this day, hates even the idea of window seats and my mother still teases her about it.
My paternal grandparents had cattle and sheep….we visited one spring and all the kids were playing near the new lambs.
The lambs decided they liked the little sister (about age 4 at the time). She squealed and ran for the house. The lambs followed bleating as only small lambs can do!
To this day she doesn’t like farm animals and the rest of us laugh out loud when ever she sees lambs and shudders!
Don’t siblings demostrate for us that we all have the capacity for good and evil? I’ve never been as mean to anyone in my life as I have been to my brother and sister.
I was the younger sister – and therefore took a more passive/aggressive approach. When we were teenagers, we sounded exactly alike on the phone. One day I called the dorkiest guy we all knew and pretended to be my sister. I told him that I “liked” him alot and arranged to meet him that day in a location where I knew my sister would be.
I guess in hindsight, this was actually meaner to the dorky guy than it was to my sister. But I was just actively looking for some way to humiliate her – and this is what my young mind came up with.
Now in our 50’s, I would not say that we are close, but I do know that if I ever need anything, she’s “got my back” and vice versa. So, its nice to have a sister. Happy birthday to yours SallyCat!!
Definitely – on the capacity for good and evil!
Not sure about the meanest thing though. I think being a big sister meanie prepared me for being mean to the ex-husband during the divorce process!
That’s hilarious. My sisters and I still sound exactly alike on the phone. We (well, I) never did anything that mean, although maybe I should ask them what they did in MY name.
I am the middle child of 5. Enough said.
You got some of each obviously! Maybe we should do that “middle child” diary one day!
I got lucky and my big sister and big brother didn’t particularly pick on me!
The collected tales of my childhood would require a continuing series of diaries.
for hiding the 8 track tapes. That’s just not the kind of thing a person gets past.
Unless, of course, she secretly found them and played them whenever you were out late…
At least one was the Osmond Brothers…and she had a crush on Donny!
Can’t vote, no appropriate category.
I’m the eldest of three siblings, me, my brother (#2), and my late sister (#3). We grew up in a rather ‘aggressive’ neighborhood, for lack of a better phrase, so we didn’t find it necessary to ‘pick on’ one another.
Yeah, we fought, we went after each other, but we always had each others back. Truth be told, nobody fucked with me or my Bro, ’cause they knew we’d kick their ass in a cold blooded fashion…and for as long as we were around, nobody ever fucked with our sister, ever.
We even had a family ethos, if you will…I’m your friend, I’ll help you any way I can. I won’t start trouble, but I will finish it.
I’ve been my brothers best friend for 57 years, and he mine. Fuck with one, contend with both. Wouldn’t have it any other way.
Peace
We lived “on the wrong side of the tracks” and it was a given that we protected the others.
I could pick on my little sister non-stop…but no one outside the family could! Little girls in saddle shoes were a danger to shins of those picking on any of the others!
I hear what you’re saying SC. But with all due respects, where I grew up it wasn’t about little girls in saddle shoes. It was serious shit. It has ‘colored’ my life in many ways…not all beneficial.
Sorry about the ranting quality of the post, you struck a nerve.
Peace
I know the neighborhood – I know it very well…
Sorry if I pushed buttons – the little girls in saddle shoes was a metaphor for much, much more.
Hehe,
Thank you for this entry.
Your worm-story triggers memories. I am the oldest of four siblings – three younger sisters. They were not too happy about bugs and stuff either. The middle one would freeze at the sight of a spider close by. I, OTOH, was good at catching spiders, which would end up in her bed room, or on her.
Good thing we are (all) very good friends to this day.
My little brother once snuck up behind me when I was eating a bowl of cereal, and dumped a whole jar of live june bugs in my bowl.
To this day, I will walk clear across the street to avoid a June bug.
Thinking back on some of my big brothers exploits. We lived on a farm and had horses and Shetland ponies. I can remember when my younger brother was six I came out of the house one day hearing him screaming. I kept wondering how he got on a Shetland pony that was bucking and running around. It ended up my older brother and a friend tied my younger brother onto the Shetland pony and then slapped it on the rump to start it bucking. It took my father about five minutes to run the pony down and get my brother off. To this day my younger brother won’t go near horses or Shetland ponies.
I have three older brother(5, 6, and 7 years older). They were very close and took great delight in making their baby sister cry. They are very intelligent and creative and came up with all sorts of ways to make me cry. My personal favorite involved my favorite stuffed toy, a Raggedy Ann doll. They somehow found a miniature one and hid mine. They then told me that I had left mine out in the rain and it shrunk. They had me bawling for a good long time before they fessed up.
On the other hand, being the baby girl in a family of boys did have its benefits. I was most assuredly Daddy’s Little Girl and got pretty much everything I wanted. I got very adept at crying loudly over nothing which caused my father to come running and yell at my brothers. hehehe.
We’re not all that close these days, though I have no doubt that I can always count on them and they on me should we ever need help in any way.
At Christmas this year, I cooked for a couple of extended famililes. The matriarch of one told a Christmas story from 50 years ago. Her daughter (who was sitting on the other side of the table) was such a stubborn little thing. She got her nose out of joint one Christmas Eve when she was four, and decided to run away from home. She slammed the door on her way out, and Daddy yelled through the door that she’d better get her butt back in and apologise. She was gone for almost an hour. When she knocked on the door, Daddy told her that she couldn’t come in until she said she was sorry. The little girl dug the snow away from the backyard dog house and curled up there. Periodically, Daddy yelled out back for the dog to shut up, adding, “See, the DOGS don’t even want you around.” There were whispered concerns that she must be freezing out there in her party dress and slippers, but Daddy said they couldn’t back down until he broke her spiritnce and for all.
This was told as an amusing story, capped off by the Christmas Day journey to the hospital to treat the child for frostbite. During the recitation, the middle aged woman in question appeared to be in a fugue state, blank faced and motionless.
I hear a lot of pain in this diary:
” He took joy in making mine and my two younger brothers lives miserable.”
“..no matter how terrified I was..”
“My youngest sister, to this day, hates even the idea of window seats and my mother still teases her about it.”
“To this day she doesn’t like farm animals and the rest of us laugh out loud when ever she sees lambs and shudders!”
“But I was just actively looking for some way to humiliate her.”
“To this day, I will walk clear across the street to avoid a June bug.”
” To this day my younger brother won’t go near horses or Shetland ponies.”
Perhaps I’m being too serious about someething that is supposed to be funny and light hearted, but so was that Christmas story.
children, or adults for that matter, so repugnant that it will be best if I do not say any more on the subject.
I think that you will hear that we, and our siblings, look back on these stories with humor. These are stories of kids picking on other kids. The original diary here was written as a birthday gift to my little sister…and she will laugh and grin…and tell her 3 children about the lambs.
There is a lot of pain in the story you told – of breaking a child’s spirit – by an adult.
A lot of people here know from experience what it means to break the spirit of child – from a child’s perspective. The Day the Tears Returned is a longer version of the broken spirit and reclaimed spirit of a child. Some read my story first in the linked diary and some read it almost a year ago at DailyKos.
You decide which is humorous and which is painful.
Huh. This seems to me like a fairly amazing diary. I have never, ever argued or fought or really even disagreed with my older sister. Never. Granted, we have a fairly wide age difference (ten years), but we have always been each other’s best friend and strongest advocate. Best friends forever. We don’t know any other way.
and definitely picked on…not so much by my sisters (11 and 9 years older) but by my brother, who was 6 years old when I was born and I don’t think appreciated another girl in the family too much. (Mom had two miscarriages between my brother and me, hence the wide age difference.)
It wasn’t till I turned 18 that he admitted that maybe, just maybe, I might be human after all…now he’s one of my biggest boosters. (The fact that we both turned out liberal in a family of mostly conservatives might be a factor.)