Middle child not overlooked

[Anonymous]

Buy the middle child some new clothes and new toys. Especially with 3 girls, oldest has new, youngest will get new, but the middle gets stuck with the “perfectly good” hand me downs.

Also if you do things in age order to take turns—let the middle one go first 1/3 of the time.

People tend to make a big deal about the oldest being the oldest and the youngest being the youngest—make a big deal about the specialness that is being the middle.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m a middle child who was overlooked. Example: when I stated middle school, the school was twice as far to walk as my elementary school. My dad told me to ride my bike. I pointed out I did not have a bike. He was surprised to learn this. I explained I’d never had a bike and did not actually know how to ride one. “How could you not know how to ride a bike?! You’re 11!” But… no one had ever bothered to try to teach me, plus I had no bike to ride.

My childhood is full of stories like this. So I would make sure you don’t just assume your middle child is being patented by osmosis, which is what my parents did.

I'll out story you. My Dad was stunned to hear I as a middle child had to take out loans to pay for my public college. He paid full freight for my sibling's private university tuition, just somehow forgot to help pay for my college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m a middle child who was overlooked. Example: when I stated middle school, the school was twice as far to walk as my elementary school. My dad told me to ride my bike. I pointed out I did not have a bike. He was surprised to learn this. I explained I’d never had a bike and did not actually know how to ride one. “How could you not know how to ride a bike?! You’re 11!” But… no one had ever bothered to try to teach me, plus I had no bike to ride.

My childhood is full of stories like this. So I would make sure you don’t just assume your middle child is being patented by osmosis, which is what my parents did.

I'll out story you. My Dad was stunned to hear I as a middle child had to take out loans to pay for my public college. He paid full freight for my sibling's private university tuition, just somehow forgot to help pay for my college.

I was not the middle child. I am the youngest of two and my parents did the same thing. Paid full fair for the oldest. Told me to take out loans for college and then they would pay them off when I graduated. They never paid them off. 20 years later, after I had paid them off plus a ton of extra for the interest, this came up in a discussion. My parents were surprised that I was a little salty about college costs. Turns out my dad thought my mom had paid them. Mom forgot. They ended up giving me the $$ for the base loan but not the interest I had paid. Just goes to show you parents make mistakes with all sorts of kids, middle or not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have three children, all adults now. Dh is a middle child and had this concern, so we tried our best to treat everyone fairly and give each child an equal amount of attention. The result? All three children think that one of the other siblings was favored over the other two. Each of them named a different sibling! I guess is all depends on the perspective. We did our best.

Actually, PP, I've heard this is how you know you parented well! It's rare for each kid to think of themselves as the favorite (we all feel competitive with our siblings), so if every kid thinks another is the favorite, you did well. If everyone names the same kid, you really did favor one, and that's very very bad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m a middle child who was overlooked. Example: when I stated middle school, the school was twice as far to walk as my elementary school. My dad told me to ride my bike. I pointed out I did not have a bike. He was surprised to learn this. I explained I’d never had a bike and did not actually know how to ride one. “How could you not know how to ride a bike?! You’re 11!” But… no one had ever bothered to try to teach me, plus I had no bike to ride.

My childhood is full of stories like this. So I would make sure you don’t just assume your middle child is being patented by osmosis, which is what my parents did.

I'll out story you. My Dad was stunned to hear I as a middle child had to take out loans to pay for my public college. He paid full freight for my sibling's private university tuition, just somehow forgot to help pay for my college.

Did you ask him to pay?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m a middle child who was overlooked. Example: when I stated middle school, the school was twice as far to walk as my elementary school. My dad told me to ride my bike. I pointed out I did not have a bike. He was surprised to learn this. I explained I’d never had a bike and did not actually know how to ride one. “How could you not know how to ride a bike?! You’re 11!” But… no one had ever bothered to try to teach me, plus I had no bike to ride.

My childhood is full of stories like this. So I would make sure you don’t just assume your middle child is being patented by osmosis, which is what my parents did.

I'll out story you. My Dad was stunned to hear I as a middle child had to take out loans to pay for my public college. He paid full freight for my sibling's private university tuition, just somehow forgot to help pay for my college.

I was not the middle child. I am the youngest of two and my parents did the same thing. Paid full fair for the oldest. Told me to take out loans for college and then they would pay them off when I graduated. They never paid them off. 20 years later, after I had paid them off plus a ton of extra for the interest, this came up in a discussion. My parents were surprised that I was a little salty about college costs. Turns out my dad thought my mom had paid them. Mom forgot. They ended up giving me the $$ for the base loan but not the interest I had paid. Just goes to show you parents make mistakes with all sorts of kids, middle or not.

Did you ask them to pay your loans when you graduated? This sounds like you never said anything.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have three children, all adults now. Dh is a middle child and had this concern, so we tried our best to treat everyone fairly and give each child an equal amount of attention. The result? All three children think that one of the other siblings was favored over the other two. Each of them named a different sibling! I guess is all depends on the perspective. We did our best.

Actually, PP, I've heard this is how you know you parented well! It's rare for each kid to think of themselves as the favorite (we all feel competitive with our siblings), so if every kid thinks another is the favorite, you did well. If everyone names the same kid, you really did favor one, and that's very very bad.

Yup. The only people in my family who don't know that my sister is the favorite are my sister and our parents. Everyone else -- me, my brothers, my aunts and uncles, cousins, all our spouses, even our kids, even my sisters kids, know. It's comical sometimes because someone will point it out and then my sister and my mom will go 10 rounds explaining how everyone is wrong and "being mean" and why does everyone always "gang up" on my sister anyway? Like ZERO self awareness.

[Anonymous]

I was a middle child and didn’t feel overlooked - but I was the only one of my gender so that might have impacted it. We have all the same gender and we talk about it. Our kids say that being #2 is the best in the order because the oldest has to do things first so our middle doesn’t feel it’s a rough spot.