To a married couple the trials and tribulations of the first bornis a scary new ride. So many corners to turn along the way and so many decisions to be made. They hold their child close to them and hold a tight grip on them, giving not even an inch for their child to stray from the path the parent chooses for them. When the second child comes along, this grip is relaxed and leeway is introduced. Screw justice, we’ll just introduce a hierarchy.
This means that while the first child experienced the rule ‘You may have one friend over every other Friday and during the Friday in-between you may go round his house in return should you be invited’, the second child follows ‘Bring whoever you want over after school, we don’t mind as long as their parents know’.
While the first child is not allowed a friend to stay the night until his 12th birthday, the second child is frequently allowed friends(plural!) to stay over the night.
By now the second child has begun to realise what is happening, but also realising he can do little to prevent this, he is stuck in somewhat of a Limbo. For whatever he gets he is aware while he may indeed revel in the fact that he may have something where his younger sibling may not because of their age, he also knows that the privilege will be increased tenfold for the sibling before they have even reached the age at which he stands.
Another example: While the older sibling was always taught respect, in the sense of giving it, to purvey it and to aim towards it (ie, paying attention in school, choosing the right crowd, choosing a suitable career that we all know he will never ever achieve), the younger sibling, by the age of 12 is drinking alcohol, hanging around with the people who smoke, she has on and off boyfriends (though that could be argued as a variable compared to the luck of the older sibling).
Now, these rules we are familiar with, we can live with these rules. We can cope with the fact that we may be the child used to point towards a failed goal in life, while the younger sibling reaps the benefits of the non slave life.
Tim McIllwrath puts it ‘Is this the life that you live, or the life that’s led for you?’.
But when these laws are pushed to their breaking point, we find that we no longer accept the system and argue against it’s right to exist as a concept.
An example: Tonight I came home from a chemistry mock which I am pretty sure I have failed miserably, heading towards another meeting with the teacher expressing his ‘concerns for my future in science’, to hear that mum was going out to celebrate the……on the lash basically, and my sister and her friend who was round at the time were also going to some form of youth club.
I asked mum what was happening after and she said that my younger sister was returning and that her friend was going home. My EXACT word to her were ‘Good because I really can’t handle one of her sleepovers again on my own(picture running round the house in and out of the room I am in, terrible shrieking, loud noises, generally annoying), I find it hard enough when you are here’.
I am alone for one hour when my sister knocks on the door, barges past me and says ‘We’re having a sleepover’. My heart immediately sinks. About half an hour later my sister calls down the stairs, asking to use my futon for her friend to sleep on.
It is important to not that I have relatively little choice in this decision, it’s either the easy way or the hard way, and I crack and opt for the hard way.
I have things to do tomorrow, events involving a band that requires my room not being in need of my clearing up AGAIN after she’s dragged my room around to get the futon out.
So mum is called at the pub.
Long story short I get it in the ear and am forced to relieve the futon, the living room and anything else my sister’s heart may desire.
These laws aren’t concepts, they’re liberties. They are favouritism.
Could I EVER have hoped for the privileges my sister lives surrounded by in my stead?
Lupus needs his walk.
