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The Life as a Middle Child

Honestly, I did struggle as a child figuring out my place in my family. Now, I realize that I am an essential part of my family.

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The Life as a Middle Child

Let me tell you that being a middle child is no easy task. You are not special in any way; you're not the first child to take his first steps, but you also aren't the last child to do so. You're not the first of the family to graduate high school, go to college, or do anything special, especially because the kiss up oldest child is usually on top of all of their tasks.

By the time it's your chance to do anything or be anything special, your mom has already seen your older sibling do it. Big moments in your oldest and youngest siblings' life are barely even recognized in your life. In fact, your first birthday cake probably looked like this:

This does not apply to the youngest child, though, because their big monumental moments in life are going to be your parents' last. They care so much about both of their achievements, but yours are nothing special.

Your parents often compare you to your siblings, although usually inaccurately. You're seen as the child who is always acting up, causing problems, and begging for attention. However, the "problems" you cause are usually seen as "accidents" when your other siblings do the same thing. The oldest is a model child, and by the youngest, your parents have already given up on rules, so you're usually seen as the "rebellious child."

Because you're always referenced as the rebellious child, it makes you want to actually be one. At least that way your parents will remember you exist, right? Wrong. They usually won't even notice if you stay at your friend's house for 72 hours straight, but then when your sibling does the same thing, they're grounded for two weeks.

In fact, you can get away with virtually anything. You could move to China and they wouldn't notice. Unfortunately, this goes the opposite way too. You can achieve the same things your oldest sibling achieved, and instead of getting a huge party and 100 dollars like they got, you usually only end up with a pat on the back.

This makes us want to be better than our older sibling and it often creates a huge sibling rivalry. Oh, you learned how to drive a car? Well, then I'll just learn how to drive a car, a motorcycle, a boat, and a jet-ski.

Even then, your parents might not even notice. That wouldn't be so annoying if the opposite weren't true for your youngest sibling, but instead, your younger sibling will get a reward for simply breathing.

When you try to explain your middle child problems to your parents or siblings or even some random human on the street, they usually have no sympathy for you. Whenever I complain about it, my dad always says I should write a book called, "My Name Is Katie Palmer and My Life Sucks."

As a child, being a middle child was the worst thing in the world. I was never noticed, and I never mattered. As I got older, though, I started to notice some real perks of being a middle child. For beginners, getting away with everything isn't so bad.

Middle children are also extremely good at saving money. It's probably due to the fact that we get to watch our older siblings struggle to pay for even just a bottle of water growing up or the fact that we aren't given free handouts on a regular basis like our younger siblings are. We also have had to work so hard our entire lives to even get noticed that after a while it just happens by default. Basically, we will all be rich and super successful when we're older.

As we get older, we usually tend to be appreciated more by our other siblings as well. My siblings used to team up on me and beat me up, but now I'm best friends with them both because I'm the only one who understands their situations. My siblings are just too far apart in age to vent to each other, so now, they always have to come to me. They both openly admit that I'm their favorite sibling now, which means I'm just sitting here like:

Our relationship with our parents will grow as we get older as well because our parents finally start to notice and appreciate how hard we try and how successful we are. By this time, though, we don't even need their approval because we're already so independent and confident. Watch me while I take over Wall Street, Mom.

Honestly, I did struggle as a child figuring out my place in my family. Now, I realize that I am an essential part of my family. I am the middle child, and I wouldn't change it for the world.

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