If you are a younger sibling, then you know what I am about to talk about. The way you are treated by your older siblings is something that can be very complicated. You are taught by your parents to love each other because you are family, but it never really happens like that…

When you’re the youngest, the anger is taken out on you, whether you are the cause of it or just an innocent bystander. Older siblings love to gang up on the young ones and keep going until they feel satisfied or until the parents see and stop them. But you know something? It makes us stronger than ever. We learn to take all sorts of pain because of them so when we hurt later in life, we have the will power to get up and keep going.

Your parents might be your biggest fans, but your siblings are your biggest critics. Everything you do is criticized about whether or not it's good enough to meet their standards. You might wonder what it is that we learn from this, but it’s simple… We learn to exceed the expectations of others and to only meet our standards. It comes to a point where we don’t care what others think anymore.

Many people say that siblings fight a lot. All of those people are right, but it is for a good cause. We fight over toys, over the last piece of bacon, over who gets the bathroom in the morning, over the present from the Grandmother that is supposed to be shared three ways, etc. The list goes on and on. Younger siblings usually get pushed right out of the way. And that’s how we learned to fight for what we want. We fight for what we need to survive and we don’t let others push us out of the way anymore.

Younger siblings are usually the recipients of hand-me-downs AKA the old clothes that the siblings before you wore and stretched out. Yes, it may seem odd but it saves quite a bit of money for the parents, so why NOT do it? Younger siblings are okay with this until we start to be asked if want their old shoes or socks with holes in them. With this, we learn to value new items because we know that there are some people in the world that do not have the ability to buy these new items.

“Are you their sibling?!? Oh my gosh! I loved your brother/sister! Such a joy!” If you’ve heard this before, then you know what kind of struggle it is to be able to do activities in the shadow of your siblings. School, sports teams, activities, clubs, groups, and so many other things can be a pain in the butt if your sibling did the same thing before you. We learn to fight for our own spot. We make our own character and our own person. And yes, we may get mad at you for comparing us to our sibling.

I realize that some of you may be reading this and wondering, “Wow. What kind of family did he grow up in?” But I have to say I have a wonderful family that was always there for me, even if it did not seem like it at times. But there is one lesson that younger siblings have learned that I have yet to share. This lesson is that we stick together, no matter what, and we stick up for one another. We are family. We are supposed to be together for the rest of our lives, so we have to learn to fight for each other.

That is the lesson that is hardest to follow.

That is the lesson that is most important.

That is the lesson that means you love them.