The Big Sister gig

Over the years I’ve developed a thing about big sisters and if/when my soul is ever recycled, I’ll have a word with the angels not to send me back as a big sister.

I once asked a cohort of new mums, “Two sisters, (I didn’t put ages on them but indicated their height – sort of five & three), Olivia (the younger one) and Grace (the older one).

Which one’s going to be arranging mum's funeral in forty years’ time?”

They all wrote down their answer and when we went around the group, no one had picked Olivia.

When I asked what that’s all about, one of the group volunteered, “Well, that’s how it is.”

I pointed out that these girls had yet to start school, and yet we were making such assumptions on their behalf.

The point I was setting up to discuss was, “What make you – you?”

There’s the Nature – Nurture debate, but clearly, big sisters are made.

The midwife didn’t suck air through her teeth and proclaim, “Gosh! This child’s going to be self-sacrificing and always manage to put the needs, wants and desires of others ahead of her own”

When asked, she’ll invariably be “Fine” – no matter what.

“How did Grace take it?”

“Oh she was fine – nothing seems to bother our Grace”

In fact Grace may have been heartbroken, angry as a wasp or bitterly disappointed – what the world would get would be “Fine”.

My suggestion is that this is a learnt thing that is re-enforced by a feedback loop for putting a damper on the expression of emotion. Grace’s contribution to harmony within the home would be to not express what she feels.

Olivia meanwhile, would have her finger on the demand buzzer and corner the market on attention.

A friend of mine (a Big Sister) was organizing her dad’s funeral in Leicester. He’d been in the Masons, and it seemed as if half the city had turned out for the occasion. Her younger sister could have travelled down from the North East by train the previous day but chose to drive down in an old banger of a car that broke down ten miles short of her destination.

Someone volunteered to go and rescue her and despite the hold up to the cortege, everyone made a big fuss over her, did the, “Oh you poor dear” routine and off they went. My friend wanted to kick her over the rooftops. Nothing had changed in all the years, as she became the centre of the drama at dad’s funeral.

OK, what about those situations where this doesn’t seem to apply?

Well, my experience is that, generally, someone gets the Big Sister gig – even if it’s the youngest sister. All the attributes of self-sacrifice and putting the needs of others ahead of her own will land in her lap.

For some, liberation comes when they marry and/or move away. For most, they may marry and move on but manage to slot someone else into the spot that one or both parents vacated or even keep them in play whilst adding a partner and kids in to the mix.

What of brothers? Well, things can work in the same way, where the Big Brother gets the self-sacrificing gig but it’s more common for that brother to be saddled with Golden Boy Syndrome. I say “saddled” as though GBS was burdensome in some way. In fact, GBS is generally burden free. “Don’t trouble our David with that…he’s very busy,” is a comment that you wouldn’t be surprised to hear.

If you look at the illustration for the piece on The Emotional Jig Saw and imagine that the red piece was originally meant to be a circle, with all the abutting pieces curved to that shape. Then imagine the contortions that the Big Sister piece has gone through to accommodate the needs of those around her. Now, imagine the confidence that the accommodating Big Sister would need in order to renegotiate those relationships and expectations, in order to get towards the disc shape she was intended to be. She may choose to stick out here a bit or dinge in here a bit but this would be by negotiation not accommodation.

It’s the discovery that the sky doesn’t fall in when she ASKs for things of others or REFUSES demands made of her that is truly liberating.