September 30, 2009
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The Guinea Pig Child
All this thinking about the fire made me think of a story…
I don’t think I’m singular in this experience but being the oldest out of my siblings (there are three of us), I always kind of felt like I was a guinea pig of sorts for my parents. We joke about it now but even my parents will admit it. My parents were much stricter with me in a few different areas. I drove later than both of my sisters because my mom was scared. I had an earlier curfew in high school than my sisters ever did.
Being the so-called guinea pig, I suppose you could say that my parents tested some of their parenting techniques on me only to later abandon them before trying them on my sisters. One of the most infamous of these failed parenting techniques happened when we lived back in Texas. I would have been about 3 and a house behind our house caught fire. My parents decided to use that as a teachable moment. They took me over to see the house while telling me “this is why we don’t play with matches”
Needless to say, I did not ever want to play with matches and for the next few years (probably until I was 8 or 9), I had a bag packed with my worldly possessions (or just about as worldly as a kid’s possessions can be) in my closet.
Also, it’s pretty safe to say that my parents dropped that parenting technique like a lead balloon. Oh to be the guinea pig child…
Comments (13)
I got away with far more than any of my siblings. I love being the baby.
My older brother and I are 14 mos. apart. We were the guinea pig children. My younger brothers and sister got to do a lot more than we did, too
As funny as that story is, I can imagine how traumatized you were!
I feel the pain being the oldest of three as well…although in some ways the pampering may not be the best…
I know the feeling. I was an oldest child too. I was the one who always set the good example that the other two never had to follow, but I still got in trouble for not controlling them. Bleh My mother told me when I was born, I was like a little doll that she could play dress up with. That ended about the time that The Exorcist came out. Apparently, my mom went to see it while my grandmother watched me. When she came home, she fed me and gave me a bath. When she picked me up out the water, I puked all over her. She never fed me right before bathing me again. hehe
lmao because I’m the oldest of three and was also the guinea pig. It seemed liked the other two never had as many rules or had to be accountable for as much stuff as I did.
Yep, I was the oldest child and oldest grandchild. Lots of trial balloons being flown with me.
LOL..as a parent I must say I always look out for teachable moments too. But I learnt a valuable lesson along the way which is that not every thing in life has to be a teachable moment.
Yes, the number 1 child endures all sorts of novelties…..so mine would say.
I’m the oldest of three also. I think my parents, TB epsecially, had strong enough memories of their own childhoods, the triumphs and the failures, that they dealt with us pretty well. Of course my siblings and I have VERY different personalities, so what worked for me didn’t work for them and vice versa. I drove late because we moved and then I was terrified of driving. I’m now a good driver because it no longer petrifies me into making stupid mistakes, but it was touch-and-go for a while. Your fire story sounds like TB’s
@they_call_me_steffyjean - Oh yeah, my youngest sister feels the same way. Thanks for the rec!
@WakeUpLaughing - Hah, we laugh about it now but my parents still feel really, really bad about it.
@youandwhosearmy - Very true! In my family’s case, I don’t think that there was much pampering going on. I notice a huge difference in that way between my family and my fiance’s family. He’s the oldest of two and his sister is wayyyyyy pampered. She’s only a year younger than me (she just turned 23) and is still very dependent on her parents.
@harmony0stars - LOL, that would teach her
@buckeyegirl31 - Oh, if I could only count the number of times that I heard how I had to be responsible because my sisters looked up to me…
@christao408 - I so know the feeling!
@icepearlz - Luckily my parents eventually learned that as well
@BoureeMusique - My sisters and I all have similar personalities in different ways. Eventually my parents learned too that what works for one kid may not work for the others.
I know what you ean about being the guinea pig. My parents made many mistakes with my older brother and then did better wth the two younger brothers. I was the only girl, so was treated nearly entirely differently. I hated that because it meant fewer freedoms, but ended up thanking them after I saw the movie A Time to Kill.
My parents were super strict with my older brother and me about table manners. We still eat with our forks in our left hand and a knife in our right…proper European manners. My younger brothers, not so much. Very American those two.
Not so where I came from. I was in the middle, and I was the guinea pig for a lot of things. My older siblings were pampered and ruled the place.
lmao, oh the imagery