‘I can’t help it… I’m a middle’
“You’re bossy.”
The words of my daughter at a holiday brunch last weekend. I don’t remember the context and to be honest, I didn’t really consider the context because I’ve heard that one about a hundred times before, and I’m usually unmoved by it.
But this time, I had a comeback.
“I can’t help it. I’m a middle.”
Yes, it’s time to consider this whole bossy thing in the context of where I land in the birth order of my family. I am the middle of three rather closely-spaced girls. Look that up and you’ll find being the middle of girls is the middle syndrome layered on top of the middle syndrome.
A bit more than two years separate me from my older sister and me, and less than two years lie between me and my younger sister. For years, our mother was wrangling three little girls under age four. When they canonize her, she will perhaps talk about her decision, five years in, to return to college and then to work.
Now about the middle one. Look up middle child syndrome and you’ll find a dozen positive traits that “experts” attribute to the sandwiched one. Readers Digest did a thing in which middles are given credit for everything from good parenting to something called “being successful”, whatever that means.
It doesn’t take much research to find the flip side. The negative image of middles includes “overly competitive”, “attention-seeking”, “constantly searching” and, as my daughter will attest, “bossy.”
I try not to do so much navel gazing about what things may account for my personality because, at this point does it really matter? I think my abilities as a communicator and writer were more shaped by the music that was always in our house when my brain was forming. A news director once told me he can tell I know music because of the way I write. My brain was wired in a place where melodies and harmonies were always in the air, and I think that conveys a certain rhythm to the way I build a sentence.
And yes, I’m competitive, although I’ve never felt I was competing with my sisters, and certainly not competing for my parents’ attention.
Successful? Define your terms. Success is a squiggly drop of mercury that we all nudge around, every day.
There was a whole sitcom about this topic. “The Middle” followed a family in the mid-west, with middle-aged parents. But the show was mostly about Sue Heck, the middle child who was never quite successful at anything, but threw herself at life with an enthusiastic abandon that reminds me of me at that age, braces and weird footwear and all. There were plans for a spinoff about Sue Heck, but it never came about. And that’s too bad because I would like to know how life turned out for that middle child.
A good friend of mine has two granddaughters ages four and two. A third baby will arrive soon.
“If that’s another girl, watch out for that middle one,” I told him. We laughed about that, but even without knowing these kids, I will feel simpatico with that middle one. She’ll be sitting amidst so much.
And about the bossy thing? I prefer to say I’m an engaged mother, a concerned citizen, a helpful and collaborative employee. Is all that because I’m a middle? Who knows.
Now I’m remembering the context of my daughter’s “bossy” comment: I was reminding her to write her thank you notes for her Christmas gifts.
And that may be bossy, but it’s also good parenting. Reader’s Digest says so.