My mom teaching Perry how to crochet.
I used to love reading about birth order. The concepts (and generalizations) about how birth order determines and affects our personalities used to fascinate me. Mostly because it described (and still describes) my family to a T. We were the perfect case study for it, too. Three girls—a first, a middle, and a last born and no other siblings or a different gender to influence the experiment. It explained so much about who we were and who we would become.
I think one of the biggest if not the biggest difference between being born first and being born second (or third or fourth or fifth) is that the second born has never done, said, thought, breathed, looked at, or believed anything without a comment, opinion, or assessment from the first born. The second born doesn't often have the luxury of doing anything unwitnessed. Not only is the first born allowed and able to do whatever she wants first, she does so without a running commentary from the younger sibling. That's the way it is in this house anyway.
The second born will do and say what he wants to, though, despite being scrutinized and analyzed by the first born, and despite watching her do it first. He will even have the audacity to try and do not only what the first born does, but what the first born does all the time. One day, the second born will ask the first born if she would teach him how to crochet. To this she will reply, "No way. You'll get frustrated and freak out on me." Probably true, their mother will think. But the second born won't give up quite so easily and he'll keep asking and asking until finally his grandma (also a crocheter and a second born) will step in and say, "I can show you how to do it."
The first born will go into her room, unable to watch the second born attempt to do this in what is sure to be an imperfect manner. (She will provide the necessary parties with some rainbow yarn first, however.) Then the second born and his grandma will sit in the green chair while his mother listens and watches quietly off to the side. There won't be any freaking out but there won't be a lot of love for the craft either. After a few attempts, the second born will let out a big sigh, push the rainbow yarn away and look at his mother and say, "Geez, Mom. I don't even know how to tie my own shoes, how do you expect me to do this?" Then he will walk over to the piano and start playing Showboat.
The first born will hear the piano playing and came out from hiding in her room, knowing now that the crochet lesson is over. She'll ask how it went. She'll see the crumbled yarn on the floor. She'll turn to her mother and give her a sympathetic smile, showing just a little bit of sadness over it not going as well as she apparently hoped. And her mother will think that underneath the scrutiny, and underneath all the critique of the second born, the first born wants him to do well. The first born wants the second born to know how to do things, how to succeed, how to be happy. Now if the mother could only get the first born to show that once and a while…


