I followed the twitter conversation initiated by @BigBadReni who posted that she started to rebel against the first daughter expectations when she stopped cooking for her father and brother, after her mother moved to an apartment close to her workplace.
She said, following complaints from both her father and brother, her mother reprimanded her and told her she was to take her place when she is not around. As would be expected, especially given the fact that she was a Nigerian girl, the majority of the comments were brutal, unforgiving and condemning in nature.
Many people conveniently overlooked the fact that she was 18, attending online courses and had a younger brother and harped on the fact that she was disrespectful and entitled but many did not ask about the deeper reasons behind her tweet, how it was not normal for a child not to cook for her father without being asked and why her brother could not cook but in the midst of those comments were comments by first daughters who triggered by the abuse and vitriol poured on the tweeter came to her support even though most of them did state that she ought to have cooked, if only for her father.
I liked in particular a comment by @sisi_yemmie herself a food blogger who acknowledged that for most women deciding what to cook is in itself a chore muchless of an 18-year-old who was struggling with school and her own personal issues.
I am a first born child and daughter and I understand perfectly well the emotions and sentiments behind that tweet and I am most certain that the lady was not talking about only food and cooking. I am certain she was seething about the pressures and burdens that have been placed on her from a young age. It is hard being a responsible first born and I used the word “responsible” advisedly because not all first borns are responsible. The first born, especially the girl child, is born into expectations. She is told she is the mother of the house after her mother and at a young age she is groomed to do what a mother would do. In extreme cases, she is denied a childhood taking care of her younger ones as early as five years, cleaning up after them and assisting in the kitchen. She grows up with a very high sense of responsibility, most times to her detriment and growth. It’s interesting to note that although the first born son may be financially responsible for the whole household he is not referred to as the father of the house because a son cannot take the place of a father who is alive but a daughter can take the place of a living mother.
Responsibility is a word the first child knows from childhood till she dies. It’s a word she chafes under and can’t seem to shake off no matter how many times she has been taken advantage of or maltreated because in a way it’s the only way she is acknowledged or praised. She measures her usefulness and love in the way she is able to come through for her family.
When I was much younger, it used to irk me badly that I was held responsible for the actions of my siblings. My mother is very finicky about neatness and tidiness and we didn’t have a house help growing up. I remember that when we got home after school, it was my duty to dish out the food she had cooked early in the morning and wash the dishes. I had no problem with doing that but what seemed so unfair to me was the scolding I received anytime she got home to meet an untidy house though it was caused by my siblings. Every time I tried to explain that it wasn’t my fault that the house was messy, I was told that as the eldest, it was my responsibility to ensure that my siblings kept the house clean. I remember scurrying around putting things in place whenever it was close to the time she got home and at times my siblings intentionally disarranging the house to put me in trouble.
For many first borns there is a feeling of resentment towards both their parents for being unfair in their treatment of their children and siblings for getting away with so many things that they can’t.
I have a friend, who is the first born of seven children. My friend left secondary school and started working so she could send her younger ones to school and maintain the house. She didn’t go back to school until her 30s, when the last of her siblings had finished secondary school. When she wanted to get married, there was opposition because it was felt that her attention would naturally shift to her own family and she was told to wait until her siblings were more settled. She was prepared to wait, luckily her fiancé put his foot down, convinced her that she had her own life to live and that she had every right to choose herself first having given up much for her family. I know of a parent who told her first daughter she couldn’t marry early because she had not served her adequately to repay all she had done for her. I know of a first son who was said to have abandoned his responsibilities of taking care of his parents because he relocated outside the country even though his siblings still reside in the same state as their parents and he continues to fulfill his financial responsibilities to them.
The first born daughter is not the mother of the house. She is not ordained to educate her siblings, mother them, cook for them and take care of them. It’s not her sole responsibility to care for her parents. Yes!! She is older but she is not meant to completely take over the mothers’ duties or baby her younger ones.We see a lot of prayers being said for the first-born child all to the effect that they shouldn’t lag behind their siblings. I personally don’t believe in those prayers, but I find it ironic that many parents who pray the prayers fail to see why their first born lags behind their siblings. The simple truth is that because of the high sense of responsibility they have grown up with, they tend to put their own needs, desires, ambition, aspirations and happiness on the back burner in order to help their siblings achieve theirs.
I can say almost categorically that many first daughters are on the streets because they need to help their siblings through school or send their parents money for maintenance, many have married men they didn’t love, just because they could provide them with the financial help they needed in meeting the needs of their family, many have no savings because even though they’ve worked almost all their lives it was to provide for others. Others are suffering emotionally from the need to be wanted by their loved ones and so take loads of abuse, become people pleasers, find it difficult to say No and remain in abusive relationships because being needed even when it is to their detriment is how many of them spell love.
Please note that I am not against training our children to be responsible or to care or help one another. What I am against is training one child to the detriment of others, bringing up siblings who are entitled, who can’t help themselves because they have not been taught how to stand on their own feet. What I am against is presenting the burdens the first borns carry as being God ordained, forcing them to grow up quickly, allowing them to be treated shabbily by their siblings who have more than them and taking advantage of the high sense of responsibility which they have been groomed to have to manipulate or coerce them into doing things they may not have the temperament, appetite or finance for.
The first born child bears many burdens and hardly speaks out, in many cases they are left to bear their own burdens, face their own struggles without help because it is believed they can handle them, so in cases when they are emboldened to talk, let’s look behind their words to the emotions they are trying to express.