Sunday, March 15, 2009

Youngest

I made the statement a little bit ago that I hated the fact that Kent and I are both the youngest in our families. Denise, you asked me why, because there truly are many, many advantages to being the youngest, and I would be the first to admit them and state that I truly enjoy them.

Yet when I was at college and dating I always pictured marring a man older than my brother who is 2 ½ years older than me. I thought I had to marry someone older than him. But alas, I married a wonderful man, but he is only 6 months older than me and therefore still younger than my brother. And of course my brother had to marry a wonderful woman who is older than me, by a matter of days!

After Denise asked me why, it really made me think. Why did I not like being the youngest? And thus far the answer I have come to is this. I hate feeling like I’m the one making the silly, naive mistakes. That everyone in my family is wiser and knows so much more. Not that any of them try to make me feel this way. It is all me putting this on myself. But I feel like they are all so much smarter, wiser, and know so much more than me. Just the same as when we were young. I remember many times when I would say “Well, when I am your age then ….” And my smart older brother would reply “You’ll never be my age, cause when you are 10 I will then be 12 and you will never be able to catch up to me!” And thus it continues.

True there is a flip side to that. And I already do take advantage of it. I am young and youthful, as he and all my siblings are getting OLD! And they are there for me when I ask for advice. It is nice to have someone you can trust who is older and wiser, maybe even been through the same thing, to help me out. But oh, how I wish I was wiser and smarter like my older siblings and sibling in-laws.

2 comments:

Andrea said...

Ross is the baby of his 6-kid family. He loves the fact that he can watch what they do and not make the mistakes they did. For example, his brother took 7 years getting a ph.D and after not finding a job he went back to business school. That taught Ross to skip the ph.D and go for something that was marketable.

But my youngest sister (the baby of our 6-kid family) hates the fact that traditions kind of died away because not all of us were at home like before. So I guess it can be good or bad.

Brown Family said...

I think the wisdom you're lacking is the wisdom that you're just as smart as any of the other kids! When the kids ask who is smarter out of me and Paul, I ask, "On what subject?" We're both smart, but I'm smarter than he is in certain subjects (math, reading, spelling, etc.) and he's smarter than I am on other subjects (investments, computers, politics, etc.)

Yes, the older kids have more life experience, but there are definitely things you have down pat moreso than any of the others. Give your smarty-pants self a little credit, eh? :)

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