Being the Youngest

I'm the youngest of my family and sometimes it's great; other times it's poop.

Like, I have a ten and eight year gap with my sister and brother and that gap is just so obvious when they're both talking about something that was super famous around their time and isn't around now. I feel all kinds of left out when that happens.

But then times like when I'm having a bad day and cramps and my brother brings me up some food because he knows I can't walk and things like that, makes me feel really glad to be the youngest at times.

Not to mention the fact it's always fun to be babied every now and then

Most people think being the youngest is the greatest because you get all the attention being the baby and your older siblings are there to look out for you. I really can't stand being the youngest in my family. My sister's twelve years older than me and my brother is six years older so I feel like my parents were just tired of going through the raising kids thing by the time I came along.

It just makes me feel really weird being the youngest because I'm almost all alone in this age bracket. All my cousins bar one are in between my sister and brother's ages and then the next youngest in my family is my niece at 10. The one cousin close to my age is 22 so we kind of wind up sitting awkwardly in corners at family parties because all our cousins/siblings are off talking about their houses and their kids and that sort of stuff you're worrying about at 30+ and we're just getting out of uni so we don't have anything to add to those conversations. Plus, no matter how old you get, being the youngest you are always seen as a baby and it gets very patronising when your relatives do ask about what's going on in your life and then brush you off with the whole, "Well, I've already been there and done that so let me just demean your accomplishments by telling you it's nothing new." I remember my sister graduating uni being a huge deal and all of us went to the ceremony and there was a huge family party afterwards. I had no party. Not even my parents came to my graduation ceremony because my mother literally told me that she went to my sister's so she didn't want to be bothered with mine and my dad went golfing instead.

I guess the only perk there is to being youngest is getting to eat McDonald's in front of your brother during his visit to the cardiologist because you're young enough that you haven't developed heart problems yet.