Growing up in the Shadows

After reading Quyen’s blog post about how older siblings feel when younger siblings deviate from the regular family ways, I thought it best to offer my own opinion: the opinion of the younger sibling.  While growing up, and still now, I have always heard from my older siblings that “you’re childhood was so much easier than mine”, “you should be grateful that you weren’t in my shoes when you were growing up”, and “God, you’re such a princess. Mom would have never let me get away with that.” Needless to say, according to my older siblings, life is a breeze for me. I mean yes, I did not have to wear the frilly dresses my older sisters did when they were younger. And yes, I did not have to take piano lessons as long as they did. But trust me, although I am the youngest, and my parents are supposedly done with the trial and error phase when it comes to children, that, by no means, has made my life any easier.

Yes, it may be hard to those older siblings to hear this, but life can be hard for the younger sibling too. First, is the comment: “You look so much like your old sisters!” or “You look so much like your mother!” Yes. I know. We have similar genes, so it makes sense, biologically. I know, when people say this, they mean well. But at times I just get the feeling that I’m constantly being compared to my older siblings and parents. This is especially apparent when it comes to the college process. My father is a chemist (so he was obviously a chem major), my mother is an OBGYN (and was a bio major), my oldest sister is a bio-chem major, my other sister is a bio major, and my older brother is a computer science major. Statistically, science is in my genes. (Especially something related to biology). But I honestly haven’t the slightest idea what I want to do with my life, so it kind of bugs me when people just assume that I’m going to go down the science track, (even though I probably will...).

Even when creating a list of colleges to apply to, one of the colleges on my list is the one my sister, Milee, attends right now. So, there is always the looming question: Do I follow my siblings, or do I make my own path. Of course people always say: Choose your own path. Write your own destiny. But that’s honestly easier said than done. There are so many things in this world that I enjoy, and a good deal that I don’t. (Sorry D Berg, I don’t think the chem genes are working on me). Whenever I pose these questions, I am always met with the answer: Just keep going along your own path, and you will find yourself along the way. I understand this answer completely, I just want to find a shortcut and get to a point of revelation and satisfaction. Which is also easier said than done.

I know I went off on a few tangents in this post, but all in all, I just wanted to point out that us younger siblings are bombarded with conflicting advice that one should create their own path but also consider the path that those have set forth before you. So basically, I am just so confused, and probably will be for a long time.

Benji is to Ruth as Reggie is to Lucille

Even after only reading the first few chapters of Sag Harbor, I can already see similarities between it and Housekeeping. This may be because Benji and Reggie are/were as close as Ruth and Lucille. but one big similarity I can see is how both siblings tend to drift apart. In Housekeeping, Lucille tells Ruth that they need to start socializing with the other kids instead of each other. During this time, we can see that Ruth doesn’t want to socialize with other people besides Lucille and Sylvia. So, in the end, Ruth ends up just hanging out with Sylvia instead. Even though Ruth ended up coming of age in the end (or at least has started the process), in the beginning, she would probably have much rather followed Lucille around Fingerbone.

In Sag Harbor, although it seems that Benji and Reggie have a mutual agreement to start separating, I can sense a little discomfort on Benji’s end. Unlike Ruth, Benji does know how to make friends at his school, even if he may be the only black one there. But he always comments on how Reggie is becoming different and more like their friends in Sag Harbor. Because of this, I think Benji may feel a little detachment from his friends in Sag Harbor. He wonders how Reggie learned about shoe care and such, and then notices that his friends in Sag have the same shoes. We also see this in Benji’s taste in music, where he definitely stands out because of his knowledge of different kinds of music.

As time goes on, I think Benji will continue to drift apart from his friends in Sag as he tries to revamp himself over the summer for the approaching school year.