I love being able to talk about brands that I use on my podcasts and I've personally
been using this one for over five years.
Our sponsor Nature's Way Alive Women's Multivitamin Gummies are specifically formulated
for women.
They contain 16 vitamins and minerals including the full B vitamin complex to help convert
food into fuel and have the added benefit of supporting healthy hair, skin and nails.
With just two delicious gummies Nature's Way Alive Women's Multivitamin Gummies are
an easy way to feel like your best self every day.
To learn more, visit naturesway.com slash Gemma 10 and use code Gemma 10 at checkout for
10% off any Alive Women's Multivitamins.
Visit www.medicates.com.com to get started.
To learn more, visit www.medicates.com.com to get started.
To learn more, visit www.medicates.com to get started.
To learn more, visit www.medicates.com to get started.
To learn more, visit www.medicates.com to get started.
To learn more, visit www.medicates.com to get started.
Listen to the Bright Side from Hello Sunshine on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast or
wherever you get your podcasts.
Hello everybody and welcome back to the Psychology of Your 20s.
The podcast where we talk through some of the big life changes and transitions of our
20s and what they mean for our Psychology.
Hello everybody, welcome back to the show, welcome back to the podcast, new listeners,
old listeners, wherever you are in the world.
It is so great to have you here back for another episode as we break down the Psychology
of our 20s.
I want to start out by asking you a few questions.
Do you ever feel like you need to be perfect, that you are responsible for the emotions
of others, you are the organizer of the friendship group, highly self-reliant and overachiever,
constantly anxious about the future, thinking about whether your siblings and your parents
are going to be okay, do you feel like you grew up too quickly, almost like you were asleep
for a huge chunk of your childhood and just never got to experience it, cannot remember
it at all.
I would make a good guess that if you answered yes to all of those questions, you are the
eldest daughter and you might be experiencing what has been coined as eldest daughter syndrome.
That is exactly what we are going to be discussing in today's episode.
This was so highly requested after the episode we did on the curse of being an overachiever
where we spoke about this very briefly, but if you haven't listened to that episode, make
sure you add it to your cue because it is kind of like a sister episode in some way.
It will answer a lot more questions for you, but today we are specifically just talking
about the eldest daughter.
So the eldest daughter in a family often faces a very unique set of experiences and I would
say responsibilities due to kind of the parallel influence of birth, age and then gender as
well.
The pressure and the expectations associated with these characteristics cause eldest daughters
to develop very specific certain personality traits or even mental health challenges as
well because they have been required to grow up a lot quicker, be a role model or even
a caregiver to their younger siblings and also live up simultaneously to the very high
expectations of their parents.
Elder daughters often fit a certain profile in that way, a certain personality profile.
They are often very self reliant and independent, they find it hard to trust other people with
tasks that need to be done because that would require them to give up a sense of control.
They often feel accountable for the family's happiness, future wellbeing, they are complemented
on being mature for their age, they are labeled as an overachiever or my favourite term,
a gifted child, a despise from a young age and there is a lot of pressure, either explicit
or implicit that is put on them to get perfect grades and to really excel at their careers.
They have a lot of people pleasing tendencies, they are afraid to say no to let people down
and then of course we have the age or stereotype of eldest daughters being very bossy and
domineering, which if I'm being honest I tend to agree with as the eldest child.
There are thousands, I would say if not millions, possibly billions, let's stick with millions,
millions of elder daughters out there who can relate to these quote unquote symptoms
and the experiences of elder daughter syndrome.
We are seeing viral TikToks of people describing the stress of the excessive emotional and
physical labour that we take on but most importantly at the core of this experience, the impression
that we aren't being cared for the way that we care for others.
That is so critical and I think that is such a source of pain for elder daughters in
particular.
And when we see that many people talking about a unique experience of a certain type of
person in society, I think it's something that we need to pay attention to and explore
because there is so much surprising psychology that comes with holding this position and
this role in the family and I think a lot of unexpected, sometimes long term consequences
that linger with us into adulthood, impacting things like how we view our academics or work
or career success or romantic relationships, even what happiness actually looks like for
us.
So there are theories around birth order, around parenthesis, early 20s rebellion, gender
theory, so much to cover.
And I feel personally very invested in this topic and all the research and the studies
and psychology that come along with it because as I said, I am the eldest daughter.
I am one of three kids, I have two younger sisters with an age gap of about six and eight
years.
And as we have all grown up, it's been so interesting to see how our dynamic and personalities
have been influenced by where we were born in which order we were born in.
The middle child, the youngest child, the oldest child.
Particularly how much responsibility I feel for my sisters, I moved out of home when one
of them was 10 and one of them was 12.
They were still children.
And so it's so interesting that in my mind, they still are those little kids running around.
I feel such a sense of like protectiveness for them.
But I'm also able to acknowledge the level of like permissiveness that they now have
for my parents how the household rules have really changed.
And also the additional emotional labor that I feel like I do for the family that quite
frankly I'm happy to do, but the older I've gotten the more I've started to perhaps recognize
that maybe my enjoyment of that has been conditioned rather than like voluntarily chosen.
As I've explored this further and talked to others, it's so fascinating to see how
what I thought was unique to how I was raised may actually have been a lot more based on
the fact that I'm not just the eldest child, but also a girl.
Well a woman now, but a girl once.
Nearly every single one of my female friends are eldest daughters.
Maybe because part of our shared experiences has kind of brought us closer or meant that
our styles and ways of thinking, our values are so aligned.
Because we know what it's like to have people relying on us all the time.
And we know what it's like to never really feel appreciated to feel like we have to do
it all.
It's really actually quite fascinating because in an article published in Scientific America,
they actually concluded that first born children are more likely to actually associate with
other first born children and like be friends with them, middle born, more likely to be
friends with people who are middle born and last born are also more likely to be friends
with last born.
So it's like it's kind of like we pick our friends based on where we were born in the
family and kind of the personality traits that we share.
Then I started looking at my past relationships.
I saw this pattern of only ever dating people who are either only children or younger
sons.
That's when it got a little bit weird for me.
Because I started thinking like, am I just replicating the relationship that I had with
my siblings by choosing people that I can almost mother?
Someone pointed out to me that when you've taken on the caregiving people pleasing role,
the independent role, your entire life with your family, you can't just switch it off
when it comes to your relationships.
You repeat the same role you've been taught to play your entire life just in a slightly
different way.
One way that shows up in relationships, particularly romantic relationships, is this concept of the
mental load.
The mental load refers to a lot of that invisible labor that we often take on of like organizing
and planning, not just our lives, but the lives of our partner, keeping track of where things
are in the house, reminding your partner of appointments or plans to text their mum
on their birthday, always planning what you're going to do on the weekend, going on a trip
and making sure the flights are booked.
The itinerary is finalised.
The travel insurance is paid for.
That is the mental load.
It's more than just emotional and physical labor.
It's this unequal reliance on the cognitive resources, particularly of women, particularly
of elder storters in a relationship.
I always thought that I was just a planner, it turns out maybe not.
These are just a few of the ways that I've seen this syndrome kind of manifest in my social
relationships, but there are so many other areas where we see consequences and influence
on behaviour.
I mentioned this one before, I think it's one of the biggest ones, but over achieving
imperfectionist tendencies.
I think elder storters are second only to only children in the level of academic pressure
that they endure, but also due to the individual attention that they receive from their parents
before the arrival of their other siblings.
It feels like there is more of a spotlight on them, that they have an example to set.
As we spoke about in our episode on overachievers, when your worth becomes tied to external
praise, to accolades, to accomplishment, you begin to lose touch with your inherent worth,
but also find it really impossible to slow down or just take a break without feeling guilty.
We start to equate rest with laziness, even if your parents aren't saying anything
anymore, even if it just becomes self-imposed.
You're also more likely to be highly empathetic and sensitive, that's a good one, but mainly
the reason for that is because you see your role in the family, in any kind of relationship
or group dynamic as keeping people happy.
That is your job to be the mediator.
That requires an additional level of hypervitchance towards small emotional cues and reactions
of other people.
I believe that this also contributes to a sense of protectiveness that we have when it comes
to our siblings.
I'm not a mother, I have never had a child, but you know that thing that new parents say
when they're like, when my child was born, I realized like I could never love anything
more, like I would die for this child.
I kind of get that.
I feel that when it comes to my siblings, it's like this fierce sense or acknowledgement
that God forbid your parents were to pass away, you would be the caregiver.
You are the oldest, you have to take care of the family in some way.
You have to take care of the younger kids.
I think that's maybe one of the upsides of being the eldest daughter, not that impending
sense of doom, but the sense of like protectiveness but then also independence and leadership
that a lot of eldest daughters have.
That's what makes them like so great in the workplace and like so great when it comes
to leading a group of people or being a really good friend is that they are a natural born
leader.
That emotional sensitivity though also has its downsides, especially as we are going into
the holiday season as I'm recording this, I think it becomes very apparent where this
begins to harm us.
All of the family comes together, there's going to be tension or at least chaos, a lot
of chores to be done, cooking, cleaning, shopping, hosting, the eldest daughter often steps
up during this time and probably experiences the most emotional and mental exhaustion second
only to their mothers because that is who they've learnt to do this from that is their female
role model.
Obviously that's not true in all cases but think about who in your family does the most
work around the holiday season.
Not just physical chores but who carries the mental load.
I would bet you it's the women in your family and I would bet you that you are one of those
women.
One person put this so well it's like being the eldest daughter is like having an unpaid
internship for the rest of your life.
This really points to how the combination of gender and birth order causes us to take
on so much more physical, emotional, mental, cognitive labour and from a young age.
So the younger that you begin doing that, the younger that you become the eldest sibling,
the eldest daughter, the more of a lifelong impact that is going to have on you because
you have really, I don't know, not been indoctrinated but you've really taken on this role as part
of your identity.
It has been part of your reality for a lot longer.
So why does this happen?
Why, like how do we get here?
Why is it that we all share such a similar experience as the eldest daughter?
Well let's break it down.
I want to start by firstly discussing the psychology behind birth order.
So in the early like 1900s, this Austrian psychiatrist called Alfred Adler who you might
remember from last week's episode, he came up with the idea of styles of life and also
the inferiority complex but he coined birth order theory and he proposed that the order
in which children are born has a really profound impact on the individual personalities.
So he proposed that first born tend to be really neurotic, so like stressful, stressed,
like it, quite beautiful, quite independent, quite conservative.
Middle children are competitive, they are rebellious but they're also people pleases.
And the youngest sibling tends to be creative, attention seeking, not very rule following.
This has been debated for many many years but with a lot of renewed focus in the last decade
or two.
And when you think about it, obviously where you are born in the family is going to be important,
especially since about 80% of us actually have siblings.
That is a big part of our childhood and our upbringing.
We spend so much time with our brothers and sisters, they share our childhood.
That's kind of the beautiful part of it they share our childhood with us.
But also they have a very different relationship to your parents, right?
Like each of you I think, if you have siblings, notice that the level of closeness, the level
of like connection, what your parents talked to you about, what they trust you with, it's
all very different, very different sometimes.
So research does suggest some pretty strong kind of shifts in the experiences of first
bonds and second bonds.
So this one researcher from Penn State who was really like the leader in this kind of
area of psychology, she puts it really well when she was summarizing her research.
Parents tend to be really focused on getting it right with the first child, leading them
to kind of fixate on their first bonds development growing up.
They're really fixated on their health, on their grades, on the friends that they choose
because they're kind of like the first one out in the gate, right? They're the first kind
of go that they have with their subsequent children though.
They might be less anxious, they feel less need to micromanage and that can lead to less
tension in like the parent child dynamic because there's less of a spotlight on the second
third fourth child.
They begin to relax maybe now because they have like a quote unquote backup, I know that
sounds terrible, but they've kind of learned the ropes a little bit and they realize that
they can be a little bit more hands off.
So the way they treat the second third fourth child is different and in one study published
in the journal for family and marriage, where you such as found that on average, one
way that this shows up is that parents experience less conflict with their second bond than
their first bond.
They seem to be less strict with each child, they kind of relax the rules.
So whilst the first bond really had to push up against maybe a strict system like a certain
level of discipline, as the parents have more children, they get a lot more relaxed, they
have more kids to focus on, they just don't have the energy to make sure everyone's following
the rules all the time.
I think that that is what contributes to the real sense of like I need to be perfect,
I need to set the example, but also I have a sense of responsibility, not just to our
siblings but also to our parents, right?
The first child is the only child who gets to know their parents on a completely solo
basis, right?
Like before the other kids come along, so they're like the third member in the relationship
for a little bit.
And because they're around their parents, a lot more for entertainment and comfort, whereas
kids born later on can kind of turn to their siblings for that, they really get to know
them particularly well and they're very attuned to their emotions and their feelings and
their behavior.
In some cases, especially if a couple maybe had a child to try and save their relationship
or they've placed a lot of their future in this child or we're seeing some degree of like
emotional stability with our parents, maybe divorce or financial insecurity, we see a secondary
process take place here called pre-rentification.
Pre-rentification involves kind of a role reversal between parent and child.
So the child begins to fulfill the emotional needs of the parents, the child begins to provide
advice and comfort, they take on a job to help the family pay the bills, they are assigned
more household responsibilities, their achievements are taken as the parents' achievements, whereas
the parent gets to be a lot more relaxed, gets to be a lot more like free and emotional
and like a little bit wild.
That is what pre-rentification is.
And it occurs a lot when there is some kind of disruption in the family and there is
an eldest child who takes on the responsibility and they may also try and shield younger family
members from really hard experiences like arguments or separations and that is kind
of why we see that level of protectiveness, that level of responsibility form.
Additionally, the eldest child gets all the important information first, right?
They are raised by the book, they are taught all the rules, all the chores, the expectations
and therefore they are responsible for teaching the younger children.
Leading to a sense of physical and emotional accountability and responsibility, they are
kind of like the third parent in some ways, which is why they are often asked to serve
as babysitters, as role models, advice givers for their younger siblings.
That is that final element, right?
And once your eldest child is old enough, you have got like a free babysitter, like an
inbuilt free babysitter that you don't have to pay.
Someone you can give your duties as a parent to, even if it's just temporary.
And that is a kind of emotional and physical labor that is not expected from the younger
siblings.
Even if it may seem minor, even if it's not all the time, sometimes the impact is cumulative.
We learn from those moments in which we have been asked to take on kind of the duties of
a third parent and they help create our personality.
And whilst your siblings get to be kids, you kind of have to play caregiver in those moments.
So interestingly, one study suggested that when first born particularly eldest daughters
leave the home, their relationship with their family actually tends to improve.
And the conflict commonly increases between parents and their younger children because
they have now taken the spot of the eldest child in the house, the spotlight is now put
on them.
You also might kind of see a delayed teenage rebellion for the eldest child when they move
out, when they get their own place, when they go off to university, where after years
of kind of needing to be perfect, to be the role model, to do well in school, to perform
a lot of emotional labor, they suddenly have all this freedom.
They suddenly get to live for themselves or be their own person and they go a little
bit wild in response.
Now some of these conclusions apply to all eldest children not to daughters, but when
you combine birth order with gender, that's when we really start to see this particular
pattern and syndrome emerge.
So we are going to discuss the influence of gender, of culture and also the ways that
we can take care of ourselves as the eldest daughter after this short break.
I love being able to talk about brands that I use on the podcast and this is a brand
that I've been personally using for over five years.
Our sponsor, Nature's Way Alive Women's Multivitamin Gummies, are specifically formulated
for women.
They contain 16 vitamins and minerals, including the full B vitamin complex to help you
convert food into fuel.
They also have calcium and vitamin D to support bone health and healthy hair skin and nails.
And for those of you who may be watching your sugar intake, they now have a zero sugar
version made with plant-based sweetness, including stevia extract and monk fruit extract.
With just two delicious gummies, Nature's Way Alive Women's Multivitamin Gummies are
an easy way to feel like your best self every day.
To learn more, visit nature'sway.com slash jema and use code jema10 at checkout for 10%
of any alive women's multivitamins, terms and conditions applied valid through June 30th.
Hi, I'm Danny Shapiro, host of the Hit Podcast Family Secrets.
Imagine this, your parents, sign away your childhood to an academic psychological study
that tracks you all the way into your young adult life.
And how about this, your middle school kid stumbles onto something he never should have
seen or known, something from your secret life.
And what about if your sister is very publicly tried, convicted and sent to prison, when
really she was just telling her long buried truths?
These tough questions are just a few that we'll be grappling with on our upcoming 10th season
of Family Secrets.
It's over 34 million downloads and nearly 100 unique stories in our feed.
We continue to admire and champion our guests, whose empowering stories of resilience never
fail to amaze, enlighten and inspire.
Listen to season 10 of Family Secrets on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever
you get your podcasts.
I'm Tamika Di Mallory.
And it's your boy, my son, in general.
We are your host of TMI, new year, new name, new energy, but...
Same old.
The show.
And catch us every Wednesday on the Black Defect Network, breaking down social and civil
rights issues, pop culture and politics in hopes of pushing our culture forward to make
the world a better place for generations to come.
But that's not all.
We will also have special guests to add their thoughts on the topics, as well as breakdown
different political issues with local activists in their community.
If you like to be informed and to expand your thoughts, listen to TMI on the Black Defect
Podcast Network, I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
That's right.
Parents, if you've ever experienced bedtime battles with the kids, I'm going to let
you into a little secret.
I'm Abby, a mother of two, and I had these battles myself.
Endless excuses, delay tactics, and many tears and tantrums, but I've created a solution.
The perfect kids podcast that makes bedtime a dream.
It's called Koala Moon and it's hosted by me, Abby.
With over 300 episodes packed with original stories and sleep meditations, Koala Moon
makes bedtime easy and enjoyable.
Episodes start out engaging and really rather magical, but as they progress, they gently
slow to a calm and relaxing pace to have your little ones out like a light.
Since launching in 2022, Koala Moon has helped with over 20 million nights sleep and
received over 6,000 five star reviews.
In back your evenings, listen to Koala Moon now on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts
or wherever you get your podcasts.
Gender introduces its own influences to family dynamics.
We like, no, we know this.
Women are raised differently to boys.
They have treated differently by society.
Even when our parents try their hardest to make it equal, sometimes it's unconscious because
it's based on how they were raised and they may not even realize or recognize how that
might be continuing to promote a very traditional outdated role of what women are meant to do.
When we think about the traditional role of women and girls, their place has been for
many, many centuries in the home, performing a lot of that invisible domestic labor.
There is a higher expectation on girls from a young age to be responsible and sensible,
even in like the school system as well.
Women are also normally what we would call the family's keeper, meaning they perform
a lot of that invisible labor of making sure everybody is happy that complex are resolved
and everybody feels paid attention to.
They keep the peace as mediators and they also don't call a lot of attention to themselves.
And although many cultures are now turning away from that conventional and unequal treatment
of girls and boys, particularly when it comes to domestic duties, it tends to be a
takes more than a few generations to eliminate stereotypes that have been attached to
girlhood and womenhood for literally centuries for millennia.
So there's always going to be some kind of residue that remains in our unconscious brains
that is causing us to implicitly treat men and women differently.
Some people try and deny that there is still unequal treatment of men and women, especially
when it comes to the home.
And as we see more progressive views towards domestic labor and female empowerment, we
can also recognize that some women want to do those things that is totally fine.
But according to the UN, girls between the ages of 5 and 14 years old, so not really at
a point where they can make a conscious and informed decision about how they want to live
their life, they spend 40% more time on domestic work than boys the same age.
And on top of that, younger daughters spend more time on average than young sons doing
chores that are consistent and very timely.
So very intensive chores like keeping the house organized, cooking dinner every night,
doing the cleaning, driving around siblings, providing almost free therapy to their parents,
their siblings, their relatives, whereas the jobs in the chores that are commonly done
by boys are like mowing the lawn, shoveling snow.
These are irregular, they're not as urgent, they're not as consistent.
And the final statistic that really draws at home for me, I'm sure that we're all kind
of convinced at this point, but this one really made it very apparent to me how like the
eldest daughters and just daughters in general take on so much of the emotional and physical
burden.
So in the UK, almost 70% of people who are what we would call sandwich caregivers, so that
means that they are working and also looking after kids or elderly parents, 70% of them
are those people are women, 70%.
So in an article published by Atlantic this year, they refer to this like very experience
as daughtering.
They have a term for it, it's called daughtering, it was coined by Alison Alfred at Bayley University,
and it's basically used to describe the family work that girls and women tend to take on.
That can look like picking up descriptions, planning retirement parties, setting money
aside for the parents' future.
And it can also involve more subtle actions like holding your tongue to avoid an argument
or listening to your parents' worries.
And this daughtering phenomena happens for a few reasons.
The major one being role modeling theory where eldest daughters in particular often imitate
how their mothers display and embody gender and also gender scheme of theory.
So parents, society often assigns different gendered tasks and expectations to boys and
girls.
They're like boys are strong, girls are sensitive.
Boys are like really physically active, girls are creative.
Even if it's accidental, unconscious, cultural, it has an impact on how eldest daughters grow
up to see themselves and how their personalities are often formed around their duty to others.
So we can't really deny that if you are a daughter and you've been raised with brothers,
for example, you're doing more labor here.
It's just common sense.
Or in the case of a family with only daughters, it may be that you begin to compensate for
your dad's chores.
When we combine birth order, the fact that parents raise eldest children differently and
then gender, this very societal, culturally ingrained belief system almost about how women
should behave.
That is the space that eldest daughter syndrome emerges.
Sometimes I'm going to acknowledge this now.
That role can be really satisfying.
I do.
I love to talk and brag about my sisters because I feel like a little bit extra proud of them
because I was a little bit extra involved in their lives.
It's a good feeling, right?
You can feel a lot closer to both your parents and your siblings because you occupy this
space in the middle.
You have more of an independent drive, you're more ambitious, you have more leadership qualities.
These are all great things, but as we've spoken about numerous women have reported, there
is also a burden that is very profound.
One of the most common experiences is feeling like you never had a chance to fully truly
live for yourself because you always felt an added responsibility lingering in the background,
responsibility to look after your siblings, to care for your parents as they get older,
to be a success story and set an example to make money, to pave the way and all of those
things that results in a lot of both internal and external pressure that we're facing.
Then of course, sometimes we also see resentment beginning to bubble up as well, especially
if your younger sibling got away with a lot more things than you did and were permitted
more failures or screw ups.
They got to be a lot more carefree than you did.
They kind of got to have a childhood and I know that's really quite sad.
They got to be that young carefree kid without being forced to grow into a caregiving or leadership
position really early.
Another element is sometimes a competition that can begin to form between siblings, whereby
the parents may constantly praise the eldest child or the first born, which makes the younger
children often the last born feel as if they can never live up to the successes and achievements
and standards of their eldest sibling, or that their parents may even have a favorite.
I have heard so many stories of this resentment really destroying family dynamics when we
allow that bitterness to like simmer and boil over.
Or additionally, if our parents have always put a lot more energy into the eldest child,
that also creates a sense of like jealousy between the children.
So it's like a hard dynamic to navigate from like every side of the equation.
But there are also so many people doing it successfully.
And what I want to focus on next is how we as the elder's daughters can start taking care
of ourselves without continuing to buy into the expectations or need to keep other people
happy.
Because when we actually take ourselves off a pedestal, when we say I don't need to be
perfect, I don't always need to be in control, I don't need to be this independent, the rest
of the family and people around you also take you off a pedestal.
So you're kind of giving everybody like doing everybody a favor where you're evening
out the playing field between yourself and your siblings.
But also you're able to have like an actual adult relationship with your parents when you
stop letting them make you into this golden child.
Firstly, we need our families to recognize the unfair burden that may have been placed
on us and redistribute that emotional, physical and mental labor more equally.
Part of that is being vulnerable around what is expected of you and what you need taken
off your plate.
For example, if your mom keeps calling around about your younger siblings, even after you've
left the house, try and redirect it and just say, hey, I think maybe this is something
that you can talk to dad about, not me, or you can talk to them about it, not me.
You are not the third parent, don't let yourself become the third parent here.
Or a big one as the holidays come up, you need to try and recognize when you are doing
things to people please that you don't actually want to do.
Stop volunteering for tasks that your brother or your dad could do or another person or
just going along with everyone else's demands because it's easier for you to organize things
than for other people to take responsibility.
For example, if you have picked everyone up from the airport on all their separate flights
and then you're having to rush home to prepare dinner and then you're also responsible
for the family or tinnuary, be completely honest and say, hey, can someone else take
something off my plate here or nominate someone to do one of your tasks?
Also push back against the gender stereotypes.
There is no reason that your brother can't do the dishes or that your dad can't boil
water for pasta.
Like they are not incompetent, they are adults and you are not their mother, you're their
sister, their daughter, even if you were their mother.
Still not fair.
Part of breaking down the indoctrinated gender roles that contribute to elder's daughter syndrome
is starting at the heart of the family unit.
And also don't just feel like you're the only one who is going to take control here.
Like that is that level of hyperindependence that we see so commonly.
You just always say yes to things even when you have a lot going on because it's easier
than saying no and having someone else do it wrong or having someone else screw it up.
I know it feels so awkward and uncomfortable at first because you have been playing this
part for a long time but I think that the discomfort will fade.
When you acknowledge that boundaries are sometimes at first going to feel hard because they
don't just feel normal quite yet.
And it can also be difficult to start because you realize how much other people have come
to rely on you.
But I think you'll also begin to notice how when you stop doing all of the additional
physical and mental labor, other people don't want to do it either because it's tiresome
but it's less tiresome when it's actually evenly distributed.
It's also important to start speaking your mind, stop biting your tongue and trying to
be the mediator or peacemaker all the time.
If your parent makes a comment you don't like say something.
If they say something you don't agree with, tell them if your sibling keeps asking you
to intervene in their dispute with your mom or your dad, push back and just say I don't
really have an opinion.
If someone is renting it, you're expecting you to just take it, interrupt them and say,
hey, this is really putting me in a bad mood.
I don't have space for this right now.
That is especially the case with your parents, right?
You are still their child.
You are not their friend.
You are not their parent, you are not their therapist.
Don't let them preventify you here.
It's also important to encourage balanced conversations that don't fear to severely interblaming
your parents or your siblings.
You really want to try and understand why it might be this way.
Like we've spoken about throughout this episode, all of the contributing factors and parenting
styles and behaviors that lead to eldest daughter syndrome, they're often very subtle and
difficult to recognize in the moment.
Most of the time, our parents have learnt them from their parents who learnt them from
their parents.
It's very generational.
So, be a bit forgiving here because when we stoop to blaming them rather than understanding,
that's when riffs form in families because your parents will never hear you if you're just
trying to criticize them, right?
I know that you have a lot of anger, you have a lot of frustration, you don't want to silence
yourself, but it's basically like putting yourself in this position where it's like, do
I want to completely like damage to this relationship and maybe not damage it, but like definitely
hurt it for a little bit?
Or do I want to actually get something productive out of this?
Like do I actually want to see their behavior change rather than just see an emotional reaction
from them?
When we only blame, it's, you know, often our parents will never hear that, the way that
we want them to hear that.
They'll never hear what we're actually saying, which is, I love you so much, I want our relationship
to survive, so please can we change this pattern of behavior that is putting me in this position?
Or they're going to hear is, you're a bad parent, you're a bad parent because it's this
like cognitive strategy we all have to ignore criticism.
So I think really sitting down and being with like, you know, saying to them, you know,
this has been my experience and I want to let you know that I value our relationship,
but this needs to change.
I can't be this perfect child anymore.
I can't always organize our lives.
You cannot turn to me for emotional support all the time.
Maybe you need a therapist.
That's really important.
My final tip is to start living for yourself.
I think that that is the string that is tied together this whole episode.
You do not need to be a child prodigy.
You don't need to be the best all the time.
You don't have to be the third parent.
You don't have to be independent and self-reliant and do everything yourself.
You don't always have to be the only one worrying about what it's going to go wrong.
And the way to start doing this, the way to take that responsibility off your shoulders
is to start asking for an accepting help when you need it.
Not just with your family, but with all the other people in your life.
For example, if someone has offered to cook you dinner or get you dinner, instead of
being like adamant that they shouldn't and being like, no, no, thank you, no, thank
you.
Embrace that generosity.
They want to show you that they care.
They want to do something kind for you because you deserve it.
They know how much time and effort you put into others.
You don't always have to be the one serving other people.
Let them do this for you.
Except other people's willingness to help you.
I really struggled with this when I started dating my boyfriend and he wanted to pay for
me else and do things for me.
I was like, this is really, I'm so used to being this hyper-independent person who takes
care of everyone else.
What is going on?
And then recently a friend of mine stayed at my house and did all the dishes and offered
to do my laundry.
And it felt so odd to have someone do for me what I always felt like I needed to either
do for myself or do for other people.
But I want you to swallow that initial, instinctual gut feeling to be in control, to be self-reliant
and realize that if someone didn't want to do something for you, they wouldn't offer.
They want to show you that.
They want to show you, I guess, the love that you always give to others.
Similar to this, fight back against your chronic independence.
If you are struggling at work or uni, it's okay to reach out for help, right?
Or even support.
It doesn't make you a failure for needing assistance.
It's just your eldest daughter instincts stepping in, trying its hardest to make you always
be the best and self-reliant.
It's okay to not be the best and everything.
It's okay to ask for help the way that other people ask you for help, right?
It actually shows really great strength.
And I think finally it's okay to do things for yourself and with yourself, even if it
means disappointing others or saying no.
Whether that is your hobbies or taking a day to just not interact with anyone or not
going to that big family gathering because you're just really tired, not taking on that
extra responsibility, that is okay.
That is totally okay.
Just say I'm not going.
You are not selfish.
You do not need to feel shame for prioritizing yourself whilst everyone else is doing the
exact same thing by relying on you.
Like they are getting the rest by putting all the burden on you.
And I think that we really begin to recognize eldest daughter syndrome when we just cannot
take that burden anymore when we are so mentally and emotionally exhausted.
I think you'll find yourself feeling so free in those moments.
You won't feel contained anymore.
You'll feel less burnt out when you give up that control and with that responsibility.
And I'm not saying that it's going to happen instantly because if you have been the eldest
daughter for a long time, you have been very much like this is your identity.
So it's going to be really hard to give up.
But maybe just start by giving up the things that you really don't have space for anymore.
You really don't have the space to just like always be on your own and to never trust others.
You don't have the space to always be organizing everything.
This was one of the things I really noticed about myself as the eldest daughter was I just
got sick of always being the friend who had to make plans with everybody.
It was so tiring to be the one who everyone was always like, what are you doing this weekend?
What are we doing this weekend?
Can you book this?
It was really tiring and I gave that up because I was like, I can't keep doing this.
People respond to the kind of to your absence until the kind of hole that you leave when
you no longer do their mental labor for them.
I think being the eldest daughter is such an emotional mind field at times.
I really do get it.
You also feel that sense of responsibility for your younger siblings.
Like I said before, you implicitly know that if anything was to happen to your parents,
you would be the one in charge.
You're the one who's going to have to step up there.
Even if you don't think about it often, there is always that implied sense of like, I
need to make sure these kids are all right.
I need to protect them.
And sometimes you just want to break.
You want to break from all that responsibility.
You can't change how you were raised or your birth order, but you can begin to unlearn
and heal the parts of you that feel the need to carry the burden of everyone else.
While still being perfect, like you can't do everything all the time.
So let yourself be a child again.
Let yourself receive love rather than always having to give it out.
Like you really, you deserve that.
You deserve to heal.
You deserve to be a happy eldest daughter.
So I really hope that you enjoyed this episode.
I hope that you learnt something from this episode.
As an eldest child, I totally get it.
I feel like this was, I was riding this episode just being like, yep, yep, that makes sense.
That makes sense.
Take that off the list.
Like totally aligns with my experience.
And I hope that maybe that was the case for you as well.
You felt heard.
You felt seen by this research, by some of these personal experiences.
And also thinking about ways to not just go into the holiday season, but into every season
in a healthier, healed way.
Well, you're not always taking on this role in the family, you're allowed to be more yourself
and take on an identity that is more aligned with who you actually are.
So thank you so much for listening to this episode.
If you enjoyed it, if you think someone else needs to hear this, make sure you share a
link with them and leave a five star review.
This is like our last solo episode of the year.
I just realised that last solo episode, this year we're doing 12 days of guests in
December.
So for the rest of the month, for the rest of the year, we will just be doing guest episodes.
I've been working so hard on finding some amazing people to come on.
And every single conversation is just like so wise, so mind blowing, so like just targeted
and interesting and fascinating.
So I cannot wait for you guys to hear all of those episodes.
Make sure you're following so that you get alerted when these start to come out.
And if you have an episode suggestion, please feel free to DM me at that Psychology podcast
on Instagram.
This is where this episode came from.
Like I talked about it very briefly in the overachieving episode and the amount of you
that said, I want to hear about the oldest daughter was insane.
So thanks for your suggestion.
I really hope that you enjoyed this episode and we will be back at the end of this week
with another one.
Bye.
From I Heart Podcasts, a medical school dean at USC was leading a secret double life.
A story about money, power and corruption.
When people fall in line, they fall in line.
Looking back, I realized, oh, everyone did.
I'm Paul Pringle, an investigative reporter for the LA Times.
Binge the full season of Fallen Angels, a story of California Corruption.
Now on the I Heart Radio App, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast.
Last season, millions tuned into the betrayal podcast to hear a shocking story of deception.
I'm Andrea Gunning and now we're sharing an all new story of betrayal.
Justin Rutherford, Dr. Father, Family Man, it was the perfect cover to hide behind.
Detective Weaver said, I'm sure you know why we're here.
I was like, why the hell is going on?
Listen to betrayal on the I Heart Radio App, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
A new season of Bridgerton is here and with it, a new season of Bridgerton, the official
podcast.
I'm your host, Gabby Collins.
And this season, we are bringing fans even deeper into the ton.
Watch season three of the Shondaland series on Netflix.
Then Fallen Love all over again by listening to Bridgerton, the official podcast on the
I Heart Radio App, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
Subscribe to catch a new episode every Thursday.
