On Choosing Myself Again and Again

The one where the Eldest Daughter tries (and tries again) to shake off third-parental duties and shirk responsibility.

Photo by Andy Vult on Unsplash

Sundaze Book Café is the home of everyday magic, joyful living and conversations likely to be had over a hot drink with a friend in your favourite café, capturing the syrup-slow feel and glow of a Sunday. I’m Michelle, and I’ll be your host today.

Are all Eldest Daughters people-pleasers, or is it just me?

When you’re told you’re the role model, the responsible one, the 家姐, you naturally take on a parent role. You hold your siblings’ hands when they cross the road, make sure their backpack contains a drink, a snack and an extra layer. You never step out of line, because you’re setting an example now, even though you were just a toddler when siblings arrived.

You have to share your toys.

You have to show them the right way.

You have to set a good example with your studies, your attitude, your excellence.

You have to prepare dinner tonight.

You have to stay at home to watch the others; no playing out with friends.

You have to learn more responsibility and take on household chores.

When you’re an Eldest Daughter, you grow up – quick.

For more than two decades, I battled with being a diligent Eldest Daughter and the big sister of two siblings. (They’re my best friends now.) While I was once chatty and clumsy and learning from my own mistakes – cutting Barbie’s hair, for one – and, well, a child, I soon became a quiet, reserved, careful girl who painstakingly overthought every single decision so I wouldn’t make a single mistake. God forbid the others followed in my dumb footsteps. While other children looked up to their parents for guidance, I was raised by my Granny as my parents worked at the takeaway six days and nights a week and, in turn, helping to raise my siblings. I became my own role model, blindly following whatever my parents asked of me. Share my birthday presents even though we were born months apart? Sure. Sit quietly and show them a good example? Sure. Reheat dinner aged 12? Sure. No isn’t in a second-generation immigrant daughter’s vocabulary and in the absence of choice is people-pleasing.

“You were a nightmarish teenager!”

Or so I’m told.

Forced to grow up quickly and chased by pesky hormones, maybe I was a nightmare. Or perhaps I was simply being a teenager. All I know is I was constantly hounded for daring to speak my mind or do anything I wanted to or try something for myself and not as a test-run for my siblings. Amongst it all, I discovered a love for writing, for reading, for books, for escapism. I loved Enid Blyton books, and Jacqueline Wilson’s tales about dysfunctional families, and the fantastical nature of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials, and the pure magic of the Harry Potter universe. With books – and, thus, portable worlds – at my fingertips, I could become an island. I did become an island.

I first learned about Eldest Daughter Syndrome in my early thirties. (I mean, I still am in my early thirties, but stay with me here.) According to licensed family and marriage therapist Kati Morton, the key symptoms include: ‘feeling an intense sense of responsibility for others, having an inclination toward overachieving, and struggles with anxiety, people-pleasing, and placing boundaries’. Needless to say, I instantly shrunk into myself, wondering whether I was ever a unique human. All of my personality traits are due to being the first-born?

Learning to choose myself first has been a disarming exercise over the last two or three years. Setting boundaries is tricky enough, never mind doing so when you’ve been a caregiver and somebody that lots of people have depended on for years. Suddenly, in my quest to become a lesser-visited island, I was offending people and distending trust. And it’s hard: I naturally do want to help others and it’s sort of nice when people rely on you. It’s heartwarming to step in with acts of kindness and it’s in my nature to extend an arm or ear for those in emotional or physical need.

But, choosing myself has been all-encompassing and so life-affirming. From carving out time to fill my own cup first to allowing myself to make mistakes, from wearing whatever I wanted to making plans just for myself, I was all in for the project that was reclaiming me. In doing so, I’m proud to be the most authentic version of myself that I’ve met so far. She’s kind, giving, warm-hearted and compassionate. She’s also strong-minded, gently ambitious, joyful and self-assured. She’s all of these things because of who she was.