What it can be like as the youngest child
I grew up with three older brothers, the oldest of which was 10 years older than me. Now my parents have always sung his praise because he's smart, probably a genius, but that's on paper. In life he doesn't really do anything with it. And growing up being compared to him was hard, but I only have come to realize it more recently. My brother was always better at everything, all of them were, but that's to be expected seeing as they were 3, 7, and 10 years older than me. But I didnt understand that. So here I was, the baby of the family, who was no better at anything than any of her brothers, and because I was so much younger, was often seen and not heard. Now when I was growing up dumb blonde jokes were everything and sure they were funny, until I was declared blonde on my drivers license, I have light brown hair that some considered blonde. So now all those dumb blonde jokes are aimed at me, and as a sixteen year old who had little confidence in herself, cause her brothers were always, always better than her, this stuck. And I started thinking I was dumb, and for 3 long years I believed it, until I got to college. It hit me when I realized I was putting in half to a quarter of the amount of time most of my classmates were and getting the same grades. That's when I realized I was smart, but in my eyes I would always be dumber than my brothers, because I was the dumb blonde of the family.
More recently its hit me, I'm the only one out of us going to college, though the brother whose 3 years older than me is in the navy and is doing awesome in the schooling side of it, I'm the one who is willing to get a degree when my oldest brother was to lazy to do it, and my second oldest brother realized school wasnt really what he wanted. He was actually the one who helped drive it home to me that I'm not stupid, or useless, or supposed to be seen and not heard like the good little 12 year old that most of my family still sees me as. He told me that he was proud of me and that was the second time i really remember someone in my family telling me they were proud of me. I was 19 when he told me that, 19. And let me tell you I sobbed like a baby, because he told me that it didnt matter that our oldest brother was smarter on paper because smarts are nothing without the drive to do something with them. He told me that at this point he believed I was smarter than our oldest brother because I had both the smarts and the drive. And even though I still dont know if I'm smarter than him, nor do I consider myself a genius, I do know that I dont care, because my brother is proud of me and what I'm doing in my life and that's all I need. Even if on paper I'm not smarter than our oldest brother it doesn't matter anymore cause I've got the drive to do something with my life other than sit around playing video games and going to work. And that's what matters, at least to me.
