I’m the fourth of five children, with a younger sister who is several years younger, so I have memories of being the youngest, which was taken from me upon her arrival.
As is, I suspect, normal in such cases, my parents worked hard to ensure she knew that while she was unplanned, she was not unwanted. Add in “Daddy’s (last) little girl, and you create the (normal I suspect) conditions for an older child to resent the younger.
All the attention which was mine was taken away, and I was far too timid to fight for it. Then, on those few occasions I did try to fight for it, everyone in the family defaulted to taking my little sister’s side in any and all things.
I had a very jaded view of childhood, and parenthood, to say the least, leaving me no desire to have children. I didn’t want to be a father, and was dead certain I’d be lousy at it.
It wasn’t until my late 30s that this changed.
Spoiler alert, I have children, three of them, whereupon I learned that middle aged clinical depressives with undiagnosed ADHD have a difficult time adapting to fatherhood.
I loved fatherhood, and my boys right from the start. It’s just that those first years were hard.
On the other hand, developing the mental flexibility to handle daddyhood, and gaining three amazing little boys to anchor me to this life has been wonderful. Literally, they have made my life full of wonder.
Hell, their existences have literally saved my life, and ultimately led to the greatest compliment ever paid to me, by my father, “Andrew, you’re a good father, a better father than I was.”
