With my first-born, my heart would almost jump out of my chest whenever he fell.
As for my second-born, whenever she tripped and fell, I would respond with a nonchalant, “amka… get up.”
It’s true what they say about the second-born being the forgotten child, the neglected one who is often an afterthought, not because he or she is not loved, but because the first-born effectively wiped off the anxiety that comes with first-time parenting. As a result of being the by-the-way child, the second-born has no option but to become self-reliant because most of the time, one is left to their own devices.
I am a second-born, and for as long as I can remember, I have been self-sufficient – to the point of making those close to me feel inadequate because it seems as if I don’t need them. Yet this is not the case, it only seems this way because being a second child, I did not get the kind of pampering, pronounced concern and indulgence that first-borns tend to get, forcing me to adapt to situations fast, to improvise and to make do with whatever that was handed down to me. But I only got to understand all this about myself when I got my second-born.
