00:03:50.320because I went to boarding school. So being gone and away from home for high school meant that I
00:03:58.580couldn't be relied on for a lot of the parentification that I think even though my mom
00:04:05.520wanted to do better and different than her mom did, she still likely would have defaulted to0.99
00:04:12.500if I was physically there. How do you think being an immigrant
00:04:17.100grafts onto this, especially like a first or second generation immigrant?0.90
00:04:22.500Yes. So my parents moved from Nigeria to Alaska, which is just so random, but also not because
00:04:30.600there are a lot of Nigerians in Alaska because they're everywhere. And that I think changed her
00:04:38.320experience in being the eldest daughter because she was no longer physically there to be relied
00:04:45.040on for absolutely everything. And that's the version of my mom as eldest daughter that I0.61
00:04:52.720experienced, which is why I think, and one of the earliest, I debated sharing this or not,
00:05:00.080one of the most painful earliest experiences that I remember or memories that I have with my mom was
00:05:08.480uh her I think I was seven or eight or something I did something and she in anger called me selfish
00:05:17.240and she immediately felt bad about it I felt bad about it but I think even though she wanted to be
00:05:29.100different and to show different she still had all of these expectations from her experience growing
00:05:36.220up as an eldest daughter that she, even though she hadn't articulated them, she still had them
00:05:44.300for me as expectations. And I didn't feel any of that. My personality and just like what my
00:05:51.700experience with her was not seeing her be the eldest daughter because she was the only one in
00:05:57.860her family who was in Alaska at that time. I just, I didn't feel responsible for my youngest sister.
00:06:04.260Like, why would I feel responsible for her?
00:06:07.320Why would I feel like I needed to do anything other than what I was explicitly told?
00:06:13.220And that that has stuck with me because I still don't feel the burden that some of my friends do who are eldest daughters and the victimization, I think, which is a little bit harsh to use.
00:06:27.500But I do think there's a little bit of that that people use when they have the chip on
00:06:35.180their shoulder around being eldest daughter.
00:06:41.320You know, there are so many things, too, that can lead to parentification.
00:06:44.760And what we mean by that is like being forced to act in ways that are more associated with
00:06:51.060being a parent when you are not a parent, right?
00:06:53.440When you are oftentimes too young to take on those responsibilities.
00:06:57.500and sometimes that parentification is the result of having your parents not be able to communicate
00:07:03.260very effectively with the other adults that you are interacting with in your life so like
00:07:09.620you become the primary point of interaction with like your teachers say like a translator
00:07:14.140or like when you go to the store when you have to negotiate benefits with the state like there's
00:07:19.980all sorts of ways then you can take on this role and I think that that at least a lot of people in
00:07:24.160my dms who were talking about their experience as an immigrant eldest daughter were bringing up that
00:07:28.700part too like just having to take on that role early and i've seen that a lot with a number of
00:07:34.680my friends and my experience is a little bit different because my parents first or second
00:07:40.840language i guess or third language one of the three that they had uh was english and they grew
00:07:46.940up with english and so it wasn't that as much or even navigating school because my mom was a teacher
00:07:54.140Yeah. And so she was really good at that part. But I think the first part of what you said is where I felt it even when she didn't necessarily mean to. And it was a lot of the time and interactions with my dad because I ended up being an emotional support that I definitely shouldn't have been in that three in that trio because my sister wasn't old
00:08:24.120enough to serve in that role and I think where there was and I love my mom so much she passed
00:08:32.640when I was a sophomore in college and I miss her dearly um but I think where there was tension in
00:08:40.200our relationship it was my constant rejection of authority and her as an authority figure
00:08:47.900specifically, that she just had so much trouble with because her eldest daughter upbringing was
00:08:56.700obedience and silence and being agreeable. And I was the opposite of all of those things.
00:09:04.400That is so interesting because I think eldest daughter-ness can show up in a lot of different
00:09:10.280ways. And this isn't always acknowledged, that sometimes it's oppositional. Or someone like,
00:09:15.000and I think we have a question about this like someone like passes the mantle of eldest
00:09:18.920daughterness and then sometimes it's very much I was not oppositional I'll just say that and I
00:09:26.440wasn't like I didn't have super high standards leveraged like on me by my parents in any way
00:09:31.580I built them myself and then also wanted to like be in that caregiving position and then
00:09:38.440just like taking on a lot of responsibility and being like the project manager and all these
00:09:43.420different ways. And I think that project manager piece of this is something we're going to talk
00:09:47.360about a lot. And I think also why eldest daughters magnetize to other eldest daughters.
00:09:54.500Oh, that's absolutely correct. What I look for first and foremost in friendships is
00:10:01.700competence. Are you competent? Like, even if you're not going to be the one who manages the
00:10:09.580project, because not every project needs to be PMed by multiple people, and most shouldn't be.
00:10:16.540The thing I look for is, if you are handed a task, can you complete it without tons of instruction?
00:10:23.860Yeah. And it's been a funny point of conversation recently with friends, with my mom group friends,
00:10:32.540because we've been talking a lot about that and the lamentations we have about being heterosexual
00:10:41.880and what that looks like in our partnerships with men while having children.
00:10:49.440Yep. I do think that's a whole other puzzle piece of this. Hopefully we can get to it.
00:10:55.100So our questions go across the board. We're going to talk some about the memes and the tropes.
00:11:00.860So we're going to talk about performing femininity.
00:11:03.260We're going to process our own feelings.
00:16:35.360Like when you don't have the generational wealth in place, you then also like whatever
00:16:40.320whatever wealth you amass yourself is drawn on by anyone else who needs that wealth.
00:16:48.060And that becomes more important if you are the eldest or take on the eldest role.
00:16:59.380Today's episode is brought to you by OneSkin.
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00:17:07.200And this person, I'll say, was in their 30s and has beautiful skin, but just hasn't like done much with the routine and is getting to that age where they're like, I just need to think about this a little bit more.
00:17:20.000And I legitimately recommended to her to use One Skin Lotion because it is such a great entry point for people who are just trying to figure out like what works for my skin.
00:21:36.440But I can speak to what I observed in my mom's family.
00:21:41.680And I think in this way, Korean and Nigerian culture are not totally different in country.
00:21:51.560So in South Korea, in Nigeria, where the difference I've seen shows up is once folks emigrate and then being in the U.S., the expectation for my mom was, even though she was a public school teacher, that she made more money and so she should be supporting everyone anyway.
00:22:12.860So not only did she have the financial expectation because she was the oldest, because she was the one who moved away first, but then there was also the expectation that she'd still be doing all of the project management of people's emotional states and where they are, and even at a certain point, their immigration process, because she was then expected to sponsor everyone in her family because she was the first one.
00:22:41.400And so I think if she had an older brother who had moved to the U.S. first, he may have been asked to do a lot of the financial stuff, but that didn't exist.
00:22:55.320And so she was expected to do both in a way that I've seen in other Nigerian families and other immigrant families that I know, where the eldest son is asked to do the financial, but not really asked to do the caregiving as well.
00:23:12.960Right. And so much of this has to do with the feminization of caregiving or the fact that a lot of times caregiving, especially elder care, requires dropping out of or significantly reducing your hours in the workforce. And that's something that we don't ask of men as a society. And that's true when it's caregiving, when talking about children or we're talking about adults, it really doesn't shift.
00:23:38.760one thing I've seen is that in situations where there is a lot of like in-home caregiving that's
00:23:45.720necessary if it has to fall on a son and the son is married to a woman then that's the son's wife
00:23:53.420yeah the son's wife takes on that labor right um so it's actually like the wife becomes eldest
00:24:00.200daughter yep it's misogyny is the answer to all of this and why this is even a thing uh and that's
00:24:08.200also why I think I think there's been some trolling on the other side of the folks who
00:24:15.800use the eldest daughter label but the reason why people connect with that and connect with the
00:24:23.060quote-unquote struggle of it and the universality of it is because the experience is so common of
00:24:31.420being the eldest daughter in a family or in a community and being expected to do absolutely
00:24:38.660everything because of misogyny yeah and like the statistics do not lie about who takes on
00:24:44.940the responsibility of elder care it is daughters and it is almost always the eldest daughter who
00:24:51.220takes on like the the lead role in it and i think especially as we age and that becomes more of a
00:24:57.900question and also something that like I think as a society we're negotiating as boomers that like
00:25:03.160boomers live so much longer so the question of how long and how how much how many resources it
00:25:09.800takes to to manage that sort of care it's it's it's significant and so that I think is part like
00:25:15.940we're seeing that negotiation of elder care refracted into eldest daughter discourse and
00:25:22.160its ubiquity. This gets into the victimization question that you brought up earlier. This
00:25:28.700question comes from Cassie. The eldest daughter discourse has come across my feeds mostly as a0.90
00:25:34.060convenient way for fairly well-off white women to claim that they too have endured great suffering
00:25:39.580and therefore equally worthy of praise and sympathy as others who grew up in difficult
00:25:45.420situations yes it is an experience shared by many growing up but so are so many things that are
00:25:52.800actually more determinative of personality and success it feels like there is a nefarious but
00:25:59.020unspoken layer of white supremacy culture and white feminism in the eldest daughter discourse
00:26:04.480am i reading too much into it or are there reasons to be concerned with how quickly it1.00
00:26:09.660is being embraced by a certain type of white woman sheesh that sounds uh that sounds like1.00
00:26:17.980white business which I don't have any place in um but it definitely tracks uh you know what what
00:26:28.540I'll say as well though is that to the extent that I know of wealthy white women and I am friends1.00
00:26:35.440with some of them, um, they have struggles too. And so, and they have expectations that are put1.00
00:26:43.420on them that aren't put on their brothers. And so I think, I think it's fair to complain and cry
00:26:51.380about it. Uh, I, I do think though that there's a very particular immigrant experience for being1.00
00:27:00.080an eldest daughter yeah that is different and that I don't want to denigrate anyone or all of
00:27:06.920the people certainly who are using the eldest daughter label to try to articulate what they
00:27:13.400have experienced yes and it's interesting the way that I have seen eldest daughter discourse most
00:27:20.380vividly manifest has been on Instagram and like the account that I follow that's like I don't know
00:27:26.320elf's daughter memes or something like that like I think it's just but it's definitely it's not a
00:27:30.920white lady I'll say that uh and the expression of the things that are difficult it's not the same
00:27:38.920as like an upper middle class white lady who's like oh it's just hard being a perfectionist
00:27:45.340right like that there is a difference but I I take the point I I will say even and
00:27:52.100when i think of when i think of anything i think of reality television because obviously and all
00:28:00.460of the things that i consume but i even so for a show like shameless which isn't reality tv
00:28:07.860and they're not rich um but uh what's her name fiona gallagher the eldest daughter in that show
00:28:15.940is left with so many responsibilities and so much guilt because she didn't ask to be born
00:28:24.420but her siblings also didn't her youngest siblings and so she fills the gap that neither of her
00:28:31.880parents are able to but even for someone who is from a very wealthy family like the ballerina lady
00:28:39.780farm lady fake farm lady um her kids i i don't feel much for her but i do feel for her eldest0.96
00:28:49.860daughters and when i'm watching uh which welcome to plathville i watch trash absolute trash uh all0.87
00:28:58.880of it but when i see those families that have resources lots of resources when i the the people0.88
00:29:08.280I connect to the most on those shows are the eldest daughters in those families because no
00:29:15.220matter what they have access to they are still tasked with so much more than any child should be
00:29:22.780and so I think that part of the experience is absolutely universal yeah gosh we got so many
00:29:29.240questions about like essentially like how this manifests downstream too like if you're I don't
00:29:35.640know like a big gathering like all of the eldest daughter cousins in the family are the ones who
00:29:41.180are like okay let's project manage this gathering whereas like the eldest sons it's like show up
00:29:49.060like that just the different standards of performance of this sort of labor yeah and
00:29:55.120in my experience because I am the um antagonist in so many family situations um and I felt
00:30:07.220completely released of any sort of performance after my mom died it meant just cutting off
00:30:14.520some of the family that had held those expectations yeah uh where the fight turned into
00:30:22.060my mom didn't even expect this of me so how dare you right I'm not doing this I don't feel
00:30:29.160any responsibility to you guys and so I'm not going to show up where I I fully believe if I
00:30:38.780were the eldest son they wouldn't have had those expectations and so then we would still have a
00:30:45.620familial relationship because there wouldn't have been the occasion for a blow up over me not
00:30:52.320fulfilling whatever nonsense list they had. Yeah. And it gets so naturalized to just traditions
00:31:00.180and family or like there's just so many ways in which these these types of dynamics just become
00:31:05.420like the way we do things that it's oftentimes I think someone complaining about it on social media
00:31:11.680or glomming to the eldest daughter discourse is a way, their way of being like the way that we
00:31:18.660have naturalized this, the way that my family, the way that I have like normalized this in my life.
00:31:23.440I don't like it and I don't know what else to do about it. So, okay. Middle daughters. We've got
00:31:29.460to hear some from some middle daughters. We got a lot of questions from eldest daughters. So I0.76
00:31:34.200thought we got to give a little bit of voice to middle daughters. This is from Christine and
00:31:38.980Melody's going to read it. As a middle daughter, I have a hard time understanding the whole
00:31:43.680eldest daughter discourse as it feels like a classic eldest daughter move. Every birth order
00:31:49.400comes with its own challenges and privileges. So why does this one get so much focus? From my
00:31:54.600perspective, eldest daughter discourse often sounds like a sense of entitlement, expecting
00:31:59.280special treatment simply for being the oldest and self-sacrificing. I just don't get it,
00:32:04.820especially since much of it feels self-imposed and often comes with an unwillingness to ask for
00:32:10.080or accept help. Maybe this is just my middle child need for fairness talking, but I cannot
00:32:15.880help wondering if the narrative overlooks how everyone else in the family is shaped by those
00:32:20.720same dynamics. I guess my question is, is eldest daughter syndrome actually a thing or is it
00:32:26.840something eldest daughters are claiming for themselves in an effort to remind us, again,
00:32:31.600how hard they have it. This, I mean, this is part of eldest daughter-ness, right, is martyrdom.
00:32:37.920Absolutely, which is why I talked about victimization, because I do think for my
00:32:44.100friends who have decided that it is their job to be the project manager of their family, to
00:32:52.020be the financial advisor, and the bank, and whatever else for their family, because they're
00:32:59.180the eldest daughter there is some of what this middle child is describing and in you've taken
00:33:08.820on the job and so now you want credit for it and you're upset and you are externalizing your anger
00:33:16.460on your siblings sometimes who didn't ask you to do any of this and sometimes are offering help
00:33:24.220because of the anger you actually feel towards your parents who are the ones who put you in this
00:33:30.420position in the first place as someone who has rejected authority from the beginning I have not
00:33:38.500felt this martyrdom because I've never made myself a martyr I don't believe in that personally but
00:33:46.420I've seen it with friends and I've had to have some of those tough conversations just asking them
00:33:52.420Like, why are you doing this? Who are you doing this for? If it's for yourself, like, go ahead. But then it's harder to hear you cry about it constantly if you're choosing to do this repeatedly.
00:34:06.780and this is where some of the like parentification dynamics come into work too because if you saw
00:34:12.940your mom doing this and you picked up those like if your model of femininity
00:34:18.240was something that your mom did in terms of martyrdom like this is more like a parental
00:34:25.400dynamic even than a sibling dynamic but even absolutely yeah like that idea that you have
00:34:31.960to do everything and only you can do it right. I do see this intersecting with eldest daughter-ness
00:34:37.440for sure. I saw the martyrdom with my mom, even though she was living very far, literally across
00:34:45.340the world from her family. And I think if anything, that is what made me decide, absolutely not. Like
00:34:54.160this is insane. Why are you doing all of this for these people who don't even appreciate it?
00:35:00.380And maybe, too, the martyrdom, and I see this with motherhood, too, is related to lack of power.
00:35:11.560You have to take on all this work to show that you are working.
00:35:15.520Like, how do you show that your work is valuable?
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00:42:34.140There's one more question about the usefulness of the eldest daughter stereotype,
00:42:38.420and then we're going to pivot into some more advice type questions.
00:48:27.640And this actually, to tie this all together, we recently published on the newsletter an
00:48:32.220interview about cognitive domestic labor and how who carries the most of it that blah blah blah and
00:48:39.540one of the points that the author made that i love allison damager she said that like we always talk
00:48:45.280about this on the individual level and like eldest daughters obviously carry a lot of the like the
00:48:50.920cognitive load in terms of what they're managing but you can't just fix it on the individual level0.97
00:48:56.660Like the way to have less eldest daughter shit is to have a better social safety net, a better system of elder care, a better system of child care.0.98
00:49:06.980Like just to have systems that take care of us.0.99
00:49:10.840If we had systems that take care of us, we would spend less time dealing with what happens when you consolidate all of that care on one person in your family.