Unfortunate to be a first born

My posts are indiscrete. At a point I belong. At others I veer off. In this one for instance, why should it bother anyone? I write;

In the modern world, a family is me, my wife and my two kids, a girl and a boy. To tell either of the two that he or she is the firstborn is like crowning a king with no empire. We know that Africa isn’t yet modern (struggling to be modern) and we of the rural side are first borns among many siblings.

A firstborn was given a treasured name, his mother was probably the first wife of the man, in some cultures he was the only heir to his entire father’s livestock’s, farms and wives. He was respected and revered and from that he gained his strength to protect the reputation of the father and guide the family for the better. As if gods knew whom to give wisdom and courage, firstborns exhibited these characteristics. You could not compare him to the younger ones (remember there was no one like a last born lest the father was dead though it wasn’t applauded because the last child was even younger to the children of the first son. It was womanish to claim last born position but to work and outdo the first in skill and achievement)

But the times son of soil lives in have different challenges for the first male. He is born in a family of want. He starts by having no person to look after him, to make him be at peace. The father decided not to marry two or three wives at the missionary’s command hence more than ten children with a single wife.  By refuting extended family world, the children are taught how to be selfish. They become selfish even to brothers and sisters. It won’t bother an ignorant first born. It bothers the concerned one.

I have been talking to my peers who are eldest among their siblings. Their expressions are challenges they encounter on a daily basis. The expectations their younger siblings have of them are but shame, misunderstandings and guilt. They understand the world more than their parents. They know the needs of the modern child more than the parents know hence have to provide for the very children. And if you fail to provide them, on their assumed capability that you have, it ends up being a life long tussle that my elder brother never supported me here or there.

When the elder boys or girls lack a congenial at home- father or mother, they seek it out in their peers and friends. I am not into going home like any other equally perceptive guy. It is better to be with my friends away because there are no cousins and ‘father’ to offer the belonging friends can. Homes are small and tasks confined. Who wants to zero graze? Siblings are present, yes but we find difficult to talk at the same reasoning for it may end up conflicting. Peace seems present in absentia.

As we gain courage to take up the role of aiding and supporting our smaller siblings we are engulfed in loneliness and desperation. Some have told me that younger siblings are like ones children that he should support in education and life. That would make late his marriage and siring. The lesson leant from all this is to keep a small healthy family whose disadvantages think are less than advantages.

Are you a first born in a big family? 

Conditions at home make the first born a child, no support to make him grow.