Thursday, January 22, 2009

Middle Child

Yesterday, letters appeared in Ann Lander's column from people who were "middle children". Apparently, some middle children have felt slighted in their spot within the family. I loved this writer's look at being the middle child in her family. Laura in San Luis Obispo writes to Ann as follows ---"Here's my theory about middle children. Visualize a sandwich. The outer layers are two slices of bread, and the inner layer is what gives flavor to the sandwich. Without the filling, the sandwich would be boring and tasteless. YOU are the "spice" that makes life fun and yummy. I wouldn't give up my middle spot in the family for anything !" ---- I suppose I did add some "spice" to our family. There were times that I was "too young" or "too old", although, I think I enjoyed the best part of "both worlds" most of the time, plus, I had my own interests. I don't remember ever feeling left out because I was "in the middle". In fact, I don't remember thinking of myself as "the middle child" until my adult years. This is one of my favorite photos of us as children taken on a cool, spring day in 1946. Brother, Donald, is not yet a year old. Sister Shirley and I are in our matching "feed sack" dresses. Mom always made our dresses alike when we were young. As we got older, sometimes the style would be the same, but she let us choose our own fabrics. We were sisters, but we were encouraged to be individuals.

2 comments:

Tammy said...

do you think that grama and grampa realized what wonderful parents (and grandparents)they were?

Ginny said...

My brother and I often talk about neighborhood families and the fact we had the best parents of any of the kids we knew. I think they did the best they knew how and didn't even know how good they were doing, NOR, did we !!