The Psychology of your 20s - 147. The psychology of the eldest daughter

Episode Date: November 28, 2023

Do you ever feel like you need to be perfect, that you are responsible for the emotions of others, you’re the organiser in the friendship group, highly self reliant, an overachiever, constantly being told your mature for your age? I would make a good guess that you are the eldest daughter.  In today's episode we break down the psychology behind 'eldest daughter syndrome' and how birth order and gender combines to create a certain personality profile and way of behaving and seeing the world. We explore ideas around:  Birth order theory Parentification  The mental load  Friendships between first borns and last borns Delayed teenage rebellion  Role modelling theory  Daughtering  We also share tips for healing and taking care of yourself as the eldest daughter, especially in our 20s. Listen now.  Follow the podcast on Instagram: @thatpsychologypodcast  Follow me on Instagram: @jemmasbeg  For business enquiries: [e-mail]     See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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How many men carry a suit or armor. It signals to the world that you're not to be played with. And just because you have the capability that does not mean that you need to, listen. and learn the hard way on the AHA radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Hello everybody and welcome back to the psychology of your 20s, the podcast where we talk through some of the big life changes and transitions of our 20s and what they mean for our psychology. Hello everybody. Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to the podcast, new listeners, old listeners, wherever you are in the world, it is so great to have you here back for another episode

as we break down the psychology of our 20s. I want to start out by asking you a few questions. Do you ever feel like you need to be perfect, that you are responsible for the emotions of others? You are the organizer of the friendship group, highly self-reliant, an overachiever, constantly anxious about the future, thinking about whether your siblings and your parents are going to be okay, do you feel like you grew up too quickly, almost like you were asleep for a huge chunk of your childhood and just never got to experience it, cannot remember it at all? I would make a good guess that if you answered yes to all of those questions, you are the eldest daughter and you might be experiencing what has been coined as eldest daughter syndrome. That is exactly what we are going to

be discussing in today's episode. This was so highly requested after the episode we did on the curse of being an overachiever where we spoke about this very briefly. But if you haven't listened to that episode, make sure you add it to your cue because it's kind of like a sister episode in some way. It will answer a lot more questions for you, but today we are specifically just talking about the eldest daughter. So the eldest daughter in a family often faces a very unique set of experiences and I would say responsibilities due to kind of the parallel influence of birth order, age and then gender as well. The pressure and the expectations associated with these characteristics

cause eldest daughters to develop very specific certain personality traits or even mental health challenges as well because they have been required to grow up a lot quicker, be a role model or even a caregiver to their younger siblings and also live up simultaneously to the very high expectations of their parents. Elder's daughters often fit a certain profile in that way, a certain personality profile. They're often very self-reliant and independent. They find it hard to trust other people with tasks that need to be done because that would require them to give up a

sense of control. They often feel accountable for the family's happiness, future well-being. They're complimented on being mature for their age. They are labeled as an overachiever or my favorite term, a gifted child. I despise that term from a young age. And there's a lot of pressure, either explicit or implicit, that has put on them to get perfect grades and to really excel at their careers. They have a lot of people-pleasing tendencies. They're afraid to say no, to let people down. And then, of course, we have like the age-old stereotype of eldest daughters being very bossy and domineering, which, if I'm being honest, I tend to agree with as the eldest child.

There are thousands, I would say if not millions, and possibly billions, let's stick with millions, millions of eldest daughters out there who can relate to these quote-unquote symptoms and the experiences of elder daughter syndrome. We are seeing viral TikToks of people kind of describing the stress of the excessive emotional and physical labour that we take on. But most importantly, at the core of this experience, the impression that we aren't being cared for the way that we care for others. That is so critical.

And I think that is such a source of pain for eldest daughters in particular. And when we see that many people, I think, talking about a unique experience of a certain type of person in society, I think it's something that we need to pay attention to and explore, because there is so much surprising psychology that comes with holding this position and this role in the family. And I think a lot of unexpected, sometimes long-term consequences that linger with us into adulthood impacting things like how we view our academics or work or career success or romantic relationships, even what happiness actually looks like for us. So there are theories around birth order, around parentification, early 20s rebellion, gender theory, so much to cover.

and I feel personally very invested in this topic and all the research and the studies and psychology that come along with it because as I said I'm the eldest daughter I'm one of three kids I have two younger sisters with an age gap of about six and eight years and as we have all grown up it's been so interesting to see how our dynamic and personalities have been influenced by like where we were born in like how which which order we were born in you know like the middle child the youngest child the oldest child particularly how much responsibility i feel for my sisters i moved out of home when you know one of them was 10 and one of them was 12 like they were still children and so it's so interesting that in my mind they still are those little kids like running around i feel such a sense of like

protectiveness for them but i'm also able to acknowledge the level of the level of of like permissiveness that they now have from my parents how the household rules have really changed and also the additional emotional labor that I feel like I do for the family that quite frankly I'm happy to do but the older I've gotten the more I've started to perhaps recognize that maybe my enjoyment of that has been conditioned rather than like voluntarily chosen as I've explored this further and talk to others it's so fascinating to see how what I thought was unique to how was raised may actually have been a lot more based on the fact that I'm not just the eldest child, but also a girl, well, a woman now, but a girl once. Nearly every single one of my female

friends are eldest daughters. Maybe because part of our shared experiences has kind of brought us closer or meant that our styles and ways of thinking, our values are so aligned. Because we know what it's like to have people relying on us all the time and we know what it's like to never really feel appreciated to feel like we have to do it all. It's really actually quite fascinating because in an article published in Scientific America, they actually concluded that firstborn children are more likely to actually associate with other firstborn children and like be friends with them. Middleborns, more likely to be friends with people who are middleborn and last bones are also more likely be friends with lastborn. So it's like, it's kind of like we pick our friends based on where we were

born in the family and kind of the personality traits that we share. Then I started looking at my past relationships. I saw this pattern of only ever dating people who are either only children or younger sons. That's when it got a little bit weird for me. Because I started thinking, like, am I just replicating the relationship that I had with my family? siblings by choosing people that I can almost mother. Someone pointed out to me that when you've taken on the caregiving, people pleasing role, the independent role, your entire life with your family, you can't just switch it off when it comes to your relationships. You repeat the same role you have been taught to play your entire life just in a slightly different way. And one way

that shows up in relationships, particularly romantic relationships, is the concept of the mental load. So the mental load refers to a lot of that invisible labor that we often take on of like organizing and planning, not just our lives, but the lives of our partner, you know, keeping track of where things are in the house, reminding your partner of appointments or plans, you know, to text their mom on their birthday, always planning what you're going to do on the weekend, going on a trip and making sure the flights are booked, the itinerary is finalized, the travel insurance is paid for. That is a lot. That is a little. That is the mental load. And it's more than just emotional and physical labor. It's this unequal

reliance on the cognitive resources, particularly of women, particularly of eldest daughters, in a relationship. I always thought that I was just a planner. It turns out maybe not. These are just a few of the ways that I've seen this syndrome kind of manifest in my social relationships. But there are so many other areas where we see consequences and influence on behavior. I mentioned this one before. I think it's one of the biggest ones, but overachieving and perfectionist tendencies. I think eldest daughters are second only to only children in the level of academic pressure that they endure, but also due to the individual attention that they receive from their parents before the arrival of their other siblings. It feels like there is

more of a spotlight on them, that they have an example to set. As we spoke about in our episode on overachievers, when your worth becomes tied to external praise, to accolades, to accomplishment, you begin to lose touch with your inherent worth, but also find it really impossible to slow down or just take a break without feeling guilty. We start to equate rest with laziness, even if your parents aren't saying anything anymore, even if it just becomes self-imposed. You're also more likely to be highly empathetic and sensitive. That's a good one. But mainly the reason for that is because you see your role in the family, in any kind of relationship or group dynamic as keeping people happy. That is your job to be the mediator.

So that requires an additional level of hypervigilance towards small emotional cues and reactions of other people. I believe that this also contributes to a sense of protectiveness that we have when it comes to our siblings. I'm not a mother. I have never had a child. But you know that thing that new parents say when they're like, when my child was born, I realized like I could never love anything more like I would die for this child? I kind of get that. I feel that when it comes to my siblings. It's like this fierce sense or acknowledgement that God forbid, you're your parents were to pass away, you would be the caregiver. You are the eldest.

You have to take care of the family in some way. You have to take care of the younger kids. I think that's maybe one of the upsides of being the eldest daughter, not that like impending sense of doom, but the sense of like protectiveness, but then also independence and leadership that a lot of eldest daughters have. It's what makes them like so great in the workplace

and like so great when it comes to, leading a group of people or being a really good friend is that they are a natural born leader. That emotional sensitivity though also has its downsides, especially as we are going into the holiday season as I'm recording this, I think it becomes very apparent where this begins to harm us. All of the family comes together, there's going to be tension or at least chaos, a lot of chores to be done, cooking, cleaning, shopping, hosting. The eldest daughter often steps up during this time and probably experiences the most emotional and mental exhaustion second only to their mothers because that is who they've learned to do this from. That is their female role model.

Obviously that's not true in all cases, but think about who in your family does the most work around the holiday season, not just physical chores, but who carries the mental load? I would bet you it's the women in your family and I would bet you that you are one of those women. One person put this so well, it's like being the eldest daughter is, like having an unpaid internship for the rest of your life. This really points to how the combination of gender and birth order causes us to take on so much more physical, emotional, mental, cognitive labor and from a young age. So the younger that you begin doing that, the younger that you become the eldest sibling, the eldest daughter, the more of a lifelong impact that is going to have on

you because you have really, I don't know, not been indoctrinated, but you've really taken on this role as part of your identity. It has been part of your reality for a lot longer. So why does this happen? Why, like how do we get here? Why is it that we all share such a similar experience as the eldest daughter? Well, let's break it down. I want to start by firstly discussing the psychology behind birth order. So in the early like 1900s, this Austrian psychiatrist called Alfred Adler, who you might remember from last week's episode, he came up with the idea of styles of life and also the inferiority complex. But he coined birth order theory. And he proposed that the order in which children are born has a really profound impact on the individual personalities.

So he proposed that firstborns tend to be really neurotic, so like stressful, stressed, more like it, quite dutiful, quite independent, quite conservative. Middle children are competitive, they are rebellious, but they're also people pleases. And the youngest sibling tends to be creative, attention seeking, not very rule following. This has been debated for many, many years, but with a lot of renewed focus in the last decade or two. And when you think about it, obviously where you are born in the family is going to be important, especially since about 80% of us actually have siblings. That is a big part of our childhood and our upbringing. We spend so much time with our brothers and sisters. They share our childhood. Like that's kind of the beautiful part of it. They share our childhood with us. But also they have a very

different relationship to your parents, right? Like each of you, I think, if you have siblings, notices that the level of closeness, the level of like connection, what you, how, what your parents talk to you about, what they trust you with, it's all very different, very different sometimes. So research does suggest some pretty strong kind of shifts in the experiences of firstborns and second borns. So this one researcher from Penn State who was really like the leader in this kind of area of psychology, she puts it really well when she was summarizing her. research. Parents tend to be really focused on getting it right with the first child, leading them to kind of fixate on their firstborn's development growing up. They're really fixated on their health,

on their grades, on the friends that they choose, because they're kind of like the first one out the gate, right? They're the first kind of go that they have. With their subsequent children, though, they might be less anxious, they feel less need to micromanage, and that can lead to less tension in like the parent-child dynamic because there's less of a spotlight on the second, third, fourth child. They begin to relax, maybe now because they have like a quote-unquote backup. I know that sounds terrible, but they've kind of learned the ropes a little bit and they've realized that they can be a little bit more hands-off. So the way they treat the second, third, fourth child is different. And in one study published in the journal for family and marriage,

research has found that on average, one way that this shows up is that parents experience less conflict with their secondborn than their firstborn. They seem to be less strict with each child. They kind of relax the rules. So whilst the firstborn really had to push up against maybe a strict system, like a certain level of discipline, as the parents have more children, they get a lot more relaxed. They have more kids to focus on. They just don't have the energy to make sure, everyone's following the rules all the time. I think that that is what contributes to the real sense of like, I need to be perfect. I need to set the example, but also I have a sense of responsibility, not just to our siblings, but also to our parents, right? The first child is the

only child who gets to know their parents on a completely solo basis, right? Like, before the other kids come along. So they're like the third member in the relationship for a little bit. And because they're around their parents a lot more for entertainment and comfort, whereas kids born later on can kind of turn to their siblings for that, they really get to know them particularly well. And they're very attuned to their emotions and their feelings and their behavior. In some cases, especially if a couple maybe had a child to try and save their relationship or they've placed a lot of their future in this child or we're seeing some degree of like emotional stability with our parents maybe divorce or financial insecurity we see a secondary process take place here called prerentification

prerentification involves kind of a role reversal between parent and child so the child begins to fulfill the emotional needs of the parents the child begins to provide advice and comfort they take on a job to help the family pay the bills, they are assigned more household responsibilities, their achievements are taken as the parent's achievements, whereas the parent gets to be a lot more relaxed, gets to be a lot more like free and emotional and like a little bit wild. That is what parenthification is. And it occurs a lot when there is like some kind of disruption in the family and there is an eldest child who takes on the responsibility. And they may also try and shield younger family members from really hard experiences like arguments or separations.

And that is kind of why we see that level of protectiveness, that level of responsibility form. Additionally, the eldest child gets all the important information first, right? They often, they are raised by the book, they are taught all the rules, all the chores, the expectations, and therefore they're responsible for teaching the younger children, leading to a sense of physical and emotional accountability and responsibility. they're kind of like the third parent in some ways, which is why they're often asked to serve as babysitters as role models, advice givers for their younger siblings. That's that final element, right?

Once your eldest child is old enough, you've got like a free babysitter, like an inbuilt free babysitter that you don't have to pay. Someone you can give your duties as a parent to, even if it's just temporary. And that is a kind of emotional and physical labour. that is not expected from the younger siblings. Even if it may seem minor, even if it's not all the time, sometimes the impact is cumulative. We learn from those moments in which we have been asked to take on

kind of the duties of a third parent and they help create our personality. And whilst your siblings get to be kids, you kind of had to play caregiver in those moments. So interestingly, one study suggested that when firstborns, particularly elder's daughters, leave the home, their relationship with their family actually tends to improve.

And the conflict commonly increases between parents and their younger children because they have now taken the spot of the eldest child in the house. The spotlight is now put on them. We also might kind of see a delayed teenage rebellion for the eldest child when they move out, when they get their own place, when they go off to university, where after years of kind of needing to be perfect, to be the role model, to do well in school, to perform a lot of emotional labour, they suddenly have all this freedom.

They suddenly get to live for themselves or be their own person, and they go a little bit wild in response. Now, some of these conclusions apply to all oldest children, not just daughters, but when you combine birth order with gender, that's when we really start to see this particular pattern and syndrome emerge. So we are going to discuss the influence of gender, of culture, and also the ways that we can take care of ourselves as the eldest daughter after this short break. 2%. That is the number of people who take the stairs when there is also an escalator available.

I'm Michael Easter. And on my podcast, 2%, I break down the science of mental toughness, fitness, and building resilience in our strange modern world. I'll be speaking with writers, researchers, and other health and fitness experts, and more, to look past the impractical and way too complex pseudoscience that dominates the wellness industry. We really believe that seed oils were inherently inflammatory. We got it wrong. Many of the problems that we are freaked out about in the world are the result of stress. Put yourself through some hardships, and you will come out on the other side a happier, more fulfilled, healthier,

person. Listen to 2%. That's TWO percent on the IHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Do you remember when Diana Ross double-tapped Little Kim's boobs at the VMAs? Or when Kanye said that George Bush didn't like black people. I know what you're thinking. What the hell does George Bush got to do a little Kim? Well, you can find out on the Look Back at a podcast. I'm Sam Jett. And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick it here, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it. Including a recent episode with Mark Lamont Hill, waxing all about crack in the 80s. To be clear, 84 is big to me, not just because of crack. I'm down to talk about crack on day, but just so y'all know. I mean, at this point, Mark, this is the second episode where we've discussed crack,

so I'm starting to see that there's a through line. We also have AIDS on the table right now, so. Thank you finishing that sentence. Yes. I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Really? Yeah. For me, it's one of the most important years for black people in American history.

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pressure, and purpose on my new podcast, Learn the Hardway. Open your free IHeartRadio app. Search Learn the Hardway and listen now. In 2023, former Bachelor star Clayton Eckerd found himself at the center of a paternity scandal. The family court hearings that followed revealed glaring inconsistencies in her story. This began a years-long court battle to prove the truth. You doctor. This particular test twice in so much. I doctored the test ones. It took an army of internet detectives to crack the case. I wanted people to be able to see what their tax dollars were being used for.

Sunlight's the greatest disinfected. They would uncover a disturbing pattern. Two more men who'd been through the same thing. Greg Alespian and Michael Marantini. My mind was blown. I'm Stephanie Young. This is Love Trap. Laura, Scottsdale Police.

As the season continues, Laura Owens finally faces consequences. Ladies and gentlemen, breaking news at Americopa County as Laura Owens has been indicted on fraud charges. This isn't over until justice is served in Arizona. Listen to Love Trapped podcast on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Gender introduces its own influences to family dynamics. We like know, we know this. Women are raised differently to boys.

They have treated differently by society. Even when our parents try their hardest to make it equal, sometimes it's unconscious because it's based on how they were raised and they may not even realize or recognize how that might be continuing to promote a very traditional, outdated role of what women are meant to do. When we think about the traditional role of women and girls, their place has been for many, many centuries in the home, performing a lot of that invisible domestic labour.

There is a higher expectation on girls from a young age to be responsible and sensible. Even in like the school system as well, women are also normally what we would call the family's keeper, meaning they perform a lot of that invisible labour of making sure everybody's happy, that conflicts are resolved and everybody feels paid attention to. They keep the peace as mediators and they also don't call a lot of attention to themselves. And although many cultures are now turning away from that conventional and unequal treatment of girls and boys, particularly when it comes to domestic duties, it takes more than a few generations to eliminate stereotypes that have been attached to girlhood and womanhood

for literally centuries for millennia. So there's always going to be some kind of residue that remains in our unconscious brains that it's causing us to implicitly, treat men and women differently. Some people try and deny that there is still unequal treatment of men and women, especially when it comes to the home. And as we see more progressive views towards domestic labor and female empowerment, we can also recognize that some women, you know, want to do those things. That is totally fine. But according to the UN, girls between the ages of five and 14 years old, so not really at a point where they can make like a conscious and like informed decision about how they want to live

their life, they spend 40% more time on domestic work than boys the same age. And on top of that, younger daughters spend more time on average than young sons doing chores that are consistent and very timely, right? So very intensive chores like keeping the house organized, cooking dinner every night, doing the cleaning, driving around siblings, providing almost free therapy to their parents, their siblings, their relatives. Whereas the jobs and the chores, that are commonly done by boys are like mowing the lawn, shoveling snow. Those are irregular. They're not as urgent. They're not as consistent. And the final statistic that really draws at home for me, I'm sure that we're all kind of convinced at this point, but this one really like made it very

apparent to me how like the eldest daughters, and just daughters in general take on so much of the emotional and physical burden. So in the UK, almost 70% of people who are what we would call sandwich caregivers, so that means that they are working and also looking after kids or elderly parents. 70% of those people are women. 70%. So in an article published by Atlantic this year, they refer to this very experience as daughtering. They have a term for it. It's called daughtering. It was coined by Alison Alford at Bailey University. And it's basically used to describe the family work that girls and women tend to take on. That can look like picking up prescriptions. planning retirement parties, setting money aside for the parents' future.

And it can also involve more subtler actions like holding your tongue to avoid an argument or listening to your parents' worries. And this daughtering phenomenon happens for a few reasons. The major one being role modelling theory, where eldest daughters in particular often imitate how their mothers display and embody gender and also gender schema theory. So parents, society, often assigns different gender gender gender. tasks and expectations to boys and girls. You know, like boys are strong, girls are sensitive. Boys are like really physically active, girls are creative. Even if it's accidental, unconscious,

cultural, it has an impact on how eldest daughters grow up to see themselves and how their personalities are often formed around their duty to others. So we can't really deny that if you are a daughter and you've been raised with brothers, for example, you're doing more labor here. Like, it's just common sense. Or in the case of like a family with only daughters, it may be that you begin to compensate for like your dad's chores. When we combine birth order, the fact that parents raise eldest children differently and then gender, this very societal, cultural, ingrained belief system almost about how women should behave. That is the space. That is the space that eldest daughter syndrome emerges.

Sometimes I'm going to acknowledge this now. That role can be really satisfying. I do. I love to talk and brag about my sisters because I feel like a little bit extra proud of them because I was a little bit extra involved in their lives. It's a good feeling, right? You can feel a lot closer to both your parents

and your siblings because you're kind of like you occupy the space in the middle. You have more of an independent drive. You're more ambitious. You have more leadership qualities. Those are all great things. but as we've spoken about, as numerous women have reported, there is also a burden that is very profound. One of the most common experiences is feeling like you never had a chance to fully, truly, live for yourself

because you always felt an added responsibility lingering in the background. Responsibility to look after your siblings, to care for your parents as they get older, to be a success story and set an example, to make money, to pay money, to pay the way and all of those things that results in a lot of both internal and external pressure that we're facing. Then, of course, sometimes we also see resentment beginning to bubble up as well, especially if your younger sibling got away with a lot more things than you did and were permitted more failures or screw-ups. They got to be a lot more carefree than you did. They kind of got to have a childhood. And I know that's really quite sad. Like, they got to be.

that young, carefree kid without being forced to grow into like a caregiving or leadership position really early. Another element is kind of sometimes a competition that can begin to form between siblings, whereby the parents may constantly praise the eldest child or the firstborn, which makes the younger children, often the last born, feel as if they can never live up to the successes and achievements and standards of their elder sibling, or that their parents may even have a favourite. I have heard so many stories of this resentment really destroying family dynamics when we allow that bitterness to like simmer and boil over. Or additionally, if our parents have always, you know, put a lot more energy into the eldest child, that also creates a sense of like jealousy between the children. So it's like a hard dynamic to navigate from like every side of the equation.

But there are also so many people doing it successfully. And what I want to focus on next is how we as the eldest daughters can, start taking care of ourselves without continuing to buy into the expectations or need to keep other people happy. Because when we actually take ourselves off a pedestal, when we say I don't need to be perfect, I don't always need to be in control, I don't need to be this independent, the rest of the family and people around you also take you off a pedestal. So you're kind of doing everybody, like doing everybody a favour where you're evening out the playing field between yourself and your siblings, but also you're able to have like an actual adult relationship with your parents

when you stop, you know, when you stop letting them make you into this golden child. Firstly, we need our families to recognize the unfair burden that may have been placed on us and redistribute that emotional, physical and mental labour more equally. Part of that is being vulnerable around what is expected of you and what you need taken off your plate. For example, if your mom keeps calling around about your younger siblings, even after you've left the house, try and redirect it and just say, hey, I think maybe this is something that you can talk to dad about, not me. Or you can talk to them about it, not me. You are not the third parent. Don't let yourself become the third parent here. Or a big one as the holidays come up,

you need to try and recognize when you are doing things to people please that you don't actually want to do. Stop volunteering for tasks that your brother or your dad could do or another person or just going along with everyone else's demands because it's easier for you to organize things than for other people to take responsibility. For example, if you have picked everyone up from the airport on all their separate flights and then you're having to rush home to prepare dinner and then you're also responsible for the family itinerary, be completely honest and say, hey, can someone else take something off my plate here? Or nominate. someone to do one of your tasks. Also, push back against the gender stereotypes. There is no reason

that your brother can't do the dishes or that your dad can't like boil water for pasta. Like, they are not incompetent, they are adults and you are not their mother. You're their sister, their daughter, even if you were their mother. Still, not fair. Part of breaking down the indoctrinated gender roles that contribute to eldest daughter syndrome is starting at the part of the family unit. And also don't just feel like you're the only one who is going to take control here. Like that is that level of like hyper independence that we see so commonly where you just always say yes to things even when you have a lot going on because it's easier than saying no and having someone else do it wrong or having someone else screw it up. I know it feels so awkward

and uncomfortable at first because you have been playing this part for a long time. but I think that the discomfort will fade when you acknowledge that boundaries are sometimes at first going to feel hard because they don't just they just don't feel normal quite yet and it can also be difficult to start because you realize how much other people have come to rely on you but I think you'll also begin to notice how when you stop doing all of the additional physical and mental labour other people don't want to do it either because it's tiresome but it's It's less tiresome when it's actually evenly distributed. It's also important to start speaking your mind.

Stop biting your tongue and trying to be the mediator or peacemaker all the time. If your parent makes a comment you don't like, say something. If they say something you don't agree with, tell them. If your sibling keeps asking you to intervene in their dispute with your mom or your dad, push back and just say, I don't really have an opinion. If someone is ranting at you and expecting you to just take it, interrupt them and say, hey, this is really putting me in a bad mood. I don't have space for this right now. That is especially the case with your parents, right? You are still their child. You are not their friend.

You are not their parent. You are not their therapist. Don't let them parentify you here. It's also important to encourage balanced conversations that don't fear too severely into blaming your parents or your siblings. You really want to try and understand why, it might be this way. Like we've spoken about throughout this episode, all of the contributing factors and parenting, like parenting styles and behaviours that lead to

eldest daughter syndrome, they're often very subtle and difficult to recognise in the moment. And most of the time, our parents have learnt them from their parents, who learnt them from their parents. It's very generational. So be a bit forgiving

here, because when we stoop to blaming them, rather than understanding, that's when riffs form in families because your parents will never hear you if you're just trying to criticize them, right? I know that you have a lot of anger, you have a lot of frustration, you don't want to silence yourself, but it's basically like putting yourself in this position where it's like, do I want to completely like damage this relationship and maybe not damage it, but like definitely heard it for a little bit? Or do I want to actually get something productive out of this? Like, do I actually want to see their behavior change rather than just see an

emotional reaction from them? When we only blame, it's, you know, often our parents will never hear that the way that we want them to hear that. They'll never hear what we're actually saying, which is, I love you so much. I want our relationship to survive. So please, can we change this pattern of behavior that is putting me in this position? All they're going to hear is, you're a bad parent. You're a bad parent because it's this like cognitive strategy we all have to ignore criticism. So I think really sitting down and being with like, you know, saying to them, you know, this has been my experience and I want to let you know that I value our relationship, but this needs to change. I can't be this perfect child anymore. I can't always organize our lives. You cannot turn to me for emotional support all the time. Maybe

you need a therapist. That's really important. My final tip is to start living for yourself. I think that that is the string that is tied together this whole episode. You do not need to be a child prodigy. You don't need to be the best all the time. You don't have to be the third parent. You don't have to be independent and self-reliant and do everything yourself. You don't always have to be the only one worrying about what it's going to go wrong. And the way to start doing this, the way to take that responsibility off your shoulders,

is to start asking for and accepting. help when you need it. Not just with your family, but with all the other people in your life. For example, if someone has offered to cook you dinner or get you dinner, instead of being like adamant that they shouldn't and being like, no, no thank you, no thank you. Embrace their generosity. They want to show you that they care. They want to do something kind for you because you deserve it. They know how much time and effort you put into others. You don't always have to be the one serving other people. Let them do this for you. Accept other people. Except other people. people's willingness to help you. I really struggled with this when I started dating my boyfriend

and he wanted to like pay for meals and like do things for me. I was like this is really, I'm so used to being this like hyper independent person who takes care of everyone else. Like what is going on? And then recently a friend of mine like stayed at my house and did all the dishes and like offered to like do my laundry. And it felt so odd to have someone do for me what I always felt like I needed to either do for myself or do for other people. But I want you to swallow that initial instinctual gut feeling to be in control, to be self-reliant, and realize that if someone didn't want to do something for you, they wouldn't offer. They want to show you that, they want to show you, I guess, the love that you always give to others. Similar to this, fight back against your chronic independence. If you are

struggling at work or uni, it's okay to reach out for help, right? Or even support. It doesn't make you a failure for needing assistance. That's just your eldest daughter instincts stepping in, trying it's hardest to like make you always be the best and self-reliant. It's like okay to not be the best and everything. It's okay to ask for help the way that other people ask you for help, right? It actually shows really great strength. And I think finally, it's okay to do things for yourself and with yourself, even if it means disappointing others or saying no, whether that is your hobbies or taking a day to just like not interact with anyone or not going to that big family gathering because you're just really tired, not taking

on that extra responsibility. That is okay. That is totally okay. Just say I'm not going. You are not selfish. You do not need to feel shame for prioritizing yourself whilst everyone else is doing the exact same thing by relying on you. Like that is, they are getting the rest by putting all the burden on you. And I think that we really begin to recognize elder daughter syndrome when we just cannot take that burden anymore, when we are so mentally and emotionally exhausted. I think you'll find yourself feeling so free in those moments. You won't feel contained anymore. You'll feel less burnt out when you give up that control and with that responsibility. And I'm not saying that it's going to happen instantly because if you have been the eldest daughter for a long

time you have been very much like this is your identity so it's going to be really hard to give up but maybe just start by giving up the things that you really don't have space for anymore you really don't have the space to just like always be on your own and to never trust others you don't have the space to always be organizing everything like this was one of the things i really noticed about myself as the eldest daughter was i just got sick of always being the friend who had to make plans with everybody. Like it was so tiring to be the one who everyone was always like, what are you doing this weekend? What are we doing this weekend? Can you book this? Like, you know, it was really tiring and I gave that up because I was like, I can't keep doing this. And people respond to the kind of, to your absence,

until the kind of hole that you leave when you no longer do their mental labor for them. I think being the eldest daughter is such an emotional mind field at times. I really do get it. You also feel that sense of responsibility for your younger siblings. Like I said before, like you implicitly know that if anything was to happen to your parents, you would be the one in charge. Like, you're the one who's going to have to step up there. So even if you don't think about it often, there is always that implied sense of like, I need to make sure these kids are all right. Like, I need to protect them. And sometimes you just want to break. You want to break from all that responsibility. And, you know, you can't change how you were raised or your birth order,

but you can begin to unlearn and heal the parts of you that feel the need to carry the burden of everyone else while still being perfect. Like you can't do everything all the time. So let yourself be a child again. Let yourself receive love rather than always having to give it out. Like you really, you deserve that. You deserve to heal. You deserve to be a happy eldest daughter.

So I really hope that you enjoyed this episode. I hope that you learnt something from this episode. As an eldest child, I totally get it. I feel like this was, I was writing this episode just being like, yep, yep, that makes sense, that makes sense, tick that off the list, like, totally aligns with my experience. And I hope that maybe that was the case for you as well, where you felt heard, you felt seen by this research, by some of these personal experiences, and also thinking about ways to not just go into the holiday season, but into every season, in a healthier, healed

way, where you're not always taking on this role in the family. You're allowed to be more yourself and take on an identity that is more aligned with who you actually are. So thank you so much for listening to this episode. If you enjoyed it, if you think someone else needs to hear this, make sure you share a link with them and leave a five-star review. This is like our last solo episode of the year. I just realized that last solo episode. This year we're doing 12 days of guests in December. So for the rest of the month, for the rest of the year, we will just be. We will just be doing guest episodes. I've been working so hard on finding some amazing people to come on and every single conversation is just like so wise, so mind-blowing, so like just targeted and interesting and

fascinating. So I cannot wait for you guys to hear all of those episodes. Make sure you're following so that you get alerted when they start to come out. And if you have an episode suggestion, please feel free to DM me at That Psychology Podcast on Instagram. This is where this episode came from like I talked about it very briefly in the overachieving episode and the amount of you that said I want to hear about the eldest daughter was insane. So thanks for your suggestion. I really hope that you enjoyed this episode and we will be back at the end of this week with another one. 2%. That's the number of people who take the stairs when there is also an escalator available. I'm Michael Easter. I'm on my podcast 2%. I break down the science of mental toughness, fitness and building

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