Middle Child
“O brave new world that has such people in it!”
Miranda, The Tempest, William Shakespeare
Sometimes a person will ask me about my family, that is, my family history, I don’t know why; maybe they’re trying to figure out like a crime or something.. And, truthfully, I don’t like to say very much at all. First, I do believe, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.” That is good advice. But honestly, that’s not the real reason I go mum. I mean, how many times have I said, “I grew up in a small town on the South Shore of Long Island.” Then, “I’m one of three girls; I have two sisters.” Followed by ”No, I am the middle one”—only to hear, and this is an actual quote: “Ohhh. I SEE-E.”
And what would you think if you heard that every time? Seriously? You’re still trying to decode what that mean? Here’s a hint: “It doesn’t mean, “Hey Queen!! You rule!!”
(I have sometimes wondered how, as an infinite soul wandering in the vastness of space, I might have chosen the parents who then gave birth to me. I mean, obviously, I have had crazier thoughts . . But a middle child? Please. Even I wouldn’t choose that.”)
Because I have always believed in the idea that I first discovered in the book, The Doors of Perception, by Aldous Huxley, that babies are, essentially, all-consciousness: they’re born little godheads, all-knowing and alive. Huxley, who is actually more famous for his dystopian book called Brave New World, in fact, derived his own “doors of perception” theory from an essay written in 1790 by the visionary poet and artist, William Blake, entitled “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.”
“If the doors of perception were cleansed, every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro’ narrow chinks of his cavern.” (Blake)
And then, after much “experimentation” with magic mushrooms, Huxley concluded:
“. . . ordinary consciousness represents only a fraction of what the mind can take in. In order to keep us focused on survival, the brain must act as a “reducing valve” on the flood of potentially overwhelming sights, sounds and sensations. ”
In other words, we’re only savants when we’re shitting ourselves. We get duller and stupider as we get inevitably older. (Mercifully, however, we do learn language—a very, very hard task— while we are still fundamentally “unformed.”) I thought you might find that interesting. But my point is that even a newborn would not choose to be a “middle.” Because this is what it’s like to be a middle child:
One Fourth of July, while I was lying on the grounds of a deserted lighthouse (with a really cute skirt on) with the man I was sure was the love of my life, I thought, “here it is: love; I have always wanted this.” It was nice; the grass smelled of wildflowers and faintly, sea salt; the waves just beyond us went “shhhh” on the shore, and languorously, I asked, “Am I the love of your life?”
He immediately replied. “Well, you are a love.” Well, Happy Fourth of . . . my life. And that’s what middle children are; we are an “a” not a “the.” Do you think The Great Gatsby was an ambitious middle child? Uhhh. . .”The”??
But a “middle-born?”Forget it. It’s not merely that you’re “second.” You’re not the well-behaved “first-born” that your parents prayed for; nor the last-born, the “charmer” who, and I don’t need to tell you this—will totally, for his whole life, completely get away with murder. You’re . . . resented by the first and derided by the third. When you step up to the plate, you are always “brushed back.” What? It’s hard for me to believe I am even telling you this. As if you didn’t already know.
And I’m not talking out of my hat. There have been multiple studies about personality and birth order. The original theory they examine was espoused by Alfred Adler. Originally a Viennese ophthalmologist and a close friend of Freud, he developed this theory in the early twentieth century. His theory states that the order in which a child is born eventually impacts his or her personality. These personalities traits aren’t considered to be present at birth—because, think about it: A “second child” is not a “middle child” until the third child is born. And also, it seems, a child of a different gender might also be treated as a “new firstborn”(e.g. the “long-awaited” son or daughter), but the point is, the personalities that emerge are the eventual products of the individual family dynamics.
But the weird thing is, even given the “individual dynamics,” the birth-order “types” are, amazingly, the same. Quick quiz: Which one is the “achiever”? Which one is the “rebel”? Which one is the “baby who always gets away with murder”?
You get an A!
And another thing that comes out of birth-order studies: First-borns are shown to get higher test scores, end up with more money, and, of course, run triathlons and are generally well-behaved. The middle child, let’s face it, is a huge disappointment. We’re rebellious, free spirits, and, of course, we do drugs. ( . . .) In my opinion, the middle child also tends to be “smarter,” more socially adept, and, of course, self-aware. (And also, it’s a fact that we tend to dress better.)
And the baby? What can I say, but they are much more charming. They are cheerful and easygoing and they always dress better. Unfortunately, for these munchkins, their lives are so charmed that when something goes wrong —let’s say, an illness, or a job problem or a drug-addled child, they think all is lost! That this must be the end! They go off the rails, begin to doubt their self-worth. Whereas, for a middle child, “shit happens” on a Tuesday (and Thursdays? Oh please; we are nobody’s fool.)
Personally, I self-soothe with Burgundy and soft cheese.
Good food, Gatsby knew, was the secret of success. And maybe, come to think of it, he really was a middle child. First, as you know, he wasn’t actually “Jay Gatsby.” He was James Gatz, an aimless seventeen year-old, clamming on the quiet shores of Lake Superior, who one day, caught the eye of the wealthy Dan Cody, an older, sort of gangster-ish American titan. And it was right then and there that James Gatz became “Jay.” Or, as Nick Carraway, The Great Gatsby ’s narrator says, “The truth was that Jay Gatsby, of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his Platonic conception of himself.” Which made me think, Ayyy!! Go Gatsby! I mean, that’s how we do, isn’t it? Why we all, if we’re truthful, invent the person we become. We’re all—even babies—trying to emerge from this muddle as, admit it “somebodies.”And at least, Jay Gatsby, well-dressed bootlegger and mad, stupid rich—he was his own man — became somebody. He then pursued, single-mindedly, the love of his life. But that didn’t work out. I mean, he basically got killed.
Gatsby’s not my favorite novel although I still talk about it; for one thing, all those rich wannabes —I mean, uggh! And also, I am an artist so that whole “I am somebody!” means nothing to me. But the last line of the book? Oh my. It’s sick! It was written on the mysterious North Shore of Long Island (Sands Point, for a fact) and it should be the mantra of every developing child:
“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
And do you know why I am an aggrieved middle child? I am inclined to believe it is, obviously, karma. I believe in my past life, I threw a child off a cliff. At least one. Maybe two. And it was probably a first-born.
