If you're an eldest daughter, you might find you're subjected to Eldest Daughter Syndrome, and I'm interested to hear about your experiences.
If you're also the eldest female child and happen to be mixing midlife, menopause, teenagers, and are living in that high-pressure sandwich generation era, the stress of your birth order position takes on a new and entirely torturous meaning.
My intrigue in the subject was piqued by a conversation between Jo Whiley and Zoe Ball, on their brilliant Dig It podcast, where they discuss all midlife's biggest issues.
Jo has four children: India, Jude, Cassius, and Coco. Shouting out her eldest daughter on her podcast, Jo says, "My favourite thing is getting all the messages from my eldest daughter India, about the woes, responsibilities, and the hard life that you have if you are the eldest daughter."
She adds that eldest daughters "Have to parent the parents, they have to parent the children, it's just about the most difficult place in a family scenario you could be. The eldest daughter is the absolute warrior and hero within the family."
Both Jo and Zoe are the eldest daughters in their families, and as the eldest daughter in mine, Jo's words immediately resonated with me - and they resonated hard. This is also something keenly felt by only daughters who are female, as some of my friends in this position tell me.
Before we get into just why I was shouting, "Yes! Yes! That's me!" at my phone when I saw Jo's post, followed by the inevitable crashing sadness that I recognise myself as having Eldest Daughter Syndrome because of the patriarchy, misogyny and all the other things that make women's lives more difficult than they should be, let's get into what the condition is.
First things first, Eldest Daughter Syndrome is not a recognised medical or psychological diagnosis, but it should be. The term gained huge prominence when US licensed marriage and family therapist Kati Morton, posted a video about it to TikTokthat went viral.
Essentially, this real (but of course not recognised because it's a women's issue) phenomenon that starts with eldest daughters being delegated developmentally inappropriate responsibilities as a child, leading to monumentally outsized responsibilities within the family as an adult.
When this carries on as a young adult, it's bad enough. As an older adult with young children, it can feel terrible. However, being the eldest daughter mixed with all the things that come with midlife madness, you're going to buckle under the pressure.
As a child, I was taught and expected to do all the jobs my mum did around the house. My brother was expected to do nothing - he had more than his fair share of adults to parent and pander to him - lucky him!
When I moved out, although domestic labour was off the cards, my emotional support role for the entire family was done remotely - and stressfully.
I now have a husband, children who need me, and two needy cats who pretend they need me more than anyone else.
My parents are also older and need more support than ever. Who is expected to pick up the pieces of everyone's expectations? You don't need me to tell you.
There's quite a few "symptoms" of Eldest Daughter Syndrome, and I've had a look at seven that come up a lot, and my experience of them.
- Struggle with hyper-responsibility: Yes. I prioritise absolutely everyone's needs and neglect my own, to the point I have about 15 things I should see a doctor about but can't, because I'm socialised to put everyone else first.
- Become an overachiever. On paper, not really. But I do put a lot of pressure on myself to at least attempt to be great at things, and the crash and burn if that doesn't happen feels catastrophic.
- Feel anxious. Always.
- Become a people-pleaser. I actually don't know how to live any other way.
- Difficulties with boundaries. This resulted in previously getting into some terrible relationships that have had a lasting impact on my wellbeing. It's like my mouth cannot form the word "no."
- Struggle with guilt. It's my default setting.
- Adult relationships suffer. Well, um, of course... I'm too busy doing things for other people to have decent adult relationships.
Whenever I do get to see my friends, quite a lot of time nowadays is dedicated to commiserating/crying about the pressure placed on daughters - quite a few people I know also happen to be the eldest.
Posted by womanandhome on
I asked my friend Kate for her thoughts on her situation as not just the eldest daughter, but the only child who happens to be female. Here's what she said:
"As a 40 something, single daughter currently caught slap bang in the middle of the sandwich generation duties of raising children whilst also parenting your parents, it’s a huge weight.
"There’s an estimated 2.4 million sandwich carers in the UK and I’d be willing to bet the majority of them are eldest daughters.
"As a single daughter born after years of infertility, there’s always been a pressure to be the best I can be and it took until reaching my 30s to see that those expectations are very different for firstborn daughters than they are for firstborn sons or younger siblings.
"There’s a very specific weight that comes from being the only child who is a daughter, academically, professionally, even providing them with grandchildren, it all fell to me.
"Whilst caring first for my dad and now my mum, I’ve noticed the way I’m spoken to about their care being my responsibility is very different from my husband’s experience with his elderly mum.
"He’s never asked to sort out old dear medical appointments, book food deliveries, buy new nightwear, buy continence pads or spend hours a day keeping her company… But as a firstborn daughter, that is my almost full-time job and it comes with a huge amount of guilt that I’m not doing enough.
"As a single daughter, I make a big effort to make sure my two sons see those invisible care jobs and the emotional labour carried by so many women as their job too. They have to buy my birthday cards and a gift; they can’t rely on their sister to do it for them.
"Everyone knows how to use the washing machine and put washing out to dry. I'm doing my very best to break the cycle of eldest daughter responsibilities with the next generation."
What is your experience of Eldest Daughter Syndrome, good or bad? Let us know in the comments section.
