Older sister appreciation day should be a national holiday. I know many people have different family dynamics that may go against this notion, but being a younger sister myself, I admit younger sibling privilege exists.
Older siblings are the first experience our parents have with parenting. Parents are bound to make mistakes and learn things from their first born that us younger siblings might reap the benefits from. For example, let’s say a parent wants to prevent their children from ever eating sugar. After putting it into effect on their first born, the child might have frequent temper tantrums and breakdowns. The child then might decide to sneak candy into their room and eat it every night out of bitterness. Once discovered, the parents learn that trying to ban sugar is not as effective as monitoring it in a healthy way. The next child never has to go through the emotional trauma of being banned from sugar. This is a small, simple example of many things that might be learned before the next child (the younger sibling) comes around.
Older siblings often have to take on a parental role. Older siblings are usually expected to watch over the younger and are sometimes forced to take us with them to places they would rather go alone. Younger siblings get the privilege of experiencing “older” things at a younger age whilst being protected and guided.
This lends itself to the notion that older siblings are like a younger sibling’s very own god-gifted mentor. Older siblings are literally our teachers for every aspect of life. Being younger we get to watch them reach all the milestones we will eventually get to, and see how they handle it. Older siblings are able to give us the best advice from their own experiences, and allow us to learn from their mistakes before we make the same ones.
Younger siblings also get all the hand-me-downs. Since the older sibling is accumulating more years of Christmas presents and Birthdays, younger siblings are often gifted with anything they do not like, want, or don’t fit into anymore. We are always the ones who get to borrow clothes and things too, because we know the older sibling will likely have what we want.
Without my older sister, I have no idea how I would get through life. The more I think about it the more I see how much older siblings do for us, and how thankful I am to have one. Show appreciation to your older siblings today and every day.