They call us the “firsts.”
The first heartbeat they ever heard outside their own. The first tiny hand they ever held. The first diaper, the first fever, the first sleepless night. The first time they looked into eyes that reflected their own, and wondered if they were enough.
We were the first “I love you” whispered over a crib in the still-dark hush of 4 a.m., the first panicked call to the pediatrician over a rash that turned out to be nothing. The first gummy smile. The first scribbled Mother’s Day card. The first word, the first step, the first fall. The first to make them cry from a kind of love they had no name for.
But we were also the first rules. The first curfews. The first punishments. The first awkward parent-teacher meetings. The first slammed doors, the first teenage silences. The first “Why don’t you understand me?” shouted through tears. We were the first report card anxieties, the first time they had to ask themselves if they were doing this whole “parent” thing right.
We are the first draft.
And like all first drafts, we are written with trembling hands, in uncharted territory. We are edited in real time, corrected as we go. We are scribbled through and rewritten, often misunderstood in our earliest form. And sometimes—oftentimes—we are set aside in favor of a more refined, gentler version written with the lessons they learned from us.
Raising with them
They say parents grow with their children—but what they often don’t say is that the firstborn grows up raising both themselves and their parents. We are the children who witnessed our parents’ transformation in real time. We are the kids who watched them stumble through new emotions, unspoken fears, and late-night worries they didn’t yet know how to name. We were the practice run—their introduction to sleepless nights, tantrums, parent-teacher meetings, and the aching anxiety of letting a piece of their heart walk around outside their body.
While they were learning how to love, discipline, and protect, we were learning too—except we didn’t have the benefit of experience to fall back on. They were still becoming, and so were we. And in many ways, we raised ourselves in the cracks of their learning curve, often too quietly, too independently. Not because we wanted to—but because we had to.
I’ve always known that I was the beginning of something. But it took years to realise that beginnings, while celebrated, are also messy.
I don’t say this out of bitterness—at least, not entirely. I say this because I have spent most of my life watching my parents transform. And in that transformation, I have had to grieve the version of them I never got to know.
the blueprint
We, the firstborns, are the blueprint. We are the first everything. The first smile. The first fever. The first scraped knee. The first “What do we do now?” whispered between panicked parents at 2 a.m. We were the experiment in love and responsibility, the testing ground for rules, curfews, values, and traditions.
Every “no” was a product of fear. Every “yes” was a cautious step forward.
We were held tighter, watched more closely, and expected to behave better—not because they didn’t love us, but because they were scared. Scared of getting it wrong. Of messing us up. And so they tried to do everything right—with limited tools, old-school beliefs, and a love that was often disguised as control.
They told us to set an example. To act older. To be the responsible one. What they didn’t say was that we were also their mirror—the version of themselves they hoped to improve. And in that hope, they sometimes projected their fears, their regrets, their longing for redemption. So we walked carefully. We tried to be good. We tried to be enough.
enter the final draft
And then, years later, came the youngest. The final draft. The version written in ink, polished by trial and error. And suddenly, the house felt softer, like pages of a well-read book, edges worn and words gently fading into comfort. The rules weren’t carved in stone anymore—they were guidelines, flexible and open to negotiation. The punishments weren’t as harsh. The boundaries blurred into gentle conversations. The expectations felt more like encouragement than pressure.
You watch them be raised in a world you helped create—a world shaped by your struggles, your sacrifices, your bruised knees and silent obedience. And you don’t blame them. How could you? They deserve the tenderness you longed for. They deserve this gentler version of your parents—the ones softened by time, mellowed by experience, tired from the battles they fought with you. You want them to have everything you didn’t. And you mean it. But still, there’s a flicker of something—something sharp and quiet—buried beneath the pride and love you feel for them. But sometimes, the smile you offer them is tinged with a quiet ache.
Because you remember being the age they are now. you remember walking on eggshells, testing the temperature of the room before speaking. You remember how you used to rehearse your words before knocking on the door. You remember how your mistakes felt like disappointments etched in stone, how you apologized even when you didn’t fully understand what you’d done wrong. How “why did you do that?” always felt like an accusation, not curiosity. You remember dimming yourself to keep the peace. Learning to anticipate moods before they turned into storms.
And sometimes, you catch yourself wondering—what would’ve happened if you had come second? If someone else had taken the brunt of the expectations, the pressure, the tightrope walk of being the blueprint?
But still—you love them. Fiercely. Quietly. Completely. Because even if you were the draft, you helped write the story.
LOVE WITH AN ASTERISK
Firstborn love is real. Fierce. Undeniable. It’s the kind of love that arrives with trembling hands and too-high hopes—the kind that makes your parents stare at you like you’re the beginning of everything. But sometimes, it comes with an asterisk. A footnote filled with conditions, expectations, and a subtle pressure to always be more. More mature. More helpful. More responsible. Just… more.
It’s not that we weren’t loved—we were. Deeply, wholly, achingly. But often, that love came wrapped in correction. It came hand-in-hand with instructions.
And because we were so desperate not to disappoint the people who gave us everything, we tried to become everything. We learned to earn it. We became overachievers. People-pleasers. Peacekeepers. We were afraid of being a burden, so we tried to be useful instead. We took on chores without being asked. We learned to read moods, to anticipate needs, to carry emotional weight we didn’t know how to name.
We didn’t just learn how to be “good”—we learned how to be easy. Because we thought that was the closest thing to being loved without conditions.
Affection isn’t just about being loved—it’s about being known, being chosen even when you’re not proving your worth.
But now, with time and distance and hindsight, I see it differently.
I understand them now—my parents. They weren’t trying to be cold or harsh or distant. They were just new. New to parenting. New to loving someone so much it scared them. New to the weight of responsibility, to the fear of messing it all up. They were learning in real-time, and I was their classroom. Every “no” they said too quickly, every punishment that felt too big, every hug that came too late—it wasn’t malice. It was fear. It was exhaustion. It was love tangled up in uncertainty.
They didn’t always know how to be gentle while also trying to raise someone strong. So they taught us discipline and called it love. They taught us sacrifice and called it character. They taught us resilience and called it survival.
And maybe they were right, in some ways. I am strong. I am capable. I am someone others can lean on.
the invisible load
You do not have to carry everything at once just because you were told you could.
And even when we leave home, that responsibility follows us.
It shows up in the way we love—cautiously at first, as if love is a test we need to pass. We tread lightly, overthink our words, double-check our tone, afraid of being too much or not enough. It shows up in how we apologize too quickly, even when we’re not at fault—because we’ve been conditioned to keep the peace, to fix the mood, to smooth over every crack before anyone notices. We flinch at disappointment, not because we’re fragile, but because we’ve spent our whole lives measuring our worth against approval. One disapproving glance, one unmet expectation, and suddenly we’re eight years old again—thinking we’ve let someone down, even if no one says so.
It shows up in the silence after success, in the inability to fully celebrate ourselves without wondering if we could’ve done more. And it lingers—in the way we always feel like we’re slightly behind, like we’re racing a clock no one else can see, trying to prove something we can’t quite name.
We were raised with love, yes. But sometimes that love wore the face of pressure. Sometimes it sounded like rules. Sometimes it felt like performance. And we rose to meet it—because we didn’t know any other way.
TO MY SISTER
Maybe the hardest part of being the firstborn is not the pressure or the rules or even the unmet needs—it’s how early we learn to become the shield. The quiet protector. The one who absorbs the storm so the next one doesn’t have to feel the rain.
When you were born, something in me shifted. I didn’t just become an older sister—I became your buffer, your guardrail, your secret keeper. I took the scoldings, I followed the rules, I swallowed the fear, all in hopes that maybe, just maybe, you wouldn’t have to. I tried to make myself dependable so you could be free to explore, to be soft, to be silly. I watched the world closely, learned its sharp edges, and tried to file them down before you ever got close.
And because of that, our bond is something sacred to me. It’s not just love—it’s tethered to something deeper. I look for you in every room. I read your silences. I carry a version of your pain before you even speak it out loud. And when I see you hug Dad without hesitation, or when you curl up next to Mom without worry, I don’t feel resentment. I feel a bittersweet kind of peace.
And watching you live that dream—it heals something in me.
You don’t know the weight I carried so you wouldn’t have to. And that’s okay. You were never supposed to know. That’s the quiet magic of being your older sister—I get to love you in all the ways I once longed to be loved. And when you laugh with me, or randomly hold my hand, or call me your safe place—it reminds me that I did something right.
Being the firstborn is hard—but being your sister has healed me in ways I never expected. And if I had to do it all over again, I would—just so you could have what I didn’t. Just so you could feel held. Loved. Unafraid.
This love I have for you—it’s the purest, strongest, most unspoken kind. You will never walk alone. Not while I’m here.
dad, the stranger i knew
I know my father loves me. Deeply, fiercely, in that quiet, steady way that doesn’t always look like affection but has always felt like protection. If I ever needed him—really needed him—he’d move mountains. That’s never been in question. I don’t carry resentment in my heart. I carry gratitude. And alongside it, a quieter companion: a kind of sadness that doesn’t always have a name. A soft, persistent ache for the version of him I didn’t grow up knowing.
I have spent most of my life watching my father evolve. He was always there—but in a way that felt distant, like a figure behind glass. Close enough to see, to admire, to obey—but never quite close enough to hold. He was the man who kept the lights on, who drove us to school, who fixed things around the house without asking for thanks. He was sturdy. Solid. A foundation. But emotional closeness didn’t come as easily as practical care. He asked about grades, not feelings. He gave solutions instead of softness. He showed love in ways I didn’t always recognize until I got older.
Even then, I never blamed him. Not really. I understood, even as a child, that he was doing the best he could with what he had. That he was raised in a world where love was shown through effort, not words. Through action, not affection. Where “I love you” looked like food on the table and a roof over your head, not warmth in the voice or softness in the eyes. And so I never asked for more, because I thought this was all love could look like from him.
But then my sister came along. And with her, so did a different version of my father.
A version who smiled more, laughed freely, softened his tone without realizing it. A version who called her his “little queen” and meant it, who let her cry without panic, who said “I’m proud of you” just because. A version who held her hand in public and kissed her forehead at night. Who made silly voices, watched cartoons, offered affection in broad daylight—not just in silent service.
And I loved seeing them together. Truly. Watching them filled me with something warm and light, something that whispered, he’s grown, he’s softened, he’s healing too. But at the same time, it split me in two. Because while he was becoming the kind of father I had needed, I was busy unlearning how to need him at all.
By the time he learned how to say “I love you” out loud, I had already stopped expecting to hear it. By the time he learned how to show up emotionally, I had already taught myself not to ask. I had already become the girl who solved her own problems and used achievements as currency for attention. I had already convinced myself that this was just how it was—that some people get gentle fathers, and some get strong ones.
And now, I find myself caught in between. Grateful for the man he is becoming yet quietly mourning the version I didn’t get. Sometimes, I look at him with my sister and feel joy—and immediately, guilt for the ache that follows. Because I’m not angry at him. I’m proud of him. I know growth isn’t linear, and softness takes time. That becoming softer in a world that taught you to be hard is no small thing. I love him for evolving. But some part of me will always mourn the father I had to imagine, the one I built in my head during lonely moments, the one I hoped would show up in a different tone, a longer hug, a question about how I feel, not just what I’ve done.
I still don’t know how to ask for that version of him. I don’t even know if I’m allowed to. It feels too late now, like trying to fit back into a language we never quite learned to speak. So, I keep loving him in the way I always have—in patience, in understanding, in unspoken gratitude. And maybe, in small ways, he’s trying too. Maybe in the way he buys me the smallest things I mention or tells me to message when I reach. Maybe those are his new ways of saying, I’m still learning. I’m trying to love you better now.
And maybe that’s enough.
But every now and then, when he wraps his arm around my sister’s shoulders with ease, I wonder what it would’ve felt like if he had learned to do that when it was me standing there.
what we don’t say
We don’t say how hard it is to be proud and heartbroken at the same time. To cheer as our younger siblings, grow up in softer home—a home we helped shape with our tears, our tantrums, our quiet compliance. We are happy for them, truly. We cheer for every freedom they’re given, every gentle moment we never received. But beneath that joy lies an ache we don’t talk about. An ache that whispers, why wasn’t it this way for me?
We don’t say how hard it is to carry bruises that don’t show. The kind that formed not from what was done, but from what was missing. Not from harm, but absence. The absence of comfort, of gentleness, of someone pausing to ask, “Are you okay?” instead of “What did you do?”
We don’t say that sometimes, in quiet moments—when the house is still, or when we see an old photo of our younger selves—we wish we had been allowed to be soft, messy, and flawed without it being a lesson or a lecture. That someone had told us, you don’t have to be perfect to be loved.
We don’t say that we still hesitate before asking for help, because we’re not sure we’re allowed to need it. We’ve spent so long being the reliable one, the example, the emotional anchor, that it feels unnatural to lean. We’re more comfortable giving than receiving. We offer support like second nature, but when it’s our turn to break down, we smile instead. We say we’re fine. We always say we’re fine.
We don’t say that we hear criticism louder than praise. That one small word of disapproval still echoes longer than a hundred compliments. That no matter how much we accomplish, a part of us still wonders if we’ve done enough. If we are enough.
We don’t say that sometimes, love felt like a performance. That we got used to earning it with marks, with medals, with doing the right thing at the right time in the right way. That we learned how to be praised, but not always how to be comforted. That even now, when someone offers us kindness, we’re not sure how to receive it without suspicion or guilt.
We carry all of this quietly. Tucked away behind grades, adult jobs, calm voices, and dependable shoulders. Because we were raised to be the strong ones. The stable ones. The blueprint. And it never occurred to us that blueprints are allowed to be fragile too.
healing the draft
But here’s the beautiful thing about first drafts: they don’t have to stay unfinished.
We are not frozen in the versions we were born into. As we grow older, as we begin to untangle the knots of our childhood with adult hands and softer hearts, we learn that we are allowed to return to our own beginnings—with compassion this time. We are allowed to revisit those tender places with grace.
We are allowed to love our parents for who they were and still mourn the versions of them we saw evolve. We can say, Thank you for trying, and also say, You missed things that mattered.
These truths can coexist.
Love does not erase pain, and pain does not cancel out love.
And slowly, quietly, bravely—we begin to rewrite. To soften the voice in our heads. To stop measuring our worth by productivity or perfection. To learn how to receive love that doesn’t have to be earned. To ask for hugs, for help, for space, for kindness—and not feel guilty for needing it. We build homes inside ourselves that are safe and soft and forgiving. And in doing so, we begin to heal—not just ourselves, but the generations before us too.
healing ripples backwards, just as much as it ripples forward.
We are the first drafts—raw, bold, messy, unsure. But we are also the ones who made the story possible. We are the reason the second and third chapters could be gentler. And maybe we weren’t born into ease. Maybe we didn’t grow up in the version of love that was loud, soft, and endlessly affirming. But we made it through the first version of everything. We survived the unspoken rules, the heavy silences, the learning curves. We survived the growing pains of a family still figuring itself out.
I’m learning to forgive the past without needing to erase it.
I’m learning that I can ask for a hug even now, and that maybe—just maybe—they’ve been waiting for me to reach out.
And maybe, one day, I’ll stop hesitating.
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And if you’d like to explore more of my world, visit my corner at HCMUJ — Aditi Thakur