Before you go #20: Be first

Dear Sam,

You are my second child, but my first son.  I say this, not because you don’t obviously already know this, but because there are those who believe birth order can have a significant impact on who we are and what we become.

I am the classic oldest child—responsible, achievement oriented, confident.  Your dad is the baby and isn’t quite so textbook.  While he can certainly be rebellious and attention seeking, he also has some of the qualities of an oldest or only child, as he was significantly younger than his two older siblings and was raised almost as an only for much of his childhood. 

As a second child, you would be grouped into the vague “middle” description, though in this, as with so many things, you sort of defy the stereotypes.  Even in the parenting of you, I think I treated you more as an oldest.  You and your sister were just 18 months apart, so she barely had time to establish a foothold as the eldest before you joined the family.  In addition, she is more reserved and cautious than you, which thrust you into the leadership role more often than many seconds.  You have always been more particular and vocal about your likes and dislikes than she, so that played into your making more decisions as well.

However, by nature of coming after her, you were always compared to someone else.  The entire previous paragraph was devoted to describing your traits and personality in comparison to hers.  I suppose this is a little unfair, and probably a little bit annoying to those of you who aren’t the oldest child.  I know Grace was not an easy act to follow, and perhaps we did you a bit of a disservice in all of that comparing.

It occurred to me this week, however, that you were first in a lot of interesting ways.  First, you are our oldest son.  As the mother of many, you will never convince me that there aren’t fundamental differences between the sexes.  Boys and girls are DIFFERENT.  I won’t expound here, but just trust me on this.  The raising of girls and boys is different.  You were our first (and only for a lot of years) experience with male offspring, and you taught us some things.

Second, you were my first natural birth.  Grace was a c-section (she was breech—meaning upside down…or right side up depending on how you think about it), but I convinced my doctor with you to let me attempt a normal delivery, and you made your entrance the way God designed it.  It was interesting to live both, but also a bit intimidating to be treated as a second time mom when I had never actually experienced labor or delivery before you.  Everything about your birth story was different, but most notable was the drama of bringing you home to meet your big sister.

When I was pregnant with you, I remember telling my sister that I had more or less resigned myself to never being able to love another person the way I loved Grace.  As a second child, she was justifiably a bit horrified, but I just didn’t know how such focused and all-consuming universe of love could expand to include anyone else.  Until you.  I loved you from that very first moment, with the same bone deep all encompassing depth of emotion that I felt for your sister.  And again for each sibling after you.  The best description I ever heard was that a mother’s love is like the sun—it doesn’t shine any less on any one of you because it shines on all of you.  You were the first one to teach me that lesson.

And now, oddly enough, you will be the first of our children to actually experience all of the rituals of modern high school graduation.  You will have a senior prom and a baccalaureate Mass.  You will walk the stage for your diploma.  Your sister, of course, was a member of the unfortunate class of 2020, for whom the spring of their senior year was a disappointing drama of canceled events.  Officially, Grace never graduated.  She received her diploma in a drive by handoff that I don’t remember if we were even home to witness.  One of her graduation cards read “congratulations class of 2020”, and on the inside said, “more like class of 2019.75”.  Truer words have never been spoken.  So you’ll be our first graduate.  

As the weeks wind down, I’m nervous for these last great events.  I never realized when I graduated from high school how many of the details and logistics were quietly managed by the moms.  Should you wear a suit or a tux to prom?  Do you need a suit for graduation?  How many kids will show up to your grad party?  Do I need 4 outfits for the graduation festivities (awards assembly, ceremony, Mass, party)?  By the time the younger kids go through this, I’ll have a system down pat, but you are my first in so many ways.  I’m making it up as I go along.

So, before you go, Sammy boy, be first.  Be all the things it means to be first—the winner, the fearless, the bumbling, the confident, the brave.  Before you go, be first.