My dad had this toy dog with wheels instead of feet. A string was attached to its neck
so it would follow wherever you go. I didn’t think much of it. I thought it was boring,
so I took my stamp kit and pressed a blue flower all over it. Later that day, I spotted
my little sister Chloé (who was 4 at the time) playing with the dog. My dad was in the
living working from home. I looked at it as an opportunity to get my little sis in
trouble.
So I yelled, “Papa, looked what Chloé did to your dog!”
Unfortunately, I have to admit that I was a terribly mean older sister. I took advantage
of my authority and often controlled my sister’s every move, thought, and feeling.
Sometimes we’d get along and have fun, but most of the time I’d come up with some
sort of diabolical plan to make her cry or get her in trouble. It’s like I fed off of her
misery. It was satisfying for me to see someone else (specifically my sister) suffer the
consequences for something I did. 80% of the time of got off scot-free. I felt invisible,
unstoppable. I wouldn’t be surprised if I laughed like a menacing evil villain.
At the same time, I knew about my dad’s anger issues. I knew that he’d over react,
possibly throw something and curse in French. I smiled at the thought of how much
trouble Chloé was about to get into (and she didn’t even know).
“Oh no! Chloé!” my dad wailed.
“Yeah, Chloé. You shouldn’t do that,” I said, adding salt to the wound. I really wanted
to see my dad get angry. Now that I think about it, I guess I just wanted to come off
as the “better” child, get more admiration from my parents and get the better toys,
candy, etc. I often looked at our relationship as a competition. Though I don’t
remember seeing my parents give more attention to my little sister. Maybe I just took
the stereotypical mean older sibling example from TV shows like “Rugrats”. Ironically,
my favorite character was Angelica.
No comments:
Post a Comment