Monday’s child is fair of face,
Tuesday’s child is full of grace,
Wednesday’s child is full of woe,
Thursday’s child has far to go,
Friday’s child is loving and giving,
Saturday’s child works hard for a living,
But the child who is born on the Sabbath day
Is bonnie and blithe and good and gay.
(Unknown, published in 1887)
Why must Wednesday’s child be full of woe?
Looking at this straight forwardly, I suppose people are excited to start the week on Mondays and always celebrate TGIF on Fridays, while Wednesdays are just there, in the middle, neither exciting nor offensive. Safe, boring. Like many families with three children. The oldest child, Monday’s child, receives all the love and hope as it is the first to expand a couple into a family. The Friday child, has a whole solid family unit to care for him or her and never lacks attention or care. The middle child is often considered the self-reliant child, the easy going one, the one that doesn’t cause problems. He or she is expected to learn from the eldest and teach to the youngest, often failing to gain the same attention as his or her siblings.
For 22 years I have been a middle child. And after all these years I have never felt comfortable in my role. I still feel awkward to stay or spend time with my siblings because my big brother always acted like a leader and was bossy every time he was with his girlfriend or his sisters. In spite of the fact that he is the most insecure person who never got anything done in his life, he always thoughts that he was the best. My younger sister is the spoiled one, no one can offend her, so I decided to leave her alone since we were kids. Now, that life is more complicated, we have all decided to live separately. I am not writing this to criticise my siblings but I just want to write about the many curiosities which have come to mind over the years.
Why can’t the three of us be together even though we are of the same family? Alfred W. Adler, the psychiatrist, stated that the order of birth has influenced over the characteristics of children in families because each child receives a different experience in nurture and and lessons from parents. For example, the oldest child’s character will often be jealous, insecure, highly responsibile, and have a leadership because the parents give many duties to the oldest to take action while the middle child’s character will have high ambition, patience, and stubbornness because the