I don’t think I ever had a single moment in my childhood where I wasn’t reminded, either directly or indirectly, that my sister Rebecca was always going to be the priority. Her needs, her struggles, and her failures would always come before anything I wanted. My place in the family had been assigned to me from the moment she was born, and that place was second.
It didn’t happen all at once.
There was no grand, cinematic betrayal when everything suddenly clicked into place. There was no single conversation where my parents sat me down and told me outright that I would always come after her.
It was more like a slow, unrelenting drip. A thousand tiny moments that added up over the years, shaping the way I saw my own worth in their eyes.
When Rebecca and I were little, I was expected to share everything with her.
Not because it was fair. Not because she didn’t have enough. But because, in my parents’ words, “She’s younger and she doesn’t understand.”
When I was six and got a new set of markers for my birthday, Rebecca grabbed the brightest ones, uncapped them, and ground the tips into the paper until they squeaked and frayed.
When I cried because my favorite purple one was ruined, my mom didn’t comfort me.
She just sighed and said, “Come on, Lisa, she’s only three. She doesn’t know any better.
Let her have them.”
When I was eight, my dad took me to pick out a bike from a secondhand store. I chose a chipped blue one with a crooked bell and a seat that squeaked, but I loved it.
A few months later, Rebecca decided she wanted it.
She already had a pink bike with tassels on the handlebars, but she suddenly hated it and wanted mine instead. My parents made me switch. “You’re the big sister,” my dad said, like that explained everything.
“You understand.
She doesn’t.”
If she broke one of my toys, I was told to be the bigger person. If she threw a tantrum because she wanted something that was mine, my mother would sigh and say, “Come on, Lisa, you know how she gets.
Just let her have it.”
Every time, it was easier for them to take from me than to tell Rebecca no. It started small, little things that seemed inconsequential at the time.
A doll here, a seat at the front of the car there, birthday cakes that always had to be “shared” so Rebecca wouldn’t feel left out.
The story doesn’t end here –
it continues on the next page.
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