Being the eldest child in an Indian family comes with its own struggles. You may be the most loved child of your parents until your parents introduce you to your younger siblings.
Although you may have an upper hand in many situations, the privileges come at a price. Meanwhile, a Twitter post by a user about how she has to be the ‘happiest person at home’ even at her low times and being responsible and helping everyone at home, has created chatter as many can relate to her post.
The Twitter user @gharkakabutar wrote, “As the eldest daughter I feel like it is my responsibility to take care of everyone and everything. From making everyone at home eat their meals, making tea and snacks for guests, handling every crisis with a calm mind, taking care of everyone’s emotions, understanding everyone.”
“Helping out at home and at the office, knowing everyone’s likes and dislikes, taking care of their allergies, guiding my siblings in the right direction, being good at academics, handling all the accounts, maintaining family relations”
“Smiling all the time even though you are worried or tensed or sad, disregarding your health to take care of others, always saying yes to everything, making sure you don’t even accidentally hurt anyone, apologise even if it’s not your fault, blame yourself for everything,”
“And so much more!! I have to be the happiest person at home so that I can make everyone around me happy! I have to make sure everything is perfect! And if something goes wrong, it feels like it is all because of me. It’s the worst.”
Since being shared online, the post has garnered over 1.2M views with 22.7k likes and 7314 retweets.
“I swear, eldest child are unsung super heroes. We have to be the parents to our siblings, make sure their mental health is impacted the way ours is. And I have this continuous guilt inside me. I’m unable to do stuff for ‘only me’,” commented a user.
Another user wrote, “It’s difficult being the eldest… it’s like your siblings are your children, your responsibility, you literally have to nurture, train and take care of them... my sister won’t even put up an insta pic w/o my opinion.”
“Being an eldest, I can measure the amount of my relevance to this post,” wrote another user.