Even though social media has legitimized #firstdaughtersyndrome and helped many “feel seen,” the experience of millions of others whose lives cannot be flattened into a single role You may also be missing out on
Who has a Type A personality, is an anxious overachiever, can’t set boundaries, and always acts like a people pleaser? A video that recently went viral on social media According to her, she is the eldest daughter of a family. In a video that has been viewed more than 6 million times, certified marriage and family therapist Katie Morton describes the term first daughter syndrome (EDS).[was] A term coined to describe the unique pressures and responsibilities placed on the eldest child of a family. ”
According to the DSM-5, this may not be an officially recognized “syndrome,” but the reactions to the video and tweets of the same content suggest that “Are you happy or are you the oldest?” “Is your sibling also a girl?” — the “parentalization” of the oldest female child has wide resonance.
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This characterization has long been mined for stories. Louisa May Alcott’s classic coming-of-age novel Little Women embodies the responsible, people-pleasing qualities of the eldest daughter in 17-year-old Meg March. Or consider the “sensible” Elinor in Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, or Margaret’s near-maternal attitude towards Schlegel’s brothers in E.M. Forster’s Howards End.
Most recently, in the Hunger Games series, 16-year-old Katniss Everdeen replaced her 12-year-old sister in a tournament where she only had a 4% chance of survival.
But the family is not so simple. There are many examples of the opposite, where the eldest daughter bears the burden of caregiving. The most famous in the field of fiction is the novel-turned-movie My Sister’s Keeper, in which the youngest daughter is born only to ensure the life of the eldest. Even if social media has legitimized #firstdaughtersyndrome and helped many people “feel seen,” there are millions of others whose lives cannot be flattened into a single role. You may have missed out on that experience.
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Date first uploaded: April 5, 2024 07:45 IST
