Curate, connect, and discover
It’s just the fact that everyone talks about the youngest child being pampered - and, yeah, sure sometimes that’s true, but if you think about the implications of even that, it gets sad. Because by being ‘pampered’ you mean being given everything that you want. Oh, you want $10 to go buy something. Sure! Oh, you want a new game. Here ya go! But there are no guidelines.
You might think that’s a good thing - freedom and all that jazz. But most of the time it just makes you feel like they don’t care. This is most common when the youngest is a teen, because the middle and oldest have already moved out or gotten independence, and your parents have forgotten that they’re still parents. Give the other person who lives in their house a tenner so that they don’t have to deal with them. They can have the game because what else are they gonna do all day when we’re on holiday?
As a youngest child, this just prompts you to grow up quicker. Get more mature so you don’t have to bother them anymore, because they’re not your parents, they’re just the people you live with. As far as they’re concerned, they’re done. They’ve reared children, those children have left, so who cares about the last one?
But the problem is; you can’t grow up. Because you’re 13 or 14 or 15 or 16 - you can’t legally leave. You feel like more of a burden, not just because you’re still there, but because you’re the only one still there. Everyone else has moved on and you’re stuck looking at the bedrooms they used to have and the bedrooms that the other people sleep in. And then you wonder, do I really have it as good as people say I do?