I'm the oldest of 5 and that's certainly the way my parents brought us up. I was a young carer from the age of 5 because by mother was ill and couldn't cope with anything beyond feeding us and doing the washing. Practically for me this meant making sure my siblings stayed safe and out of our parents' way. I was "responsible" for them even though my next sister down is only 21 months younger than me. At 8 I could look after my baby brother for a day without help and was frequently expected to do so along with looking after my other siblings for an hour or so at a time.
We were extremely poor, this was hammered home repeatedly. Because of this I made very few demands on my parents, because I was "responsible". Two of my younger sisters on the other hand demanded, and got, a lot. One was The Pretty One, the other The Sick One (she was ill as a baby for the first 4 months of her life). Another sister, The Clever One, (poor thing) fared worse than me (kicked across the room by our drunken father a fair few times and routinely sent for disciplining to my father by my mother who didn't like her and didn't want to deal with her even as a toddler and she has a fair few issues, mostly to do with extreme susceptibility and inability to tolerate any form of criticism. Our brother very sensibly had worked out very young that being independent was the way ahead, although he could do no wrong anyway due to being a Boy, and is a very nice guy now.
And this has left me with a vague and persistent feeling of resentfulness that is not helpful to me at all. As a child I felt that I'd done everything that was expected of me and yet was still "invisible child" and that feeling has persisted into adulthood. I was an awkward, isolated child and although I've learned to overcome that in adulthood and actually come across as quite sociable, I still feel like that awkward child inside. And that's where it matters really.
My siblings have mentioned to me in adulthood variously that I had far too much responsibility, that our parents were crazy. My brother actually thanked me for being there for him when he needed it the most. They are lovely and it really helps when they say things like this (always spontaneous, I have never spoken of this to anyone, certainly not to them) but the feelings are still there, and they sometimes spill over into my relationships with my children, which they shouldn't. What can I do about it? Any ideas? The Pretty One has recently been for psychiatric counselling (god knows why, as she got one of the better deals, and The Sick One thinks we were and are all horrible to her even though she got our mother to herself for the first 3 years of her life), and the counsellor managed to convince her that it was all our mother's fault. Presumably a Freudian psychiatrist (Bah Spit!).
I do not want to repeat the mistakes my parents made but am daily faced with a squeaky and resentful wheel demanding to be oiled more than the siblings and do not know how to deal with it.