In celebration of the Middle Child!

An edited version of this column appeared in the May 2014 edition of Good Taste Magazine (Dubai).

I’ve noticed that I rarely mention the middle child in this column. Unfortunately I think an occupational hazard of being a middle child is that you tend to go unnoticed quite a lot – especially in the middle of five - so today this column is devoted to the often overlooked but never undervalued child in the middle.

The middle child in this family is nine, his name is Jude (yes, after the song), and he is my invisible child.

According to the experts, birth order and sibling relations have a powerful impact on personality traits, self-esteem and even ambition – where we come in the family can quite literally determine what sort of person we turn into.

For example, world leaders are overwhelmingly first born children. First-borns are trailblazers, receive most of the attention and identify strongly with power - certainly my eldest child has a very domineering personality and is extremely ambitious and independent. She will rule the world one day - or at least Ireland - I’m sure of it.

As each child is born, parental control relaxes and by the time the youngest child arrives, the family dynamic is very different. Inevitably youngest children receive a lot of attention and may be charming, manipulative, rebellious and disorganised (this is all true, I’m a youngest child!). They also tend to opt for a very different path to their older siblings; often living abroad or working in a creative industry. Or both. Certainly, my youngest child dances to his own unique, demented tune.

My second eldest is broody, moody and shy, having been overshadowed by his older sister his whole life. This isn’t uncommon for second eldest children who often feel an inadequacy compared to their older, more vocal sibling. My second youngest - having been the baby of the family for four years before his little brother came along - has a big, loud and charming personality.

And then, amid all these large, battling personalities as they jostle for attention, the middle child looks on thoughtfully. He's so different to the others that sometimes I wonder if he’s a foundling, beamed down from some other planet, or left on our doorstep by fairies. There is a calmness in him that is almost unsettling at times, like his name there is a simple completeness about him. He even looks different to the other four; like me, they are plump and pink of cheek, with the Celtic combination of dark-hair and blue eyes. The middle child on the other hand is wiry, with olive skin and sharp green, almond shaped eyes. People are often surprised he belongs to me at all (thankfully he resembles DH's 

family or questions would be asked!)

We’ve all heard the term ‘middle child syndrome’; of the resentful and bitter adult who felt overlooked as a child. But actually middle children have some rather special qualities in my opinion. Jude is wonderfully indifferent to any rows that go on, always preferring to watch than take part. While the others may bicker and fight and quite often draw blood from one another, he will stand back and wait for them to finish, often throwing me a glance which says, ‘they’re at it again!’ When the seven-year-old asked me, recently ‘what does neutral mean?’ I immediately replied, ‘to stay out of fights, like Switzerland. Or Jude.’

Studies on middle children show that they tend to be more outgoing than their siblings, because they’ve had to learn to be flexible and vocal if they want to be heard. Compromise is something they learn early on, they are more relaxed, have less to prove and have to think outside the box as a way of getting their parents’ attention, and are often entrepreneurial. Bill Gates is a middle child, so is Donald Trump.

Middle children tend to forge strong relationships outside of the family home too – perhaps as an escape from the rivalry and chaos. Certainly Jude has more sleepovers at friends’ houses than the rest of them put together, and is never short of pals. His friendships are always water-tight and fiercely loyal. 

His unconcern for what people think about him is truly refreshing and he won’t blink an eye if I’ve run out of boy-coloured socks for school, and is forced to wear his sister’s pink ones instead. It scarcely raises a comment, unlike his brothers who would flatly refuse to suffer such indignity! And if a compromise needs to be made with the contents of a school lunch box or breakfast option, it is always Jude I'll ask to make it.

I read some tips recently on how to bolster your child's confidence and prevent middle child syndrome, one of which was to ensure your child knows how special and unique they are, since instilling a good self-worth can serve them well in adulthood. 

This sounds like good advice to me. So Jude, my funny, unusual, green-eyed boy on this Middle Child's Day, if you’re reading this, consider it done!

Weight and want and why I am leaving...

I haven't properly blogged in quite a while. I'm not entirely sure why this is, but I think outback living has awakened an inner gravity I always suspected I possessed but never properly explored. My sense of the ridiculous has fled, the scrapes I get into are few and far between these days. Writing my light-hearted monthly parenting column has become a struggle.

In addition, in the isolation of my little kitchen a thousand miles away from the world, I've become weighed down by stories, preoccupied by the news - ebola, is it a plot to exterminate us? Gaza - what hope is there? Flight MH17 who did it? Putin a force for good or evil? American propaganda, when will the world wake up? Flight MH370 where did it go? Will they ever investigate the fall of Tower 7?

Every morning I read the news all the way to the bottom of the page and the words make me heavier. All the while the question of my life in Australia growing all the more urgent. I turned 41 last birthday and it felt as if a time ticker had been set off, the second half of my life was underway and I was living in a place I didn't want to be. As the months have passed the ticking has become louder, it taunts me: 'the longer you stay here, the harder it will be to leave'. 

I spoke to a woman on Facebook recently, we are strangers but message each other occasionally about our lives, FIFO, Australia and the all important question of returning to Ireland. She told me she was in her late 40s and as much as she would love to return to Ireland, she knew she couldn't, she was too old to start again. This struck a chord with me and filled me with panic. This would be me in another half a decade.

But as heavy as the news stories have weighed on me, the question of how to leave has weighed even heavier. It seems impossible, unmanageable, terrifying - a complicated logistical nightmare. You begin to feel you are no longer in charge of your own life, you are but a finger - wetted and held up to the wind - in an effort to see which way it's blowing.

Until one day you wake up and say 'no, feck it!' You realise your life is too precious to obsess on the ills of the world, as you drag your increasingly heavy carcass around behind you. To miss your daughter and feel you're slowly losing her, as her unfamiliar form comes through the airport, older, wiser, - with bosoms! - no longer feeling like she came from you, from this fold, this family. A stranger. She even smells different to the others now.

And then one day you look in the mirror and no longer recognise yourself anymore. You look old. You look resigned. You are also a stranger. That's the day you say to yourself, 'let's just leave'.

And so we're leaving. The details are as yet undeveloped but Europe has picked up enormously in the past three years. So while we were extremely grateful for the opportunity of a job in Australia, it has ceased to be the only option. And so once more I'm up to my knees in packing boxes, nursing a hope and a fear of something else.

Because life isn't just about making a living, having a job, although those things are important. Life is about family, belonging, and yes, getting into scrapes and seeking out the ridiculous. Life is something I have been viewing through my laptop for the last two and a half years and I want back in.

Many Irish people come to Australia, fall in love with it, settle down and spend the rest of their lives here. Good for them - really - good for them, I'm a little jealous even while I find that prospect terrifying. As a friend said to me almost two years ago now - give in to it. Just give in to Australia.

But I can't. This is my fault - my intractable, unshakable belief that I couldn't - wouldn't - live out my days here - it was just a little holiday - has coloured my experience and created a sense of waiting, punching in and out of each day, but always waiting for home time.

I'm glad I came and experienced Australia, glad the kids know a new national anthem, have experienced a different culture and perspective. Certainly there have been happy times here although I'll never complain about the drive from Galway to Dublin EVER again. But as a friend told me recently, 'you did a good job of selling it for a long time, but lately you've gone quiet'. The compromise of FIFO was too much, the bush seemed like a good alternative. And it was for a while. But not being able to bear witness to the remnants of my daughter's childhood is a compromise too far and I want her back under my roof, being part of us again.

And I want autumn! And I want snow! And I want Christmas back - it simply doesn't feel like Christmas here in December. But what I want most of all is to feel I'm not simply putting in the hours, chiming down the days, but living. Properly living. I also want this blog to be funny again. And it will be. I promise, it really will be.