“I'm a typical middle child. I'm the mediator. The one that makes everything OK puts their own needs aside to make sure everybody's happy. It's hard to change your nature, even with years and years of therapy.”: Jennifer Jason Leigh, Actress (The Road to Perdition, The Machinist, Single White Female etc, etc)
You can’t grow up in
We are a nation of queuers... we form an orderly queue behind whom ever got there first. The person who was first gets the lion share and the people who come in the middle should get a fair choice and the person who was last should get what’s left. And yet for all the queuing there is little democracy for those who arrive in the middle as we fret about the late comer and want to make sure everything is okay for them too.
Anyone who has worked in retail will tell you that there is an obsession with making sure there is enough for who ever comes last. Stock gets rationed to those who arrive in the middle, no store keeper wishes to have nothing to offer customers who arrive late. (I should know this better than most as I habitually do my Xmas food shop on Christmas Eve and they always wheel out exciting new stock after 4pm). As a nation we approach out lives much the same way, the best for whom ever is first, short supply for those in the middle, surplus for who comes last. It is not for nothing we are referred to by the rest of the world as ‘a nation of shopkeepers’.
Now this is not entirely a bad thing.
Our mentality is very much that the middle will look after itself and we should concentrate our attentions on what is at the top and what is at the bottom. We defer to our superiors, be they the aristocracy, our bosses or our elders and we assist our subordinates, be they the disadvantaged, the unemployed or those younger. Nothing too wrong with that really… on paper it reads like the back bone of civilisation.
But it begs a couple of questions:
- Does the middle get short changed?
- Who looks after the interests of those in middle?
Well if the truth be uttered [and after all this is a Jax world column!] yes and no one.
Our attitude to the middle ground starts right back in childhood.
Jennifer Jason Leigh raised a valid point in her description of middle children. The middle ground is all about putting your own needs aside and making sure everyone else is okay... just like middle children do.
Their experience in the middle ground of childhood leaves them able to keep secrets, makes them unspoiled, able to take risks, be pragmatic, able to get along well with others, read people well, be independent, competitive, unbiased and imaginative. These skills make them the peace makers and the mediators in a family. Unfortunately it also makes them recoil from confrontation and turns them cynical, suspicious, and rebellious. But for all the difficulties (they are also quite often the most difficult children to both read and to raise given that they are both younger and older simultaneously) the middle child seems to do okay. It is often said that the middle children are independent and are able to stand on their own two feet.
The middle looks after itself. And no matter where we are born in our nuclear families pecking order, in life, most of us are middle children. As far as the big wide world is concerned… we are in the middle. We approach the world pragmatically, able to get along well with others, able to mediate between those above and those below us. Yeah, sometimes we are cynical and sometimes we rebel but overall we are independent and are able to stand on our own two feet.
For most of us, we watch those who arrived ahead of us (be it in the queue for luck, fortune or high prestige) get praised and encouraged. We sometimes join this chorus. We watch as those who arrived behind us (be it in the queue for setbacks, poverty, or low status). We sometimes assist.
We’re not at the top being feted, worshiped and rewarded, and we’re not at the bottom being assisted. (Apologies to any one reading this who is being hounded by the paps or has just had a benefit concert done for them!)
A lot of the time, like a middle child we mediate between the factions either side of us. We use our positions of being neither blessed nor cursed to make the blessed help the cursed and make the cursed be patient with the blessed. We help those with more than us and those with less than us, move upwards.
There is no one to look after the middle. And that is okay.
Like a middle child we are neither here nor there. Just like the roles of the older and younger siblings are clearly defined, the roles for those above us in life and the roles of those below us are clearer than ours. We have to be self-defining here in the middle - our role is to keep calm and carry on. We have to use our own resources to look after ourselves, for frankly there is no one else to do it. Just like middle children feel their independence was a result of lack of parental attention, for most of us living in the middle ground it’s a case of just getting on with it.
Maybe it is right that attention should not be lavished on the independent centre when the top requires support to achieve and the bottom is so much more dependant. The ability to use ones own resources makes us in the middle malleable, just like how it does with middle born children, (who are usually the children with the most friends). Here in the middle ground, the skill of pouring oil on troubled waters means us in the middle get along best with all kinds of people. (Ever noticed that it’s those at the top or those at the bottom who have a problem with this?)
We need to celebrate our position in life. We are not at the top but we are not at the bottom. Being in the middle is a cool place to be, and is much missed should you be unfortunate enough to move upwards or downwards. To be in the middle means that we get to live our lives free from other people’s expectations and free from other people’s interference.
Okay… we’re not getting worshiped and we’re not getting help… but without us, those who are wouldn’t be. It is us who have the power!
So let us make the most of our lives in the middle - for Lord knows you will miss it if changes. A word of warning… fate has a way of moving you out of the lovely, I live my life my way zone without a by your leave.
Our own royal family is a perfect illustration… our last king was born 4th in line to the throne and our queen was born 3rd in line. I feel sorry for the Queen neither her or her Dad were expecting the job and I’m sure if she was still the minor princess she started as the corgis would be allowed on the furniture!
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what a surprise....I'm a middle child :-D
ReplyDeleteMiki x