Learning the Role of the Second Child

Your life is a movie and you hit rewind — back through the years: your first job, university halls, secondary school friends, primary school teachers. You rewind all the way back to where you started and you’re in your living room as a kid: your Dad standing in front of the TV criticizing the presenters, your brother on the arm of the Big Sofa, laughing with Dad and telling him about his Winning Goal in the Big Match, your sister is in your Mum’s Arms Coughing and Crying: and you’re sat on the green carpet, watching, thinking –

That scene, like an ancient insect trapped in amber — or like a fossil — is embedded deep within you.

Salmon Rushdie says that this scene is like a ‘snow globe without snow.’ We all have one. The tiny figures in it and the way they relate to each other define how we see ourselves and how we relate to others for the rest of our lives.

You might be able to break away from the roles and expectations of the snow globe and find your own freedom on your own terms, but for a deep-seated sense of love and belonging, you’ll want to stay inside for as long as you can.

But that’s not always easy…

Photo by Jamie Street on Unsplash

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The Second Child

In the snow globe, the colour of the carpet is of lasting significance so you can imagine how important the order of births is. Let’s consider the position of that middle child in the snow globe — perhaps that’s you. I’m the second child of three. Sat on the green carpet.

Your elder brother will never stop talking about His Achievements — he’s the Big One, he’s got his Spotlight and his Fame and they’ll see him through to the Grave.

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Your Dad’s Wisdom and your brothers Boastfulness go together like Ying and Yang, proving each other.

Your Mum is the caregiver, her Compassion matches your sister’s Need.

And you — second child, watching, thinking… who are you? What’s the point of you? Do you want to cry? Do you want to boast? Can you lecture? Can you care?

In the snow globe, the others know you’re odd, undefined.

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The Natural Role of the Second?

Within the snow globe, there are two paths open: to Compete with the brother for the Father’s Respect or to slink into a position of Need to claim the Mother’s Care. The Second might try both, alternately, and thus make of himself an idiot and a clown as his brother and sister watch, alert but amused by the half-hearted weakness of your challenge to their Territories.

In the globe, the eyes of the others meet in silent contract and acknowledgment of your odd and restless movements, over your wolfish back. They confirm each other with these gazes and they confirm the narrative — the son after the Father, the mother with the baby.

The second child has no narrative. He can only find scraps of narrative from copying the others, or from considering why they push him away and laugh at him.

This is his narrative — that he is not wanted.

5 makes two threes. 3 is ever the crowd.

The First Child is the ripe apple, lovingly nurtured by the tree. He falls by the trunk and grows up into another tree, a replica, hopefully bigger and stronger.

The Third also stays close to the Tree, perhaps more for protection than for anything else.

But the second child is a seed-spore — a winged seed that is caught by the wind and blown right out of the orchard, over fences and across oceans, picked up by some strange bird perhaps, swallowed and flown to some other place to be dropped and planted in foreign soil.

The second is the anomaly. The free-throw. The extra chance. The improvisation on a theme. The divergent thought. The families shot at evolution, the adaptive gene, discoverer of new routes, new paths, new possibilities — the freak, the weirdo, the ugly duckling.

You have no narrative, which means you’re free — you have narrative authority and must write yourself.

If the First leaves, the snow globe collapses, so it’s imperative that he never does. If the Third leaves, the family loses its foundation in Care and so again she must stay. But the second is odd, unnecessary — the globe functions okay without him/her.

She can go out and take a look around.

The tough thing is that in the love-language of the family the Father is King and the brother is Prince — the second one is the freak, the weirdo, the ugly duckling without any idea that being such a thing could be good. He’s not the discoverer of new possibilities, not the winged-seed-spore, not the family pioneer — no, any such positive roles are taken by the men of the house; this is what it means to be a pioneer, to be out alone, unsupported, without anyone thinking you have it in you.

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So You’ll Need to Leave

And so, the seed-spore is released.

He must take the third way! Out through the plug hole and into the great beyond.

You’ll need to get the hell out of there or they’ll crush your self-esteem! Of course, you love them and want their love but you can never get the concentrated amount that you need to grow — you can never be preferred — you don’t have a role or a narrative other than a negative one — if you tried to fight for one, you’d bring the snow globe crashing down on everyone’s head and the others would fight to the death before they let this happen —

So you leave.

Go far away. Find other people to love and to receive love from. Learn that the quality of your family’s love and all the conditions that come with it is just the freak of that particular snow globe and your position on the carpet. It’s not you. It’s them. To other people, new people, you’re not a second son but a whole person, capable and worthy of complete full-beam love.

Find the love that nourishes you.

Grow in foreign soil.

It’s out there (I found mine in Beijing.)

Leaving is tough and it feels a little like a betrayal — but it’s not — you are the seed-spore, this is your role. You have to play the family wild card — aim at distant horizons.

This is your role — to get well clear of the puzzled feeling of sitting on the green carpet watching the clockwork roles of the snow globe pairings, and discover new things. You are leaving for your family. They may not see it like this, but you are leaving…

…

…in order to Return

The snow globe cracks and breaks without the First, it loses its warmth without the Third — it survives without the second but to be at its best, its fullest, its most affirming, loving, complete — the second needs to be sat there on the Carpet, watching Big Brother and wolfishly trailing between Father/Brother and Mother/Sister.

You can keep all your family’s hearts full and warm by returning and playing your role.

Go back into the snow globe when you have found your narrative and you know who you are. (This may take a few years)

You’re the King of your own Kingdom now but don’t expect to go into the old snow globe with your crown on. No, the crown is taken even if that king is dead. The relations of the snow globe don’t change, even outlasting death. That is why they run so deep.

You can only play this role when you know that it’s not you, not the entirety of you. You do it for the others and the love and belonging you can all share within the globe. It doesn’t define who you are. You don’t need to fight against the restrictions and limitations placed upon you in the globe because you, and only you, can go in and out of the globe.

You have a strength the family needs. an independence and viewpoint that nature has provided to your family to support it and protect it and make it stronger.

Be strong in your example and how you live your life. Be successful and feed your esteem and emotions outside the snow globe but then when you return be humble and play your role.

You are aiming for the Best Supporting Actor here and hoping through your role to help get your family win the other Awards — Best Actor for Big Brother, Best Actress for your Sister, Best Screenplay and Best Director.

Let your Brother lead, let your Sister soak up the love — as far as possible keep everyone in this state of suspended time that is called love, even as you all age — you all belong together on that Sunday afternoon in the living room that you all keep in your hearts.

You’ve freed yourself from the pain it’s caused you, and you’ve found your full beam love, so now be the divergent thought, the explorer of new possibilities within the globe — deferring to your Brothers lead and pouring affection on your sister, following and caring for your parents as they grow older.

Just like every role, it’s tough to pull off but you’ll know you’re doing it well when your Brother is Bragging about some Big Match His Son Won to your Dad (who’s not physically there anymore) and your Sister is complaining about her Husband to your Mum, who’s laughing, and you’re sitting on the green carpet, asking if anyone wants another cup of tea…

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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