July 9, 2025 • 22 mins
In this episode, Diosa and Mala unpack “Eldest Daughter Syndrome,” recently explored by FIERCE by mitú, diving into the pressure to always be responsible, the emotional toll of raising siblings, and the unspoken role of being the bonus parent. They explore how these early expectations create anxiety, lead to rebellion, and force many eldest daughters to set boundaries later in life. From parentification to possible links with autoimmune illness, they ask: Is the weight of being the eldest daughter making us sick?
Articles cited in this episode:
- FIERCE by mitú: "Is Being the Eldest Daughter Making Us Sick?"
- FIERCE by mitú: "Social Media Users Are Describing the Eldest Daughter Syndrome and We Feel Painfully Seen"
Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/locatora_productions
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Are you okay?
Speaker 2 (00:02):
No, I'm not okay. I'm the eldest daughter already.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Yeah, and it's.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Making me sick. According to an article from Fierce by.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Me Tho, let's get into it, let's talk about it.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
So I'm sure that you all out there have seen
all the chatter about eldest daughter syndrome, eldest daughters coming
to terms with their anxiety, their sense of inflated responsibility,
and why they rebelled later in life to being the
responsible one.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Mm. Yes, there's so much of that online. And by
the way, I'm Theosa and I'm Mala, and today, as
you may have heard, we are talking about eldest daughter's
eldest daughter syndrome. It's not an official diagnosis, but it
is kind of like pop psychology. It's recognized as like, oh,
(00:50):
this is a collective experience that eldest daughters are having
in this moment or forever, but being acknowledged and recognized
in this moment.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Yeah, And I feels so vindicated because I think across
the board, people around the world were asking, why is
my oldest sister such a bitch? She's not a bitch,
she has a syndrome. Please be kind be patient. Like
the parentification is something that a lot of people are
(01:19):
talking about, and that came up in this Fierce by
Methu article. There's a bunch that they've covered on this
topic actually, but literally asking is being the eldest daughter
making us sick and tying back the experience of being
an eldest daughter even to like pre natally in the womb,
how there are like these different hormonal issues that can
(01:41):
pop up for the firstborn child and the firstborn daughter,
and then how that all manifests later in life with
like anxiety and pcos. Even there's a lot of like
autoimmune connections to being the eldest daughter, it seems.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
And you're an eldest daughter.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Yes, now I am in perfect health luckily, thank God, clearly,
but I was at risk. But I feel like I
identify with some things that are being talked about in
the eldest daughter conversation. But there are some things that
I think are like I don't know, I don't think
we're part of my experience. Like the things that I
(02:19):
identify with with the oldest daughter syndrome stuff is a
you're like a guinea pig for your parents because they've
never parented before. They've never had a baby before, you know,
if they've never done late nights, changing diapers, they've never
a potty trained anybody before. In theory, so I think
that like that creates a sense of anxiety in general.
(02:39):
Then maybe you don't know that that's there when you're
a child, but then I'm sure it manifests, you know,
and so like I definitely identify also with the peace
about feeling like a sense of responsibility for your younger siblings,
like you're responsible for them, particularly when it came to
like being an example, like you have to lead, you
(03:03):
have to show them how it's done and what's possible,
and be a good role model. Like I think that
was the type of pressure that was put on me
being being the oldest daughter.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Yeah, that makes sense, and I am actually the youngest daughter.
I'm not the eldest daughter, but I am the only daughter.
And for that reason, I feel like there's a lot
of overlap in my experience with the conversations that I
see about eldest daughters, especially when it comes to making
sure that everyone is okay in the family. Feeling that
responsibility of like almost being like a little therapist as
(03:34):
a kid, or making sure that everyone is like kind
of walking into the room and like checking the vibe, like, wait,
there's something wrong here, who's upset?
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Yeah? Wait?
Speaker 1 (03:44):
And I feel like very attuned to other people's emotions,
which is exhausting and terrible. But I do think that
that's part of being like the only daughter in my household,
and I was raised with I wasn't raised with brothers.
I mean, I have brothers, but we weren't raised together
because of a really big age gap. So it's like
only child, only daughter, but also youngest daughter.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Yeah, it's an interesting hybrid. Yes, place that you are
as a sibling. Yes, but you have a lot of
friends who are eldest daughters.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
I do. I do, which is why I feel like
I can commiserate with some of them.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
I definitely, Yeah, I feel like there's something there, especially
with like I remember so many times being the one
to like signal to my siblings, like we gotta get
up and do something. Yeah, we gotta we gotta clean,
we gotta work, we have to like be productive, because
like I can tell that mom is on the verge
of flipping out, or that my dad is Like I
(04:40):
can just sense the energy as he's walking down the
driveway to get to the front door, like we gotta,
we gotta get into gear.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Yeah, it's kind of you know that meme of like
I've seen this now in like two iterations where it's
like one the meme of like the Latino child that
forgot to take the hit out of the fer to
do frost right, and then now the iteration I've seen is, oh, so,
now I understand why my mom was so upset that
I forgot to take the chicken out of the freezer, right.
And I do think that there's that responsibility right of
(05:10):
like kind of in some ways, because I think you
kind of alluded to this of like kind of being
a mind reader, because like you know that you can
sense as a kid when your parent is maybe about
to get upset or maybe like, wait, I'm relaxing way
too much right now.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
I'm too relaxed.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
I'm too relaxed. I have to like get up and
do something in work because because I have to because
mom's working or mom's doing something, Mom's getting the house ready,
Dad is doing this. So I have to go and
do something myself because I have to look productive and
like I'm working.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
I have to contribute to the household, I have to
pull my weight. And then realizing that so there were
three of us and we're all within five years, Me
and my sister are eleven months apart, and so they
were outnumbered, you know, like each parent is out numbered
like three to one. And so now I can look
back and sympathize, like, oh, that's a lot like for
(06:03):
one parent or even two parents to manage and handle.
Like it's hard enough for me to like manage myself, right,
you know, but it's like this small army in my
house that I have to feed and keep up after.
So then I understand like the leaning on the eldest,
you know, presumably like to help. And especially in the summers,
this was so tricky because in the summers, as a kid,
(06:24):
you want to lounge about and just kind of like
be on your own schedule and do nothing. A lot
of nothing, yes, unless but you know, unless extracurriculars, camp,
what have you. But those days when you're just at
home not doing shit, golden, golden, But then that that
fear the second you realize it's over and you've been
lounging for ten hours.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Yeah, it's like, oh, wait, I have to get up
and do something. There is that sense of responsibility of
maybe being the eldest daughter and being like the bonus parent, right, yeah,
and being very helpful, maybe like overally helpful, like maybe
not in a way that appropriate for a child of
said age, right, but it's kind of comes with there's
so many layers as to why that happens, right, Parenting
(07:08):
is stressful, economic, you know, barriers, language, barriers, there's so
many different reasons that the eldest daughter becomes like the
bonus parent.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Yeah, but it's such a trap because parents have a
hard enough time parenting as like full blown adults, and
then there's this sort of pressure for the eldest child
to do a version of parenting. And a child is
not as a parent, it's a child. So I remember
(07:37):
having feelings of anxiety about like, oh, what am I
going to do with these kids? Like you know, my brother,
like somebody's got to straighten him out. What am I
gonna do? And like, of course that's so overwhelming for
a kid because you don't know anything, right, you know.
And so then I remember at some point my mom
did say to me, like these are my kids, and
(07:59):
you're my and you don't have to parent them like
we've got it.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
Yeah, you know, I think that's a good boundary. Your
mom said that. We're not seeing in the types of
examples folks are sharing online. It's very much like there
were no boundaries. My parents made me the bonus parent
without even realizing it, or maybe without even knowing that
they were making me bonus parent. It was just something
that I had to do as the eldest.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
I think it's really unfortunate. And then I think it
creates resentment between the kids. The youngest kids are like
resentful or grateful towards the oldest sibling because either they
needed that third parent and are so grateful that that
sibling stepped up, or those youngest kids absolutely did not
(08:43):
need a third parent, and instead of having a sibling relationship,
it's this pseudo parental relationship. And then it's like, but
you're my sibling. You know, why were you acting like
you were in charge of me all these years?
Speaker 3 (08:56):
Don't go anywhere, look amotives, We'll.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Be right back, and we're back with more of our episode.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Being an eldest daughter and having eldest daughter syndrome. There's
actually eight symptoms. If you will of being an eldest daughter,
and one is you have an intense feeling of responsibility.
You're an overachiever type A and very driven. You worry
a lot and probably have anxiety. You struggle with people
pleasing behaviors, you have a hard time placing and upholding boundaries,
(09:27):
You resent your siblings and a family, You struggle with
feelings of guilt, and you have a difficult time in
your adult relationships. And the person who broke this down
for us is licensed marriage and family therapist Katie Morden,
who broke down the eight signs of eldest Daughter Syndrome
in a TikTok video, and she has also stated like
(09:47):
this is not an official mental health diagnosis, but it
is defined as the unique pressures and responsibilities placed onto
the oldest daughter in the family. Also, keeping in mind
like gender is a very big dynamic in what responsibility
or what role the eldest takes on in the family,
we know eldest sons don't always have that same type
(10:07):
of pressure and responsibility. They get to just be the
eldest son. And I know one of my homegirls says,
I would like to come back in my second life
as the eldest son in a Latino family.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
Yeah, just chill, just glad, chill, just glide. From the
same article, Apparently, studies have found links between a person's
role in the family and different outcomes. And I think
this specific list of outcomes is so interesting as it
relates to eldest daughters, but educational attainment and IQ financial
(10:38):
risk tolerance, participation in dangerous sports. I love this because
this feels so relatable. Oh, eldest daughters experience like high
IQ smart people who are academically high achieving, but financial
risk tolerance, don't mind spending money, and maybe if not
(10:59):
dangerous sports, but like thrill.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
Seeking, risk adrenaline seeking.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Adrenaline seeking behaviors. Identify with all of those things.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
What would you say has been like the most maybe
like risk taking or adrenaline that you want to share?
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Oh, girl, I can't say that on air, not anymore.
We've cleaned up, We've cleaned up our acts.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
Well, I will say, like, for me, there was a
time where I like loved the idea of like going skydiving,
going bungee jumping, like in that way, like adrenaline seeking
type of activities, And now I'm like absolutely not. I
think that comes with being thirty, where I'm like, ooh,
I have a lot to lose. I have a business,
I have family, I have dogs. Don't want to lose
any of that. But there was a time in my
(11:37):
life where I like loved that type of like thrill seeking.
I did skydive. I skydived at eighteen. Now that I
look back, I was nineteen. Maybe when I look back,
I'm like, oh my god, your frontal lobe clearly had
not developed yet and you were totally fine jumping out
of a plane. I wouldn't do it again. I'm glad
I did it. But I do think that I very
much loved the idea of like thrill seeking because I
(11:59):
was not a rebel in any way as a kid.
So it's like my rebellious years I feel like came
later in.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Life, absolutely, and I think that's healthier. Yeah, it's healthier,
and then you can really to an extent, understand what
you're doing and then enjoy it.
Speaker 3 (12:15):
Don't go anywhere, lokomotives, We'll be right back, and we're
back with more of our episode.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
I do think that rebelling as a kid or a teenager,
even like a young adult, right like eighteen nineteen, Like
is a good, like healthy distancing that you kind of
place with yourself and your parents to separate, create your
own identity, your own like explore your likes, your wants,
your desires, your dreams, all of that. But I think
(12:47):
like for me, that came later in life because it's like, Okay,
I have to do all the things my parents said
I was supposed to do, right, which was like get
good grades, graduate and go to a university. And then
it's like I can start doing my own thing. Which
even then I'm like, it's still their expectations of what
I was supposed to do wait on me. Which is
also why I'm so grateful that they got on board
(13:08):
with this like entrepreneur thing. They don't always get it.
They don't understand really the economics of podcasting.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
A lot of people don't know.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
Sometimes I don't. Sometimes I don't even get it. But
you know, I think in that way, like I very
much went like outside of the box of their expectations
for me. My dad wanted me to be a lawyer,
you know my mom. My mom was just happy I
went to school. Like, I don't think she had any
like expectations of like a career for me. It was like,
I support what you want to do. But my dad
was like he had like expectations of me to be
(13:38):
a lawyer, even even a couple of years ago. He
was like, you can be an entertainment lawyer. And I
was like, no, that sounds miserable and boring.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
Yeah. Yeah, we hire someone else to do that.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
We have the entertainment lawyer. He works for us. Yes, yeah.
But I think I think some good some good like
healthy rebelliousness, rebelling I think is good. It's good for
a like a young an adolescent that I don't think
that the eldest daughters get to experience.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
No, it's very important. It's very important because if you
don't have your period of rebellion, which is really just
creating like your space in the world right and just
distinguishing yourself from your family unit as an individual, I
think is it's a rupture from your bubble, a healthy rupture.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
To get out of your bubble, you have to break
the bubble sometimes. So I feel like that piece is
really important. And I think that if you don't have
that period of independence and rebellion, then you go from
being this parentified oldest daughter, and you're taking care of
siblings and taking care of a family in a particular way.
So then eventually, if that's the path for you getting
(14:46):
married and having kids and doing it all over again,
and so when do you have your moment of freedom?
When do you have your decade that belongs to you?
And so I think that like feminism really helped me
to orient myself and understand like the labor that comes
with this life, you know, but it's NonStop, and so
(15:10):
you have to choose yourself and say no and break
away and rebel and maybe take care of yourself. Means
you can't take care of your family constantly. Every day,
somebody else has to step up and do it.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Yeah, and often the eldest daughter won't step away, right
and because also other people won't step up, having that
separation is really important, and going out on your own
is really important. One of the things that really scared
me about getting married was this idea of going from parents'
house to husband's house, like never having that moment of
(15:43):
independence and living on your own. And that ended up
being my journey. I ended up moving back home and
helping my parents and then getting married and staying to
help my parents, and so it was my partner that
ended up moving in with us, and so it's like
I'm still in the family home. And that was a
sacrifice I made, and then my partner made so that
(16:04):
we could take care of my mom and I would
do it all over again. And that's something that I
talk about in therapy all the time, like I know
that I should break away, I should let my parents
figure out what they need to do to sustain the house,
to have their own lives, to have their own relationship.
But I'm not built that way. That's not me. And
(16:25):
there's a really there's a not a big part of me,
but there is a part of me that wishes like
that said, like okay, bye, I'm leaving figure it out.
Y'all are on your own because you're adults, and I'm
an adult and I need to leave. But that is
just not who I am. And so it came with
a sacrifice, multiple sacrifices. But it also, you know, I
(16:46):
think gave me the stability that I needed to be
the entrepreneur that I am. Give my mom the stability
to like age in her home, you know, and be
comfortable in her home as opposed to moving out, selling
buying something smaller, and so it did come with the sacrifice,
and I think that's part of being the daughter in
(17:08):
the family for me at least.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
Yeah, And every family is different and so then the
needs of the daughter or the responsibilities vary from family
to family. But it seems that there are some commonalities,
you know, that tie the experience together, at least based
on what we're seeing on the internet and in the
journalism that's reflecting what we're seeing on the internet.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
The therapists are talking about it.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
The therapists are talking about it. Science is studying this.
There is a phenomenon, and I mean it makes sense,
you know, like just historically the way that we talk
about women and girls as being they mature faster than boys,
you know, and that's just a very basic like there's
this idea of this gender difference, right, that means that
(17:56):
girls are more responsible at a younger age, and then
you trickle down to like the specific family unit and
then the order in which kids are born, and it's
this domino effect.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
Yeah, It's like, were you ever told you were mature
for your age? Right? You probably were the eldest daughter,
And I remember being told that all the time, Like
I was so mature for my age. And I think
because I grew up with a lot of adults, Like
I didn't really have children around me growing up. Eventually
I did as we moved and I got closer to
like other sides of my family, But there was a
(18:28):
period where it's like I was just growing up with adults,
like they were either teenagers or in their early twenties.
So I was like a little adult as a kid
because I didn't have children around me.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
Yeah, I identify with like being that kid who like
at parties, I wanted to be in the kitchen to
hear the mom's gossip.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
I wanted to know what their husbands did that pissed
them off. I needed to know. I needed to know
why so and so kicked her husband out of the house, yeah,
or why he was sleeping on the couch or whatever.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
Good stuff stuff. There's good cheese. Men. That comes with
being I think the girl, the girl that like is
the mature one, the eldest, or just like a good listener.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
Yeah. But I also enjoyed taking that gossip and then
taking it back to the kids. Oh you would spread it, Oh, absolutely,
So innocreatively what I deserved in the kitchen.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
Yeah, no, I definitely did not do that. I learned
to keep things to myself. There was just something about
me being a kid that just understood intuitively, like, oh,
these things are not to be shared, Like I can
hear them, and I love hearing them, but I'm not
supposed to tell anyone.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
Oh I see.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
No, I had my little like sisterhood of the Traveling Pants,
little gaggle of girlies, of course, and we loved some
good adult gossip we did in our little and also
oldest daughters, both of them.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
Yeah, and you, But I think for you, you in particular,
it's like your friends, your your friend's parents were also friends,
so that also made it even U It's like, oh
my mom said this, and it's like, oh, but my mom.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Said, oh, good stuff, good stuff. Yes, So I mean, gosh, oh,
to be a girl, Oh, to be a girl in.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
The world, it's like girlhood being a daughter, and I
think stepping outside of just daughter role, I think has
been the reckoning that the eldest daughters are having online.
Of Wait, I'm exhausted. I'm really tired of being the
parentified child. I'm now the adult child, and I'm now
empowered to maybe set boundaries or step away or even
(20:34):
just acknowledge the experience that I had as a kid
that maybe was not okay.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
Yeah, I also think like as we grow and we
make choices for ourselves, I've felt this way, Like I
have felt like by stepping away from some of the
things that my parents wanted for me, I've been better
able to become the person I'm supposed to be. Like,
I think that sometimes in their attempt to love us
(21:01):
and like createle us, it's like, h but if I
stay here with you, like where do I go? Mm
hmmm while I'm here with you, you know, And so
as much as it hurts, sometimes I think that like
just seeing what can happen when you give your children
space and room, Like of course they're gonna blossom, you know,
like the plant is gonna fill the pot.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
Everyone needs room to grow.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
Everyone needs room to grow. And so that's what I
want for eldest daughters. Yea, you give yourself permission to
take care of yourself and love yourself and give yourself
space to grow.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Lok at A Radio is executive produced by Viosa fem
and Mala Munios.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
Stephanie Franco is our producer.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
Story editing by Me diosa.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
Creative direction by me Mala.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
Look at a Radio is a part of iHeartRadio's Michael
Dura podcast network.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
You can listen to look at Radio on the iHeartRadio
app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
Leave us a review and share with your Prima or
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Speaker 2 (21:56):
And thank you to our local motives, to our listeners
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Speaker 1 (22:01):
Besitos Local Luonia
Are you okay?
Speaker 2 (00:02):
No, I'm not okay. I'm the eldest daughter already.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Yeah, and it's.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Making me sick. According to an article from Fierce by.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Me Tho, let's get into it, let's talk about it.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
So I'm sure that you all out there have seen
all the chatter about eldest daughter syndrome, eldest daughters coming
to terms with their anxiety, their sense of inflated responsibility,
and why they rebelled later in life to being the
responsible one.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Mm. Yes, there's so much of that online. And by
the way, I'm Theosa and I'm Mala, and today, as
you may have heard, we are talking about eldest daughter's
eldest daughter syndrome. It's not an official diagnosis, but it
is kind of like pop psychology. It's recognized as like, oh,
(00:50):
this is a collective experience that eldest daughters are having
in this moment or forever, but being acknowledged and recognized
in this moment.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Yeah, And I feels so vindicated because I think across
the board, people around the world were asking, why is
my oldest sister such a bitch? She's not a bitch,
she has a syndrome. Please be kind be patient. Like
the parentification is something that a lot of people are
(01:19):
talking about, and that came up in this Fierce by
Methu article. There's a bunch that they've covered on this
topic actually, but literally asking is being the eldest daughter
making us sick and tying back the experience of being
an eldest daughter even to like pre natally in the womb,
how there are like these different hormonal issues that can
(01:41):
pop up for the firstborn child and the firstborn daughter,
and then how that all manifests later in life with
like anxiety and pcos. Even there's a lot of like
autoimmune connections to being the eldest daughter, it seems.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
And you're an eldest daughter.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Yes, now I am in perfect health luckily, thank God, clearly,
but I was at risk. But I feel like I
identify with some things that are being talked about in
the eldest daughter conversation. But there are some things that
I think are like I don't know, I don't think
we're part of my experience. Like the things that I
(02:19):
identify with with the oldest daughter syndrome stuff is a
you're like a guinea pig for your parents because they've
never parented before. They've never had a baby before, you know,
if they've never done late nights, changing diapers, they've never
a potty trained anybody before. In theory, so I think
that like that creates a sense of anxiety in general.
(02:39):
Then maybe you don't know that that's there when you're
a child, but then I'm sure it manifests, you know,
and so like I definitely identify also with the peace
about feeling like a sense of responsibility for your younger siblings,
like you're responsible for them, particularly when it came to
like being an example, like you have to lead, you
(03:03):
have to show them how it's done and what's possible,
and be a good role model. Like I think that
was the type of pressure that was put on me
being being the oldest daughter.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Yeah, that makes sense, and I am actually the youngest daughter.
I'm not the eldest daughter, but I am the only daughter.
And for that reason, I feel like there's a lot
of overlap in my experience with the conversations that I
see about eldest daughters, especially when it comes to making
sure that everyone is okay in the family. Feeling that
responsibility of like almost being like a little therapist as
(03:34):
a kid, or making sure that everyone is like kind
of walking into the room and like checking the vibe, like, wait,
there's something wrong here, who's upset?
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Yeah? Wait?
Speaker 1 (03:44):
And I feel like very attuned to other people's emotions,
which is exhausting and terrible. But I do think that
that's part of being like the only daughter in my household,
and I was raised with I wasn't raised with brothers.
I mean, I have brothers, but we weren't raised together
because of a really big age gap. So it's like
only child, only daughter, but also youngest daughter.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Yeah, it's an interesting hybrid. Yes, place that you are
as a sibling. Yes, but you have a lot of
friends who are eldest daughters.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
I do. I do, which is why I feel like
I can commiserate with some of them.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
I definitely, Yeah, I feel like there's something there, especially
with like I remember so many times being the one
to like signal to my siblings, like we gotta get
up and do something. Yeah, we gotta we gotta clean,
we gotta work, we have to like be productive, because
like I can tell that mom is on the verge
of flipping out, or that my dad is Like I
(04:40):
can just sense the energy as he's walking down the
driveway to get to the front door, like we gotta,
we gotta get into gear.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Yeah, it's kind of you know that meme of like
I've seen this now in like two iterations where it's
like one the meme of like the Latino child that
forgot to take the hit out of the fer to
do frost right, and then now the iteration I've seen is, oh, so,
now I understand why my mom was so upset that
I forgot to take the chicken out of the freezer, right.
And I do think that there's that responsibility right of
(05:10):
like kind of in some ways, because I think you
kind of alluded to this of like kind of being
a mind reader, because like you know that you can
sense as a kid when your parent is maybe about
to get upset or maybe like, wait, I'm relaxing way
too much right now.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
I'm too relaxed.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
I'm too relaxed. I have to like get up and
do something in work because because I have to because
mom's working or mom's doing something, Mom's getting the house ready,
Dad is doing this. So I have to go and
do something myself because I have to look productive and
like I'm working.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
I have to contribute to the household, I have to
pull my weight. And then realizing that so there were
three of us and we're all within five years, Me
and my sister are eleven months apart, and so they
were outnumbered, you know, like each parent is out numbered
like three to one. And so now I can look
back and sympathize, like, oh, that's a lot like for
(06:03):
one parent or even two parents to manage and handle.
Like it's hard enough for me to like manage myself, right,
you know, but it's like this small army in my
house that I have to feed and keep up after.
So then I understand like the leaning on the eldest,
you know, presumably like to help. And especially in the summers,
this was so tricky because in the summers, as a kid,
(06:24):
you want to lounge about and just kind of like
be on your own schedule and do nothing. A lot
of nothing, yes, unless but you know, unless extracurriculars, camp,
what have you. But those days when you're just at
home not doing shit, golden, golden, But then that that
fear the second you realize it's over and you've been
lounging for ten hours.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Yeah, it's like, oh, wait, I have to get up
and do something. There is that sense of responsibility of
maybe being the eldest daughter and being like the bonus parent, right, yeah,
and being very helpful, maybe like overally helpful, like maybe
not in a way that appropriate for a child of
said age, right, but it's kind of comes with there's
so many layers as to why that happens, right, Parenting
(07:08):
is stressful, economic, you know, barriers, language, barriers, there's so
many different reasons that the eldest daughter becomes like the
bonus parent.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Yeah, but it's such a trap because parents have a
hard enough time parenting as like full blown adults, and
then there's this sort of pressure for the eldest child
to do a version of parenting. And a child is
not as a parent, it's a child. So I remember
(07:37):
having feelings of anxiety about like, oh, what am I
going to do with these kids? Like you know, my brother,
like somebody's got to straighten him out. What am I
gonna do? And like, of course that's so overwhelming for
a kid because you don't know anything, right, you know.
And so then I remember at some point my mom
did say to me, like these are my kids, and
(07:59):
you're my and you don't have to parent them like
we've got it.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
Yeah, you know, I think that's a good boundary. Your
mom said that. We're not seeing in the types of
examples folks are sharing online. It's very much like there
were no boundaries. My parents made me the bonus parent
without even realizing it, or maybe without even knowing that
they were making me bonus parent. It was just something
that I had to do as the eldest.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
I think it's really unfortunate. And then I think it
creates resentment between the kids. The youngest kids are like
resentful or grateful towards the oldest sibling because either they
needed that third parent and are so grateful that that
sibling stepped up, or those youngest kids absolutely did not
(08:43):
need a third parent, and instead of having a sibling relationship,
it's this pseudo parental relationship. And then it's like, but
you're my sibling. You know, why were you acting like
you were in charge of me all these years?
Speaker 3 (08:56):
Don't go anywhere, look amotives, We'll.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Be right back, and we're back with more of our episode.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Being an eldest daughter and having eldest daughter syndrome. There's
actually eight symptoms. If you will of being an eldest daughter,
and one is you have an intense feeling of responsibility.
You're an overachiever type A and very driven. You worry
a lot and probably have anxiety. You struggle with people
pleasing behaviors, you have a hard time placing and upholding boundaries,
(09:27):
You resent your siblings and a family, You struggle with
feelings of guilt, and you have a difficult time in
your adult relationships. And the person who broke this down
for us is licensed marriage and family therapist Katie Morden,
who broke down the eight signs of eldest Daughter Syndrome
in a TikTok video, and she has also stated like
(09:47):
this is not an official mental health diagnosis, but it
is defined as the unique pressures and responsibilities placed onto
the oldest daughter in the family. Also, keeping in mind
like gender is a very big dynamic in what responsibility
or what role the eldest takes on in the family,
we know eldest sons don't always have that same type
(10:07):
of pressure and responsibility. They get to just be the
eldest son. And I know one of my homegirls says,
I would like to come back in my second life
as the eldest son in a Latino family.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
Yeah, just chill, just glad, chill, just glide. From the
same article, Apparently, studies have found links between a person's
role in the family and different outcomes. And I think
this specific list of outcomes is so interesting as it
relates to eldest daughters, but educational attainment and IQ financial
(10:38):
risk tolerance, participation in dangerous sports. I love this because
this feels so relatable. Oh, eldest daughters experience like high
IQ smart people who are academically high achieving, but financial
risk tolerance, don't mind spending money, and maybe if not
(10:59):
dangerous sports, but like thrill.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
Seeking, risk adrenaline seeking.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Adrenaline seeking behaviors. Identify with all of those things.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
What would you say has been like the most maybe
like risk taking or adrenaline that you want to share?
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Oh, girl, I can't say that on air, not anymore.
We've cleaned up, We've cleaned up our acts.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
Well, I will say, like, for me, there was a
time where I like loved the idea of like going skydiving,
going bungee jumping, like in that way, like adrenaline seeking
type of activities, And now I'm like absolutely not. I
think that comes with being thirty, where I'm like, ooh,
I have a lot to lose. I have a business,
I have family, I have dogs. Don't want to lose
any of that. But there was a time in my
(11:37):
life where I like loved that type of like thrill seeking.
I did skydive. I skydived at eighteen. Now that I
look back, I was nineteen. Maybe when I look back,
I'm like, oh my god, your frontal lobe clearly had
not developed yet and you were totally fine jumping out
of a plane. I wouldn't do it again. I'm glad
I did it. But I do think that I very
much loved the idea of like thrill seeking because I
(11:59):
was not a rebel in any way as a kid.
So it's like my rebellious years I feel like came
later in.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Life, absolutely, and I think that's healthier. Yeah, it's healthier,
and then you can really to an extent, understand what
you're doing and then enjoy it.
Speaker 3 (12:15):
Don't go anywhere, lokomotives, We'll be right back, and we're
back with more of our episode.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
I do think that rebelling as a kid or a teenager,
even like a young adult, right like eighteen nineteen, Like
is a good, like healthy distancing that you kind of
place with yourself and your parents to separate, create your
own identity, your own like explore your likes, your wants,
your desires, your dreams, all of that. But I think
(12:47):
like for me, that came later in life because it's like, Okay,
I have to do all the things my parents said
I was supposed to do, right, which was like get
good grades, graduate and go to a university. And then
it's like I can start doing my own thing. Which
even then I'm like, it's still their expectations of what
I was supposed to do wait on me. Which is
also why I'm so grateful that they got on board
(13:08):
with this like entrepreneur thing. They don't always get it.
They don't understand really the economics of podcasting.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
A lot of people don't know.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
Sometimes I don't. Sometimes I don't even get it. But
you know, I think in that way, like I very
much went like outside of the box of their expectations
for me. My dad wanted me to be a lawyer,
you know my mom. My mom was just happy I
went to school. Like, I don't think she had any
like expectations of like a career for me. It was like,
I support what you want to do. But my dad
was like he had like expectations of me to be
(13:38):
a lawyer, even even a couple of years ago. He
was like, you can be an entertainment lawyer. And I
was like, no, that sounds miserable and boring.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
Yeah. Yeah, we hire someone else to do that.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
We have the entertainment lawyer. He works for us. Yes, yeah.
But I think I think some good some good like
healthy rebelliousness, rebelling I think is good. It's good for
a like a young an adolescent that I don't think
that the eldest daughters get to experience.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
No, it's very important. It's very important because if you
don't have your period of rebellion, which is really just
creating like your space in the world right and just
distinguishing yourself from your family unit as an individual, I
think is it's a rupture from your bubble, a healthy rupture.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
To get out of your bubble, you have to break
the bubble sometimes. So I feel like that piece is
really important. And I think that if you don't have
that period of independence and rebellion, then you go from
being this parentified oldest daughter, and you're taking care of
siblings and taking care of a family in a particular way.
So then eventually, if that's the path for you getting
(14:46):
married and having kids and doing it all over again,
and so when do you have your moment of freedom?
When do you have your decade that belongs to you?
And so I think that like feminism really helped me
to orient myself and understand like the labor that comes
with this life, you know, but it's NonStop, and so
(15:10):
you have to choose yourself and say no and break
away and rebel and maybe take care of yourself. Means
you can't take care of your family constantly. Every day,
somebody else has to step up and do it.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Yeah, and often the eldest daughter won't step away, right
and because also other people won't step up, having that
separation is really important, and going out on your own
is really important. One of the things that really scared
me about getting married was this idea of going from parents'
house to husband's house, like never having that moment of
(15:43):
independence and living on your own. And that ended up
being my journey. I ended up moving back home and
helping my parents and then getting married and staying to
help my parents, and so it was my partner that
ended up moving in with us, and so it's like
I'm still in the family home. And that was a
sacrifice I made, and then my partner made so that
(16:04):
we could take care of my mom and I would
do it all over again. And that's something that I
talk about in therapy all the time, like I know
that I should break away, I should let my parents
figure out what they need to do to sustain the house,
to have their own lives, to have their own relationship.
But I'm not built that way. That's not me. And
(16:25):
there's a really there's a not a big part of me,
but there is a part of me that wishes like
that said, like okay, bye, I'm leaving figure it out.
Y'all are on your own because you're adults, and I'm
an adult and I need to leave. But that is
just not who I am. And so it came with
a sacrifice, multiple sacrifices. But it also, you know, I
(16:46):
think gave me the stability that I needed to be
the entrepreneur that I am. Give my mom the stability
to like age in her home, you know, and be
comfortable in her home as opposed to moving out, selling
buying something smaller, and so it did come with the sacrifice,
and I think that's part of being the daughter in
(17:08):
the family for me at least.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
Yeah, And every family is different and so then the
needs of the daughter or the responsibilities vary from family
to family. But it seems that there are some commonalities,
you know, that tie the experience together, at least based
on what we're seeing on the internet and in the
journalism that's reflecting what we're seeing on the internet.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
The therapists are talking about it.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
The therapists are talking about it. Science is studying this.
There is a phenomenon, and I mean it makes sense,
you know, like just historically the way that we talk
about women and girls as being they mature faster than boys,
you know, and that's just a very basic like there's
this idea of this gender difference, right, that means that
(17:56):
girls are more responsible at a younger age, and then
you trickle down to like the specific family unit and
then the order in which kids are born, and it's
this domino effect.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
Yeah, It's like, were you ever told you were mature
for your age? Right? You probably were the eldest daughter,
And I remember being told that all the time, Like
I was so mature for my age. And I think
because I grew up with a lot of adults, Like
I didn't really have children around me growing up. Eventually
I did as we moved and I got closer to
like other sides of my family, But there was a
(18:28):
period where it's like I was just growing up with adults,
like they were either teenagers or in their early twenties.
So I was like a little adult as a kid
because I didn't have children around me.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
Yeah, I identify with like being that kid who like
at parties, I wanted to be in the kitchen to
hear the mom's gossip.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
I wanted to know what their husbands did that pissed
them off. I needed to know. I needed to know
why so and so kicked her husband out of the house, yeah,
or why he was sleeping on the couch or whatever.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
Good stuff stuff. There's good cheese. Men. That comes with
being I think the girl, the girl that like is
the mature one, the eldest, or just like a good listener.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
Yeah. But I also enjoyed taking that gossip and then
taking it back to the kids. Oh you would spread it, Oh, absolutely,
So innocreatively what I deserved in the kitchen.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
Yeah, no, I definitely did not do that. I learned
to keep things to myself. There was just something about
me being a kid that just understood intuitively, like, oh,
these things are not to be shared, Like I can
hear them, and I love hearing them, but I'm not
supposed to tell anyone.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
Oh I see.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
No, I had my little like sisterhood of the Traveling Pants,
little gaggle of girlies, of course, and we loved some
good adult gossip we did in our little and also
oldest daughters, both of them.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
Yeah, and you, But I think for you, you in particular,
it's like your friends, your your friend's parents were also friends,
so that also made it even U It's like, oh
my mom said this, and it's like, oh, but my mom.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Said, oh, good stuff, good stuff. Yes, So I mean, gosh, oh,
to be a girl, Oh, to be a girl in.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
The world, it's like girlhood being a daughter, and I
think stepping outside of just daughter role, I think has
been the reckoning that the eldest daughters are having online.
Of Wait, I'm exhausted. I'm really tired of being the
parentified child. I'm now the adult child, and I'm now
empowered to maybe set boundaries or step away or even
(20:34):
just acknowledge the experience that I had as a kid
that maybe was not okay.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
Yeah, I also think like as we grow and we
make choices for ourselves, I've felt this way, Like I
have felt like by stepping away from some of the
things that my parents wanted for me, I've been better
able to become the person I'm supposed to be. Like,
I think that sometimes in their attempt to love us
(21:01):
and like createle us, it's like, h but if I
stay here with you, like where do I go? Mm
hmmm while I'm here with you, you know, And so
as much as it hurts, sometimes I think that like
just seeing what can happen when you give your children
space and room, Like of course they're gonna blossom, you know,
like the plant is gonna fill the pot.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
Everyone needs room to grow.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
Everyone needs room to grow. And so that's what I
want for eldest daughters. Yea, you give yourself permission to
take care of yourself and love yourself and give yourself
space to grow.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Lok at A Radio is executive produced by Viosa fem
and Mala Munios.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
Stephanie Franco is our producer.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
Story editing by Me diosa.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
Creative direction by me Mala.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
Look at a Radio is a part of iHeartRadio's Michael
Dura podcast network.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
You can listen to look at Radio on the iHeartRadio
app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
Leave us a review and share with your Prima or
share with your homegirl.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
And thank you to our local motives, to our listeners
for tuning in each and every week.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
Besitos Local Luonia
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