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Three Cheers for Us ‘Middles’

Tom Purcell on

You ignored August 12th  didn’t you?

That’s when the world celebrates National Middle Child Day every year, but you ignored it just as you have ignored us "middles" our entire lives!

I’m the third-born child in a family of six — an only boy with five sisters.

As a tyke I longed for the acceptance of my older sisters. At times, they doted over me but other times they were repulsed by their stinky, sweaty baby brother who always had a nose full of boogies.

I was permanently banished to the back seat of our station wagon, which faced the rear window, and which is why I spent most of my childhood in a state of motion sickness.

When my sisters were teeny boppers, they, like all girls in America, were infatuated with pop singer David Cassidy.

 

Since he sported a shag haircut — he parted his hair down the middle and feathered it over the sides of his noggin — they were determined that I get one, too.

I became the first kid in St. Germaine Catholic School to do so and by the end of the school year every single boy had the David Cassidy cut.

When my three younger sisters arrived, and as my older sisters started doing their own things outside the family unit, I evolved into the older brother and finally was treated with a little respect.

The experience I had as a middle child in the ‘70s is one that few kids experience today — mainly because there are so few large families today.

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Copyright 2021 Tom Purcell, All Rights Reserved. Credit: Cagle.com

 

 

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