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An Open Letter To My Hyper-Independent Eldest Daughter Syndrome

I often wonder what leads the eldest daughters of a family to lead with a staunch sense of pride and firm composure, even when they are in a deep sense of turbulence on the inside.

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Hridya Sharma
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pataakha

Scene from Pataakha | Image: Vishal Bharadwaj

My resonation and adoration for the colour black has grown to its zenith as I grow up as a 22-year-old adult who tries her best to have it all together all the time. Mysterious in its exterior, surrounded by the air of unpredictability, class and a sheer layer of fearlessness draws my sense of admiration as I wish to embody the aura of the hues of black. In utmost honesty, I find myself questioning whether I am a black cat or a golden retriever, considering how contrastingly I serve my personality in the presence of other human fellowship.

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Well, that question still ceases to find its answer, but the traces of hyper-independence and perfectionism have made their firm establishment in the deepest trenches of my soul. I often wonder what it is that leads the eldest daughters of any family to lead with a staunch sense of pride and firm composure, even when they are in a deep sense of turbulence on the inside.

Growing Up 'Sharma Ji Ki Badi Beti'

As soon as the second child is born, the first-born girl in Indian families takes charge as the responsible elder daughter. She is always the first to notice her mother's slight knee-catching, her father's first grey hair, and the fact that her parents' monthly prescription for medication keeps getting longer. All of these indicators gradually point her in the direction of a future where she will need to mature quickly and handle the mountain of obligations.

This story is as old as time itself, but instead of being content to quietly sacrifice themselves at the altar of family, older daughters are now banding together and naming their predicament "eldest daughter syndrome." All my strides up till now, the funny part is that I don't actively recall a moment where I could find myself being introduced by my name in family gatherings, it has somehow always been Sharma Ji Ki Badi Beti or a summation of all my achievements that has beckoned to be my forging identity and what defines me as an individual.

Growing up in a brown household, the elder daughters often embrace the tag of being the responsible one as soon as the younger sibling arrives. They are the ones who are expected to be a role model to their siblings, be the unpaid therapists to all the family members, bear the familial sense of respect and never be too outspoken, or too opinionated, yet somehow even after doing all this, there comes a point where she grows weary of being the constant watch guard of the clan’s utopian sense of respect and honour, which the cinematic realm so blatantly glorifies as the honorary sacrifice of one’s hopes and dreams to keep the ones we love happy. 

But I often pause and think, if the cost of evidenting our sense of love towards our loved ones is putting yourself and our needs down the drain, I much rather not be called the moral and righteous and all so picture perfect elder daughter. Because love is not transactional and it is most definitely not reflected in how willing a child is to sacrifice their desires in the heed of familial expectations. Regretfully we live in a society, where external expectations and the fear of ‘Log Kya Kahenge’ are placed at a higher dearth, than the desires and joy of their offspring. As much as I would want to say I was not affected by it, the truth begins to manifest in every aspect of my being.  Whether it is my sense of overachievement, the need to constantly be productive all the time or a sense of dread towards emotional vulnerability, the eldest daughter syndrome sure kicks my strongly held lens of perception and often convolutes my psyche.

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Much of my sense of the need for extreme control and predicting the worst-case scenarios stems from the strict environment I grew up in, where spiralling in anger or being out of control and not acting according to the conformed laid rules of conduct was frowned upon. I fostered my sense of self in academic validation and being a meek person who didn't have a lot of opinions. But as I grew up, I realized I was the living manifestation of a dream that I had never dreamt of being.

Under all of the cocoons of conditioning of the need to be perfect, flawless, soft and morally right, were the hidden layers of my true authentic self.  The notion of control stemmed from my being through my engraved focus on psychology, astrology and literature as a sense of escapism. As I realised my hidden truth of who I am, understanding my personality type, knowing how the astrological placements of my birth and analysing my entire existence somehow gave me a warm embrace of understanding. For me, it was like diving deeper into the ocean of the deepest and buried parts of myself and shedding the light of life and hope on them.  

In the stance of the present time, do I know who I truly am or what my destined life purpose is, maybe not. But as life strides in its continuation, I become more and more comfortable in not knowing what life holds for me in the future and loving myself for who I am- a creative, ambitious, fierce, kind, loyal, honest and loving individual who shifts her gears towards the tendencies of a hyper independent and overachieving older daughter from time to time.

I hope every elder daughter who reads this post finally finds the self-love and the courage to put her own needs first and realise she is amazing just the way she is, not when she overachieves or becomes extremely successful or serves to be an ideal example for her parents or society. She is radiantly beautiful and more than enough at this moment as she breathes and makes the world around her a more beautiful place to live in. 

Love,

A fellow elder daughter who is learning to love herself.

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Views expressed by the author are their own.

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