Pain of being a first born

Being a first born in the family has got its advantages and disadvantages. The advantages include getting all the love and attention in this world when you are born. As the only child in the family, you are regarded as the apple of your parents’ eyes.

Things change with the birth of the second child as the love and attention shifts to this child. This doesn’t mean that they love you less. It’s just that you are now bigger than the new baby and are therefore able to take care of yourself, know what I mean?

Then comes a time when you have to do a great deal of house chores as the first born. As an adult, being the first born comes with more responsibilities. First, you are expected to serve as the role model for your siblings. And you risk bearing the burden of blame when you fail to meet expectations.

In many families, the first born takes over his parents’ responsibilities, sometimes before they even retire (working ones). If you have a job and your parents don’t have an income, you automatically become the bread winner, married or not.

Masatu Maganga, is the first born in a family of six children. Like is the case with many eldest children, being the first born sometimes weighs him down.

Now that he has his own family to provide for, Maganga finds it a burden to have to take care of his siblings and his parents’ needs at the same time.

“I have been supporting my family since I got a job in 2005. It now seems as my responsibility because when I am unable to support them, they complain a lot. I paid school fees for my two sisters up to college level and now my two younger brothers who are in university,” says the 39-year-old father of two.

He feels relief however, now that the two brothers have received government sponsorship. However, they are always demanding things from him including expensive mobile phones.

Given the hard economic times today, Maganga can no longer support both his siblings and parents as he used to and they are not happy with him.

What his family does not understand is that he is always in debt to make sure he caters for both families.

Maganga sees being the first born as a burden since, as he puts it, “you end up carrying other people’s burden instead of concentrating on your own responsibilities.”

He does not want this to happen to his first born. However, Maganga might end up depending on his children when he ages since in his current situation, he can not make any savings for his golden years.

Long time practice

Elizabeth Mwakapala 56, says the practice of burdening first born children has been there for years. She too is a culprit. Being a widow, her first born child had no choice but to help her take care of the family the moment he got a job after college.

She thinks it was okay doing so that time, for he had not started his own family. Now that he is married, she understands he has to take care of his family.

“I knew it was not a good thing but I had no option but to depend on him for support. After he married, he now only supports us once in a while,” says Mwakapala who is a petty trader.

She thinks having a large number of children is what makes parents burden their eldest children with loads of responsibilities. To break this chain, Mwakapala advises the younger generation to consider having fewer children.

Cause of misunderstandings

Being first born has created cracks in Sarah Raphael’s marriage. The 34-year-old mother of two says, the fact that her in-laws expect much from her husband as their eldest child has been causing problems in her marriage.

She thinks her husband’s family is overly dependent on him, hence draining her family’s resources. When she tries to raise the issue with her husband, he keeps reminding her that he is the first born and therefore he is expected to take care of his family ‘even at times when he is unable to take care of his own children.’

“Apart from his immediate family, my husband has many other relatives who depend on him. This is not what I bargained for when we got married. His being the eldest child is affecting our relationship. Because of this, he does not fully provide for our family,” Sarah complains.

At times, she says, he even fails to pay school fees for their children on time because he has to pay school fees for his siblings. Although Sarah works, she cannot fulfil all the family responsibilities single-handedly. And she feels it is not her responsibility to take care of everything at home. She says her in-laws think she does not like it when her husband supports his relatives.

“I have no problem with him supporting his relatives but he has to strike a balance between his family and his relatives by finding better ways to support them without affecting his family.”

Pastor Aidan Mbulininge of St Peters Anglican church in Dar es Salaam says he is not against the idea of children supporting their parents. However, he thinks it should not be viewed as a duty of first borns to take care of their younger siblings/families.

Modester Kamoga, a sociologist says, putting the burden on eldest children is a result of poor parenting. She says it’s wrong for parents to think since they took their child to school, it’s the child’s responsibility to take care of their siblings.

She says in reality, it is a parent’s duty to take care of their children without expecting someone else to assist them even if the first born or any other child is in a position to help.

“The first born will always remain a child regardless of their financial position. It is therefore important for parents to consider having the number of children that they are able to raise” says Kamoga.

Being a first born herself, Kamoga manages by taking it positively given that a majority of parents always bank on their first born children believing they can handle everything.

She says it all begins at a very young age when a first born child gets a younger sibling and they are given the responsibility to play with the younger one... And this continues into adulthood.

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