Stephen was being obnoxious in the car the other evening : moaning and complaining and flailing around and grumping at his sisters. So Bobby told him to write a 500 word essay on life as the oldest child. His reasoning was that the essay would serve two purposes : firstly, to give us some insight into Steve's feelings, and secondly, to be enough of a nuisance that remembering it might serve as a deterrent to obnoxious behaviour next time we're in the car.

Here's the essay. It's very Adrian Mole-ish. But, poor kid, he does have a point or two in there - his sisters can be fearsomely annoying at times.

Life as an Oldest Child

Upon being commissioned to write this essay I found myself temporarily at a loss for words. However I quickly realized what being the oldest child meant after realizing I still had to write about 480 words.

Being an oldest child is difficult at its best, especially when you have two very high-pitched younger sisters. I shall not transcribe their names to you, and you would be wise to refer to them as they who must not be named. The benefits of being an oldest child are few and far between and the expectations and responsibilities are numerous. I would have to describe the situation as difficult at its best..

To begin with we have, probably one of the greater challenges I have to face, my sisters. They are messy, speak in tones more appropriate for dolphins, and consistently pester me. In my view they are, for the most part, the greatest crime against humanity, yes that is right. They, unlike the Athenians, care more about their individual rooms than keeping public spaces clean and beautiful. Their shrill cries are awful. In a higher pitch than dolphin speak, louder than indeed mandrakes, they pierce any sliver of silence their there is unlikely to be.

We have next the shirking of responsibilitiess that puts an unfair burden on me. When my sisters fail to fulfill their daily chores the parents get most angry and usually suspend any fun activities till said chores are completed. This in turn means that I get mad at my sisters and appear to be surly and unreasonable which means that i get placed with even more chores. United my sisters are able to practically run the household shifting the balance of power from the sane, namely me. You might think that they would dislike each other and realize how annoying one another is, but instead it only strengthens their bond.

The final issue of concern is their desire to hold mundane, infuriating, stupid, vile nauseating, pointless, nonsensical arguments that serve no apparent purpose other than to annoy me - which is very likely the case. Their jokes happen to be almost as bad as the arguments, with lines like “your brain must be the size of a pea, oh yeah I forget you don't have one.” That example is one of their more sophisticated jokes. Separated they are a nightmare but put them together and they are one of the most powerful forces on earth-and yes they are more powerful than ice which can split a mountain.

In conclusion all of life's problems can be boiled down to these two individuals. Should you happen to wander upon them in the course of your life then you should be afraid, very afraid. To put it mildly they are the one and only true source of evil in this world.

I don't believe that being an oldest child is all to difficult in itself but would instead say that being an oldest child with them is difficult.