The Middles

In birth order lore, middle children are peacemakers. But what happens when middlehood splits? Do middle children go through some sort of quantum shift in which their strengths become their darkness? Do they go from Peacemaker to The Equalizer? 

You’ve never met such good frenemies.

Our family boasts not one but two middle children, two and a half years apart. 

They share a room. They share a secret language. They share the weight of scoldings and time outs as their shared wildness results in spills and breaks and unfathomable noise. 

They do not share DNA. So while they dress in unison – after all, when you find a quality coat or pajama set, why wouldn’t you buy a few? – and although they’ve uncannily absorbed each others’ mannerisms, they are a photo in the negative: Black and white, dark coils and pale wisps, blue- and charcoal-eyed.

There are depths to this that I don’t plan to explore in a public forum: the challenges our boys may face in maintaining their closeness; the distinctly different ways the world will perceive and treat them; the ways it already does. 

What I’m really interested in sharing here is how two individual children, not biologically related, can be so uniquely and perfectly capable of riling one another up. 

It’s an art form; it’s a disaster.

I unleashed on them the other day. “YOU, go to my room! YOU, go to your room! YOU! You cannot hit, you’re bigger and older and you set the example! And YOU! Why do you insist on tormenting your siblings, every minute? Doesn’t it get boring to you? It’s exhausting. Leave! Everyone! Alone!” 

By the end of it they were both crying on their respective beds and my heart was thumping with fading adrenaline as guilt started its stompy creep in.

The oldest had long since snuck away from the conflict to read, the youngest taking advantage of the distraction to sneak candy or toothpaste– who knows? But I couldn’t walk away. I never can. I am entrenched in the middles’ ongoing battles. Like: I can see the problem so clearly! Surely I should be able to fix it? 

Here’s the problem: one child knows exactly which brotherly buttons to push and pushes them with relish – full hand slaps at elevator buttons, hitting multiple floors of upset all at once. The other child is emotionally disorganized and reactionary so the elevator doors fly open between floors, spilling passengers out into a shaft.

And the solution: if the Pesterer would just quit pestering OR if the Reactor would just tone down his reactions, this doom-cycle would end.

But the Ifs are unfair: they can’t. The Pesterer actually cannot stop pestering. You can see it in his eyes. He’s gifted by God with the exact right frequency to pester this single other specific boy and tasked by Satan to carry it out. And the Reactor tries – he really tries – to take a beat. He also can’t. Peskiness and overreaction are sewn into the boys’ distinctly different DNA like puzzle pieces perfectly matched to raise holy hell. They’re like a twisted version of soul mates. They’re like the main characters in Beef. 

The Reactor, the Big Middle, was dethroned as baby of the family in the middle of a Halloween night. The new baby was calmly curious as we held him, our faces unfamiliar to each other. We were calmly curious about how this whole thing would go: a long-term foster care situation. “At least a year” we had been told. 

Our daughter swooned; love at first sight. But our son – now, suddenly, a middle child – slid in around the edges of the room, his eyes on the little intruder with deep suspicion. 

Yet one year later, he was the one who nicknamed the baby. “Squeaky cheeks!” he’d shriek, holding said cheeks in his own chubby hands while the boys giggled, faces touching. 

And a year after that, as the adoption became possible and a caseworker asked him how he felt about the little boy becoming his brother, his eyebrows crinkled in confusion. “Um,” he told her, trying to be polite; trying not to make her feel stupid. “He *is* my brother?”  

A few months ago, when a playmate told the group that only “big” kids could play their game, Little Middle started to cry. Big Middle stepped forward bravely and uncomfortably. “No,” he said, a six-year-old of steel. “My brother can play too.” 

Some nights we discover that Little Middle has tucked himself into Big Middle’s bed. Just recently, when a blowtorch used in a bead-making demonstration frightened him, he darted behind his brother, grabbing the older boy’s hand. He didn’t run to mom or dad. He ran to the brother he torments. And his brother stood between him and the fire.

I’m a middle child. In birth order lore, we’re peacemakers, holding the frayed ends of the oldest and youngest together. But what happens when the peacemaker role fractures? What happens when middlehood, along with all of its quirks and qualms, splits? Do the middle children go through some sort of quantum shift in which their strengths become their darkness? Do they go from Peacemaker to The Equalizer? 

I think the answer is yes. 

AND YET. I’m glad they have each other. Even through their ongoing war, I’m glad they have each other: to toughen one another up, to soften each other’s edges, and most of all, to love and protect. 

Overlooked and under-attended to, in a world that will perceive and treat you differently, may you sweet, infuriating middles grow into men who take turns standing between your brother and the fire.