Some Good Stuff About Having Older Brothers

WHEN I was younger I loved the idea of having a big brother.  I was so envious of those girls in my class who had brothers to look out for them, to help them and spoil them rotten.  

That’s what they’re for, right?

Apparently I was living in cloud cuckoo land.  All big brothers were good for were distributing Chinese burns, poking fun at you and being disgusting.  They wouldn’t even do your homework for you help you out with your homework.

Secretly I always felt those girls just didn’t have the right kind of big brother. They only had Irish ones and they didn’t know how to ride motor bikes or fly helicopters or catch the bad lads or survive in the mountains with a pocket knife and some nettles to live off.  I wanted a big brother like MacGyver or the lads from CHiPS.  The Fall Guy impressed me no end as well. 

No wonder the girls in my class didn’t like their big brothers.  Looking back on it, I didn’t like their big brothers very much either. 

Now that I have four boy children of my own and three of them have a big brother it appears they aren’t impressed with the state of affairs either. 

Never mind.  I can see the advantages of it, even if they can’t. 

There are great perks attached to having older brothers and some of those would be:

You get to play with all of their toys and DS games and use their stuff.  But only when they are at school.  And you might have to suffer the dire consequences upon their return if you’ve broken anything or put something back in the wrong place thus giving the game away on yourself.

There is nearly always someone around to play with. You would never be short of an opportunity to have a good wrestle.

You get to watch them making all the mistakes first so you don’t have to go there. In an ideal world anyway.

You tend to have loads of ready-made friends.  This comes in very handy when you start Big School.  The law of averages sees to it that some of your brothers’ friends will have younger siblings too and chances are you will know them.

You know lots of bad words. This is never good especially when you get caught trying them out but at least the older ones get the blame for teaching them to you in the first place.

You get away with much more than your older brothers ever did.  Your parents have either mellowed out, they are absolutely exhausted and/or they just don’t care anymore. 

You are hardier, faster and gobbier than your brothers.  This comes into its own in the jungle aka the school yard.  Except maybe the gobbier part.  Funnily enough older kids don’t like it when the smaller ones try to jump the pecking order queue.

When you are three and a half, own dimples and are a cute as all hell you can make even the most hardened almost 9 and 7 year olds bend to your will.

When you are at home with your mother all morning, you get spoiled rotten.  You get all the jellies.  All the couch space and remote control rights.  Plus all the down time to watch all the cartoons you want.

Mostly.

You get to enjoy decadent breakfasts with the most important person in your life - your mother – whilst your big brothers are at school being tortured.

And best of all, when you are sick everyone, possibly not big brothers though, makes a huge fuss of you until you are better.

Maybe I would like a big brother after all!