ABPA - Australian Bush Poets Association

THE MIDDLE CHILD SYNDROME

I'm the eldest of all of my siblings
The first born in my family
My sister arrived two years later
My brother much later made three

Many parents decide with their first born
To take millions of cute baby snaps
My parents were not the exception
A mistake in hindsight perhaps

My brother was as cute as a button
And blessed with a keen sporting gene
There were millions of pics of him also
But sadly few taken between

So 'Sis' put two and two together
And mistakenly came up with three
She believed that the lack of her photos
Proved she was adopted, you see

She developed a middle child syndrome
And went into a terrible funk
And for year upon year she continued
To believe this complete load of bunk

Lucky for us there is something
That sets all us Cropper's apart
And that is the size of the noses
That Dad gave us, God bless his heart

So I said 'Take look in the mirror
At that enormous protuberance
And then take a squiz at your father
And tell me there's no resemblance

Do you think that he really went shopping
And searched till he finally found
A baby with a gi-normous proboscis
That's as long and as fat as it's round

Well, my sister just burst into laughter
And was crying all at the same time
She could see she was clearly a Cropper
Cause her snoz was exactly like mine

It was exactly the same as her father
And not so removed from her mum
It's my brother who looks somewhat different
Perhaps he is the adopted one.

Copyright (c) Allan Cropper January 2015

I remember my mother saying that there were thousands of photos of me, hundreds of my sister, fifty odd of my brother and only a handful of the youngest. It's just the way things go when we are busy raising a family. Sounds like your sister got over it though. Thanks for sharing Allan.

Heather

Love it Allan! I'm an only child so as you can imagine, every smile, tear and burp has been recorded for questionable posterity

Thanks Heather and Shelley

Whether being an only child, middle child, oldest or youngest, parents everywhere struggle to get it right.

We try to learn from the 'mistakes' of our own parents, only to end up making mistakes of our own. I think they call I 'life'.

Thank you for continuing to read my work. Very much appreciated.

Allan