I was nine years old when Bob was born, and I remember the anticipation like it was stitched into my bones. I already had a younger brother, Anthony, three years my junior, but this time I hoped for balance, a sister to share secrets, maybe even matching dresses. Momma did too. She had the name picked out: Lillian, her Tiger Lily. That name held fire and softness, a bloom with claws. I imagined us giggling in the hallway, whispering under blankets. However, Momma made a deal with Daddy: if the baby was a boy, he got to name him. She believed she was carrying a girl, so she agreed. When Bob arrived, she had to reckon with the name Clarence Galahad Dalton II, a title that sounded like it belonged in a courtroom or a medieval scroll.
From the moment he came home, I helped take care of him. I fed him, changed him, cleaned up his puke, and played with him endlessly. He was such a character; smart as a tack and funny in ways that made the whole house lighter. Before he was two, he could parrot anything you said, and we taught him to say things like “You’re irritating me,” just to hear it come out of a toddler’s mouth. He was maybe four when Daddy asked him to walk down the driveway and get the newspaper, and Bob shot back, “But I can’t READ!” He was a laugh riot. He always knew when Momma needed to laugh, and how to do it. I believe he kept her in stitches most of his growing up.
Research on birth order and sibling dynamics supports these patterns. Firstborns are often assigned leadership roles and emotional labor, especially in families with wide age gaps. According to Sulloway (1996), eldest children tend to be more conscientious and responsible, shaped by early parental expectations and the arrival of younger siblings. Gender also plays a role; daughters are frequently cast as caretakers, while sons are protected, particularly in traditional households (McHale, Updegraff, & Whiteman, 2012). In families with significant age spacing, older siblings may take on quasi-parental roles, which can persist into adulthood unless actively renegotiated (Kramer, 2010). My relationship with Bob was not just shaped by love. It was sculpted by birth order, gendered parenting, and the emotional architecture of our family.
Bob was expected to play the role of a man from the time he was old enough to work. Splitting wood for winter heat, dragging brush, learning how to mechanic; those were his rites of passage. Mine were quieter, but no less demanding: cooking, cleaning, and learning how to keep a house like a woman should. Not that I minded all of it. I hated dragging brush, and stacking firewood to Daddy’s specifications was its own kind of torment. However, I enjoyed cooking, even if doing the dishes felt like punishment. I might have liked learning to rebuild a motor or tear down a carburetor, but I was mostly satisfied with doing my schoolwork well.
Bob was good at mechanical work, no doubt. Nevertheless, he also got good grades when he wanted to. I think being a boy made it harder for him to balance being a “tough guy” with making good grades like a “preppy guy.” He was also a talented artist. I saw some of his sketches when he was older, and he got that gift from Momma. She saw it too. He kept her laughing for most of his growing up, and I think that was part of his role: her baby, her joy, her comic relief.
It is not that we were told in so many words what our roles were. But the expectations were there, woven into the chores, the praise, the silence. Moreover, we did not discuss it until we were much older. I was nine years ahead of him, after all. By the time he was learning to read, I was already learning to navigate the world as a young woman shaped by porch rituals and parental divides.
Research confirms what we lived: gendered parenting often unfolds through implicit expectations and differentiated labor. A systematic review by Morawska (2020) found that parents consistently engage in gender-differentiated behaviors, assigning different chores, toys, and emotional roles based on a child’s sex. These patterns influence not only skill development but also the formation of identity. In families like ours, boys are often expected to embody toughness and utility, while girls are steered toward domestic competence and emotional caretaking. Even when not spoken aloud, these roles shape how siblings relate to each other and to themselves (Endendijk et al., 2013).
I did not (and do not) feel obligated to “look after” Bob. However, we do look out for each other. He comes down to help with projects he is good at, like wiring an electrical box into my shop. I make the trip up to drive him to appointments, whether it is a colonoscopy or gall bladder surgery. That is not obligation. That is reciprocity. That is siblings showing up.
But I do not think that is what Momma meant when she asked me to “look after” my baby brother. She wanted me to baby him, to shield him like she always had. Moreover, I am not sure why she thought I would take that job on. Maybe because I had already done it once, when Anthony got hurt. I was not quite 18 when his dirt bike accident left him in a coma, and Bob was almost 10. Momma was in Columbus with Anthony, and I was home, holding the household together, cooking, cleaning, managing the rhythms of life. Bob and I got closer during that time, not because I was parenting him, but because we were surviving together. It wasn’t just me taking care of him. We took care of each other.
When Momma asked me to keep watch over Bob after she was gone, I told her the truth: he is a grown man. If he makes a mess of his life, he will have to sit in it and figure it out, just like I had to. That was not rejection. That was boundary-setting. That was me refusing to carry someone else’s adulthood after carrying my own for decades.
Research on sibling caregiving supports this clarity. Sibling relationships are often “diagonal,” combining horizontal peer-like bonds with vertical caregiving roles, especially in emotionally complex households (Vamenta & Mackie, 2024). Wide age gaps, like the nine years between Bob and me, frequently result in older siblings becoming quasi-parental figures. Nevertheless, as siblings grow into adulthood, those roles must be renegotiated to avoid emotional burnout and enmeshment. Studies show that mutual support, rather than one-sided caretaking, is key to healthy sibling dynamics, especially when caregiving has been part of the relationship since childhood (Matsuda, 2024).
Bob and I are not locked in old roles. We have built something better. We show up for each other. We laugh. We wire shops and drive to hospitals. We remember Momma, and we honor her. However, we do it on our own terms.
Momma did not baby Bob because she was repeating her own childhood. She was rewriting it. Her father was an alcoholic, and her mother did not protect her. She was beaten just as much as her older siblings, and she grew up in poverty, scraping by in a house where tenderness was scarce and survival was the only language spoken. When her older sister Violet (Bobbi) died, Momma overheard her Aunt Blanche say to her mother, “It would've been better if it’d been Mary.” That kind of wound does not fade. It carves itself into your sense of worth.
So, when Bob came along, her baby, her last child, she poured into him everything she never received. She shielded him, laughed with him, and protected him from the weight she had carried alone. And when she asked me to “look after” him after she was gone, it was not just about caretaking. It was about continuing the rewrite. She wanted me to carry the tenderness she had finally learned to give. But I could not, not like that. I had already carried too much.
Research shows that survivors of childhood abuse and poverty often parent in reaction to their own trauma. They may become hypervigilant, overprotective, or emotionally enmeshed with their children, especially the ones they feel closest to (Lee, 2024). Poverty and abuse create chronic stress, which can lead to emotional dysregulation and difficulty forming secure attachments (Gil, 2018). And when grief is layered on top of trauma, parenting becomes not just a task, but a battleground for rewriting the past. Momma was not trying to control me. She was trying to preserve what she had finally learned to give. And I honor that. However, I also honor myself by setting boundaries, choosing reciprocity over obligation, and remembering that love does not have to mean sacrifice.
I believe Daddy wanted to be more open with his emotions. You could see it in the way he lingered on the porch after a long day, or how he would sometimes pause before answering a hard question. However, his upbringing would not allow it. He was the eldest of twelve, raised in a house where duty came before softness, and where emotional expression was a luxury no one could afford. Then he served in Vietnam before marrying Momma, and whatever tenderness he might have carried was buried under the weight of survival, silence, and what he had seen.
Momma, on the other hand, was the youngest of six. But she was not babied. So, when she became a mother, she did not just raise children. She rewrote the script. She poured tenderness into Bob, shielding him with the softness she never received. And she leaned on me, not just because I was the eldest, but because she knew I could carry what she could not.
These histories shaped their relationship. Daddy brought structure, labor, and silence. Momma brought emotion, protection, and a fierce need to rewrite the past. Together, they created a household where roles were assigned not by words, but by rhythm, who stacked the firewood, who did the dishes, who got shielded, and who got trusted to hold the legacy.
I did not just grow up in a family. I grew up in a blueprint; one drawn by war, poverty, silence, and survival. Moreover, I have spent my adulthood learning how to read it, rewrite it, and pass down something softer.