Dear LPG,

I recently read an article on your pages which brought back a lot of memories of something I spent the first 20 years of my life suffering from. IY spent the first paragraph of his message describing exactly what it was like to be the youngest brother in the family (►►►).   I had two older brothers and I got truly fed up with being the youngest. I can truly identify with what he says but there was so much more to it than that. 

IY talks about the waiting aspect of being the youngest and even though I only had half the number of older siblings than he did, I know exactly what he was alluding to and I was quite surprised to find out that others have written about their experiences.

Throughout history, even if you only had one older brother, jealousy could have often set in in a big way. There is the classic story of Jacob and Esau where Jacob cheats his older brother out of his rightful inheritance, and younger brothers of today need to be grateful that we were not born 300 years ago when, according to the history books, if you were a son born into a rich family, the rules of entail would mean that you would have had to be the oldest brother to inherit any real chunk of your father’s wealth.  I am so glad that I was not rich enough or born long enough ago to suffer in that way. 

But I also remember that there were advantages to being younger too.  You often got to see the possibilities and pitfalls of life as your older brothers made the mistakes that your parents would warn you against, but perhaps you took more notice of the lessons that they had to learn the hard way.   I was three years younger than the next brother up and that meant that I got hands-on experience of toys and gadgets long before my friends were old enough to get anywhere near them (provided I was careful when I borrowed them).  I also remember having those older siblings to fear, perhaps even more than my father when I did the wrong things.  I think that dads mellow when they are chastising the same misdemeanour for the third time, while I had my own personal bodyguard on one particular occasion when the other boys in my school year ganged up on me.

Then, depending on how much older they are than you, you end up being the only one left at home and, I well remember how hard it is to leave home while your mother is saying goodbye with tears in her eyes.  I am sure that mine was not the only mother who felt completely devastated when I decided it was time to go my own way. 

Later, came the chunk of our lives when we were all busy making a mark on the world of work, our own families and careers and lives get in the way of remembering to keep in contact. 

Now we are all retired, although life has taken us to three different continents, but lockdown has given us time to catch up with each other with the help of our children and video conferencing.

We are at a stage in our lives where there is no need for competition, and being forced to stay home for a year has given us the time to really talk about our lives and the experiences we were all too busy to share until now.

I found out that today is National Brother’s Day, and it occurs to me that I have become closer to my brothers during the past year than I have been for the last forty years, and the lockdown is largely responsible. So, my message to all the LPG readers who are still lucky enough to have brothers, near or far, the advice is to get in touch even if you haven’t talked to them for years. Today is the day!

JL, Bellingham

JL shares a little information on National Brother’s day…

(►►►)  

… and wonders if any readers who are also younger brothers can identify with any of what is written on these websites regardless of age…

(►►►)     (►►►)