July 16, 1936, was the hottest day on record in Iowa and the day I became a middle child. It was a mere three months past m second birthday and I was blissfully unaware of what has become known as the ‘middle child’ syndrome. My paternal grandmother had come from Milwaukee to visit for a week of her annual vacation. My maternal grandmother, with whom I was much better acquainted and much more comfortable, had come specifically to care for my older sister and me, and to see to the household routines when my mother gave birth to her third child.
After my older sister had been born in a hospital where Dad was forbidden to hold his first child or to visit his wife whenever he chose, it had been agreed that I and subsequent babies were to be born at home. The family doctor was agreeable to the prospect, which was still a fairly common practice, and a highly professional midwife/baby nurse reserved for the event. Her name was Miss Bruce and she arrived clad in a dark blue woolen suit over which she immediately tied a long, white apron. She seemed to be fond of me and I didn’t understand, at the time, that she had been present at my own birth and considered me to be one of “her” babies.
Most people believe that we don’t remember things that happened to us during the first two or three years of our lives, but I distinctly remember much of the day that Betty Lou was born. I can clearly visualize the hospital bed that had been brought into our dining room (converted temporarily into a maternity ward.) I remember sitting on the bed while Mother told me stories and said I might soon have a baby brother to help take care of. There are many aspects of that day that I have no memory of at all. I recall nothing about where my older sister Dorothy was that day, or where I was for the hours after I sat on the bed talking with our mother, but I do remember Miss Bruce holding my new baby sister, showing me her little hands and tiny fingernails and saying that Betty had played a trick on us and decided she wanted to be my little sister instead of being a brother. I would come to believe the part about Betty playing tricks, for within a few years it became clear that she had inherited our maternal grandmother’s delight in practical jokes, riddles and spontaneous fun.
I once conducted a writing class at a senior center in a small town for a few months. One of the women, who had been a school teacher, wrote a short autobiographic sketch to introduce herself to the group. She began with, “I was born a middle child…” Of course, she was not BORN a middle child because at the time of her birth, she had been the youngest child and only became the middle child when a third child was born to her parents. I was never able to convince her of the illogic of her statement and could not persuade her to change the wording.
Many a middle child, as with me, does not remain a middle child forever, depending on the number of siblings born after them. I’m not sure when all the hoopla about the fact of having been a middle child and its consequences became a subject for study. However, I held that position in our family for over six years and I can’t think of any disadvantages it brought me. Theories indicate that the middle child is often ignored or neglected in some way. I was free from the expectations and responsibilities of being the oldest, and the smothering attentions of being the ‘baby’ to be coddled, protected and humored long past babyhood.
Where the middle child is sometimes thought to be lonely, I had the luxury of privacy, solitude for daydreaming and reading, time to explore ideas and possibilities. I credit all that free time for the opportunities to experiment with writing, drawing, inventing and imagining. I’m quite sure that I would never have been a writer, artist or teacher had I not been allowed those luxuries. Because Betty and I were much closer together in age than any others of us four girls (I was eight when Ruth Ann was born.) Betty and I became a sort of ‘dual middle child’ – a true blessing for both of us.