I’m old enough to drive but it is never going to happen. Because I can’t while I’m with my two older sisters, who both complain about driving, then stick me in the back because that is where the youngest always belongs.

When people think of the youngest of the house, they stereotype us as a “baby” and the one who gets whatever they want at the snap of their fingers. Which is not true probably about 95% of the time. What people don’t know is the youngest child does quite a lot for other people and for themselves.

The youngest will forever be the “baby” of the house because we are the parents’ little one. Although we are always called the “baby,” we don’t feel like babies. We feel more grown up than what we actually are, which can be a problem too. It is our older siblings who have too much influence on us or because we have to do jobs and chores before anyone else had to.

I started using bleach to scrub the shower tiles at 13, while my oldest sister was not allowed to get near bleach until age 16 because our parents thought it could harm her. But, who cares about the “baby” if she gets poisoned by the chemicals in bleach, right?

We are also forced to grow up early when our parents expect us to act and speak the way our older siblings do. Like the time I got yelled at for creating a spit ball and launching it at my sisters, when every child, even my sisters, could do it as a kid. In other words, our childhood and our time to fool around is cut shorter at the expectation of us acting like our older siblings at the age they are currently at.

Another downfall to being the youngest is that we get bossed around by our older siblings. Forever. It’s fine to do a favor for them or make a sacrifice once a while. But if it comes down to the point where every single time our mom asks one of us to take out the trash from all of the bathrooms and they both just look at you without saying a word, then it has gone too far and the two other options should make a sacrifice and do it once in a while.

I don’t get it. Sure, if they are significantly older than you, but how long is that supposed to work. When I’m 62 and my sister is 63, do I still have to sit in the back seat?

However, I would have to agree that there are some benefits of being the youngest. We do get privileges at a younger age, which, let’s be honest, feels amazing to rub in my sister’s face.

When my sister was 16, she asked to get her second hole pierced, and she got a hard no. Where at the same age I asked to get a tragus piercing, where we had to go to a tattoo shop to get it done, and I got a yes. I also had the luxury to drive on the highway by myself earlier and my parents lowered the dating age just for me.

Being the youngest is not the worst, but it is definitely not a piece of cake. We have the high expectation of acting like our older siblings and we are bossed around by everyone. When people say the youngest is the “baby,” I don’t get it. If anything, we miss the baby part and skip straight to the joys and pain of adulthood.