The Midults: I'm worried I will be left until last for our inheritance

Telegraph

9 hours ago

Dear A&E,
We are a family of four grown-up children, and our surviving parent has recently died. While some of the bigger pieces of jewellery, furniture and paintings have been itemised in the will, most of the other stuff has been left for us to divide among ourselves. I'm the youngest member of the family – and even though I'm an adult I'm still treated that way – and I'm worried that I'll be left until last when it comes to working out who gets what. None of it is really worth much, but there is lots of sentimental value. How can I avoid this happening?
– Apprehensive
Dear Apprehensive,
This sound brutal but, bear with is, and we'll expand: how do you avoid being treated like 'the baby'? Don't behave like 'the baby'. Just because your older siblings may see you as the little one, does not render you helpless. Get organised. Get kind. Get proactive. And remember, all the while, that stuff is only stuff.
We all have roles assigned to us – early – by our families. Eventually, the responsibility lies with us to communicate that these roles or labels are no longer valid, applicable or helpful. And then the responsibility transfers to our family to listen – as much as they are capable of listening. We do well when we remember that people (even the ones we love the most… even the brilliant ones) have limits. And, when we embark on new emotional territory, we can never know when we might hit one of these limits, which could manifest as an emotional landmine, a broad denial or a total avoidance.
Life is about context. First of all, do you suppose the oldest might be thinking: 'I'm always treated like the bull-dozing oldest'? Perhaps the middles are thinking, 'We are always cast as the invisible/peace-keeping middles'? While you may see yourself as the one who got all the and-me-downs, they may see you as the indulged baby. Context, you see.
A strange part of sibling retrospection – and one which will tend vastly to inform the present – is that, for all your commonality of experience, you have had different childhoods. Siblings have different parents because those parents are constantly moving through their lives and sense of selfhood; their happinesses and sadnesses, while the kids are at varying ages or may have left home or may not yet have been born. For all the 'We don't have favourites' shtick that is bandied around, siblings are parented differently. Much of the time, it is not about being more or less loved. It is because parents are human beings, with all the accompanying frailties. For the good and the bad. Which is to say that all of your siblings will be experiencing something of what you are feeling, from their own different perspectives. It's hard being oldest, middle, youngest, only. And when the second parent goes, and that final barrier between us and the stars is removed… Well. It's a moment. But that is for another column.
This is just stuff. Pictures and vases and pill-boxes. Do not confuse what it is worth with what you are worth. Do not confuse sentimental value with your own value, as a person. It would be easy to do but it would also be mad – a very common kind of madness that many of us are afflicted with and one that powerfully animates around death and wills.
Please do not see this as some kind of opportunity for Freudian wish-fulfilment – a way to prove your sense of littleness in the family scheme of things. If you sit back and go floppy while the others pick and choose their bits and pieces while inwardly sighing, 'I am the youngest and so I always get the scraps,' you are merely transferring these feelings of smallness on to inanimate objects. This is small stuff – it would be wonderful if you could find some resolve not to sweat it. Why weaponise a side table against yourself? You would just be saying 'I got the least because I am the least.'
Work with your siblings to establish a healthy system. Perhaps you have lunch and then go round, choosing one thing, in rotation? Maybe you have different coloured stickers and do deals or toss coins or even share any contested items. Perhaps send an email suggesting this and also saying how important they are to you and recognising that this is a new phase for your family; a time when it becomes your choice to bind together, now that your parents are gone. Someone is bound to be a d--- about this. Forgive them. They have just hit a limit. The best thing you can possibly walk away with is a loving and joyous future with as many of your siblings as is possible. That is the enrichment. That – more than any trinket – is the precious and lasting legacy.