Not A Fishing Expedition

Apologies to only children for excluding you on this particular post.

Since a recent intense conversation my wife and I had about her place in the birth order (fourth of five) vs. mine (oldest of four), some reasonably vivid early-in-life memories re-surfaced for me. And a couple of the less benign of those memories prompted me to reflect on a mildly unsettling question: What effect did any of my casually cruel or insensitive behaviors have on my younger siblings? If you're not the youngest in your brood, how recently did you pause to consider this potentially uncomfortable topic? What conclusions have you reached?

Near as I can recollect, this is not a subject that came up during my years in therapy. Writing today, avoiding this useful piece of self-scrutiny back then feels expedient at best, perhaps dishonest. At the same time, I'm not sure how productive it would be to have a conversation about this today with three adults in their sixties. What benefit is to be had from opening old wounds?

Before anyone accuses me of the "glass half empty" trope, I'm aware that - not being a psychopath - there are likely many positive effects this oldest child had on the three that followed him. Maybe to offset today's slightly darker reflections, any of you with older siblings will share some heartwarming anecdotes? If either of my sisters or my brother reads this post, I'm not fishing, I swear.