Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Middle Child Economics (MCE 101)

Yeah, he's one of us! It figures.
         The benefits of being a Middle Child just keep getting better and better. I know we complain a lot about how we're always getting short changed, but I thought that was figuratively speaking. Well, it turns out we literally are, too.
         A 2011 CareerBuilder study found that among workers with siblings, a first born is the most likely to earn more than $100,000, while a last born is the most likely to work in middle management. And what about the Middle Child? We’re the ones most likely to have an entry level position earning less than $35,000! Can’t a Middle Child get a break? We couldn’t even own the middle management category? It has our name written all over it! But it gets even better.

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Thanksgiving: The Middle Child of Holidays

I'm not going to take credit for this one. I never really thought about attributing Middle Child qualities to holidays, even though I have often heard people refer to Wednesday as the "Middle Child of the week." But I saw lots of people Tweeting about Thanksgiving being the Middle Child stuck between Halloween and Christmas, so I dug a little deeper (a.k.a. Googled it) and found quite a few articles about it. I know that Holidays and family get-togethers can be particularly stressful times for Middle Children, but if you can find some time between everyone making a huge fuss over your brother's new job but totally ignoring your promotion and your mother making your siblings all their favorite dishes and not remembering you absolutely HATE strawberry rhubarb but thinking it's your FAVORITE dish, you might want to feast on these. And have a Happy Thanksgiving. At least try...

Friday, November 16, 2012

It's a Love (but mostly) Hate Thing.

How do you feel about being a
Middle Child? Let your voice be heard!
          In my role as the self-appointed spokesperson for the self-created International Society of Middle Children, I spend a lot of time (okay, too much time) monitoring the pulse of Middle Children everywhere -- well, mostly Middle Children on Twitter. And I have to tell you that most of what I hear is not good. Actually, it’s quite bad. Based on a totally random sample over the course of a few days, almost 85% of Middle Child tweets have something negative to say about being a Middle Child. They range from, “Being the Middle Child sucks #ShootMeInTheFace,” to “Being the Middle Child really fucking sucks!” all the way to “Being the Middle Child is the worst thing ever.” There’s a lot of, “I hate being the Middle Child” and also “No one likes the Middle Child” pops up quite often. I’m assuming that’s a Middle Child saying that, but if not that’s just as bad. In my statistically insignificant study, just a mere 9% of Middle Children have anything positive to Tweet about being stuck in the middle.

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Middle Child Hall of Shame: special post-election edition

          When it comes to exhibiting all the classic attention-getting behavior you'd expect from a Middle Child, "The Donald" takes the cake. (You didn't think he wears his hair like that because it looks good, did you?) From his chronic clashes with female celebs, including his 2006 bashing of Rosie O'Donnell, to his on-again off-again Presidential bid, to his latest Twitter tantrum about the election and juvenile jabs at newscaster Brian Williams, this guy is clearly crying out for attention. It's enough to make even the most messed up Middle Child feel well-adjusted! So for further sullying the image of Middle Children everywhere, Smack Dab reluctantly inducts Donald Trump into the Middle Child Hall of Shame.

Sunday, November 4, 2012

What the Well-Dressed Middle Child is Wearing


It's not my fault...
Overlooked...
Warning...
Middle Sister
          They say "You are what you wear." Of course, for too many Middle Children, that really means you are what your older sibling wore – but not anymore! Our Smack Dab fashion editors searched far and wide to discover the latest in Middle Child fashions. (Okay, I went to Zazzle and CaféPress and found some tee-shirts. I was just trying to dress it up a bit.)
          These are fashions only a Middle Child would be caught dead in. Wait a minute, that didn’t come out right. I mean, these are fashions that only a Middle Child could pull off. There, that’s better. After all, if you're going to be a Middle Child, you might as well dress the part!
(Smack Dab does not make one red cent from the sale of these tee-shirts. Zero. Zilch. Nada.)