In the Beginning...

Ham: Noah's least favorite son.

     Feeling like the odd man out in the family is nothing new for a Middle Child. It’s been going on since the beginning of time. How do I know this? The Bible tells me so! It’s filled with many tales of the world’s original outcasts. Remember Ham, Noah’s Middle Child? Of course you don’t. According to the Book of Genesis, one day Ham finds Noah drunk and naked, so he tells his brothers, Shem and Japheth. His brothers avert their eyes and cover their father. So what does Noah do? He gets pissed at Ham and puts a curse on Ham’s son! Oh, that’s fair.

Being a Middle Child is the pits.

    And what about Jacob’s son, Joseph? With eleven brothers, he was one of many Middle Children in the family. In a very rare occurrence for a Mid Kid, he was also his father’s favorite, and given a many colored coat by his father to prove it. This did not sit well with his brothers. First, they stole Joseph’s gaudy garment, then they threw him in a pit and sold him into slavery. Nice.
   

Murder He Wrote: things don't end well
for the world's first Middle Child.

     Last, but definitely least, there’s Adam and Eve’s second son, Abel -- widely believed to be the world’s very first Middle Child. (According to the Bible, Adam & Eve had a third son named Seth. He was born when Adam was 130 years old. Go Adam. I know that sounds really old, but the Bible also says Adam died when he was 930 years old, so it’s all relative . He probably died blowing out the candles. But I digress.) Everyone knows the story of Cain and Abel, the world’s first case of sibling rivalry. In a nutshell, both brothers made sacrifices to God, Abel’s was favored over Cain’s, so Cain killed Abel. As a result, Abel holds the dubious distinction of being the world’s very first murder victim. And the Lord said, “Let the Middle Child treatment begin.”