Aug 26

The Golden Child

We all know a golden child. Some of us may even be the golden child or at least thought of as one within the family.

The golden child would be the one who always gets their way. They’re the stars of the school play. They’re the quarterback of the championship football team. They get better grades and don’t have to work as hard for them. They may also have gotten a completely different set of parents than their older siblings because Mom and Dad had mellowed by the time they came around.

My brother would say I’m the golden child in my immediate family. He’s right. I was also the youngest grandkid by several years for both sides. Everyone had mellowed by the time I was walking and talking.

My relaxed upbringing didn’t go unnoticed. My mom even said that “this (pointing to me) is what happens when you laugh at your kids for being ornery.” What’s a girl to do? My warped sense of humor has apparently been a topic of discussion as some of my older cousins have mentioned that our grandparents and great-grandparents didn’t have much of a sense of humor as compared to mine.

I argue that they didn’t have time to cut up because they were too busy working. My grandmother's years and years of diaries mention ironing on a daily basis. They didn’t have permanent press fabric. I even remember my grandmother ironing my grandpa’s boxer shorts.

Her ironing board was always set up in case she needed to iron their bed sheets as they came out of the dryer or if they needed a place to serve desserts on during the holidays.

Years ago, my dad had the opportunity to buy the land his maternal grandparents had lived on. He asked my grandma what the roads were like when it rained. She had nothing bad to say about them.

When the rains came and the roads turned into a sloppy—almost impassable—mess, my dad told his uncle, my grandma’s brother, about her incorrect assessment. With a laugh, his uncle replied that my grandma would only go from the house to the chicken coop and back again so she wouldn't know what the roads were like on a sunny day let alone when it rained.

I never got the chance to ask my grandma who was the golden child in her family. I wonder if it was the one who only had to go to the chicken coop and back or the one who had to drive the horse and wagon down the muddy roads.