Orange Juice and Eldest Daughter Rage: A Cultural Reflection

Are you the eldest child in your family, the eldest daughter, or, more specifically, the eldest daughter of an immigrant family? If you are one of those things, or especially all of these things, you may relate to this week's blog/podcast episode.

I posted a couple of clips this week about being the eldest daughter and eldest daughter rage. They are super short, but I am really surprised at how much they have taken off, particularly on Instagram and YouTube.

See this small sample of the MANY comments from people of different backgrounds feeling SEEN!

This story relates to my position as the eldest daughter, and gender has a lot to do with it.

Preface: My Version of Kim’s Convenience 

For some context (just a tiny bit): I lived above the convenience store my parents owned and operated with two younger siblings. My grandparents joined us from South Korea when my youngest sibling, a boy, was born. 

So, it was a very crowded environment. It was not all bad or even horrible -- just crowded. At that point, seven people lived in a two-bedroom apartment.  I slept on a sofa bed for about seven years.

From an early age, I sensed that more value was placed on being male than female. It was evident in a few things: 

1. the male child was the only one with a middle name and a Korean name, the female children got neither. 

2. my grandmother and mother really doted on and were openly affectionate towards the male child when neither female children received affection.

3. The older female children did not have a bedroom.

In my grandmother's case, the male child, who happened to be the youngest sibling, was the one she got to know from a very young age and was smaller and sweeter to her and more receptive.

Not So Sweet Childhood Memories 

We lived on top of a convenience store where we drank and ate a lot of processed foods and junk foods. That's basically the pantry we had downstairs.

I had to have my front teeth at the top surgically removed before the age of three because all of the teeth in my front at the top were rotten because I drank so much sugar. My parents like to say, "Oh, you are so bad. You would drink the sugar." Now that I'm an adult, I think back, What the fuck is wrong with you guys? You fed it to me. It's not like I could have pried it out of your hands.

They were like, "But you kept running away. Oh, she's gone again." Everybody had legs. If they don't have legs, then you would like to empathize with my parents. No, they fucking had legs. 

So, I was a three-year-old running out of the store with a can of full-sugar Canada Dry Ginger Ale – who is not sponsoring this podcast. 

Anyway, I had no front teeth, which led to many problems later on because it was many years until my front top teeth grew in again. In the meantime, I was learning words and saying them improperly, a side effect of my major lisp.

This is actually an interesting tangent I want to share:

I had a major lisp for a long time. I didn't know what to call it, which is fine because I couldn't even pronounce it. How ironically cruel is it that the word "lisp" has an "S" in it?

I remember it was something like grade two when a special helper, Susan, (again, very cruel because there were two "S" in Susan) and I did extra exercises because I was gifted, but no. I swear to God, I thought that I was gifted. Many years later, I learned that she was indeed a speech-language pathologist and was teaching me how to talk without my front teeth, which I didn't have because I was fed too much sugar. 

Anyway, we started to drink a different kind of sugary drink we thought was healthier. At some point, Tropicana Orange Juice came into our lives, full pulp only. I love to chew my orange juice.

One morning, I went into the kitchen to get myself a glass of orange juice. I poured the glass of orange juice out, and there wasn't a lot left, so I poured the rest of the carton. As I held the empty carton in the air, my grandmother came up to me with this very urgent vibe and said, "Oh no, what is your brother gonna drink?"

At that second, everything clicked. I knew 1,000% that I was not the favourite sibling. I knew so clearly that my younger brother was more important than me drinking the orange juice.

It Was Never About The Orange Juice

When I recount the story, I tell people, "Oh, I think I pounded it back while I looked into her eyes. I slammed the glass on the table and walked away," because it's not like I constructed a lie in my head. Maybe that's like the fantasy truth, but quite frankly that I don't quite remember what I did. Although, I know with certainty that I did not leave the orange juice there. I fucking drank that orange juice.

Again, we lived on top of a fucking convenience store. There was no shortage of orange juice. There was no wonder where the next carton would come from or when. Anybody could have just gone downstairs to get another carton of orange juice. Except this old woman thought I needed to leave some for her favourite little boy.

It was at that moment I dissociated from this woman who I already had resentments about. I can pretend and say, "Oh, it's just an immigrant family struggling, and it's okay, everybody has it hard," but it was the moment where it was fucking over between this old lady and I.

I remember just being mean. Part of it was that I was older and I wanted some fucking space. Back then, I found her presence really overbearing. I was not that nice to her, probably until she died.

I didn't kill her, but she died many years later. I went to her funeral. I did purposely fly there but I can't say I shed a tear.

I thought a lot about the orange juice moment because I was so curious to know what exactly it was that made me not favoured or not the favourite. Was it really gender? Was it because I wasn't the youngest child? Was it the combination of both? Truthfully, I think it was a combination of both, but I know that gender played a part in it.

A Lifetime Payment of The Eldest Daughter Tax?

When I first got employment after university, I visited my grandmother at home, and she reached out her hand and did a grabbing motion as she said in Korean with a burdened tone:

Translation: "Give money to your mom."

The first thing that she fucking said when I got a job and started making money was to give my mother money.

I know that that could have happened if I was a male, but this idea of payback – in a diaspora, in North America, or back in Korea – the idea that you give back to past generations is a thing. It sounds beautiful, but it's a punitive, transactional, contractual obligation people impose, particularly on girls, women, and eldest children.

I know so many eldest daughters who were mistreated in childhood and still in adulthood by their parents and siblings. Even to this day, many families still expects the eldest daughter to do so much and take on a lot of responsibility. 

After I graduated, I started paying for all of the family dinners. I don't even think anybody asked me to. I just felt this need to prove myself to my own family and contribute to the narrative that I was supposed to take care of shit and people.

Spoiled Younger Brothers Trigger Eldest Daughter Rage

I know a lot of friends who are eldest daughters also have very fractured relationships with their younger brothers, whose parents coddled and built up only the sons. These younger brothers grow up to be men without any idea what it is like to be their sister, the oldest daughter. They gaslight the eldest daughter experience with all-knowingness and entitlement.

I quite enjoy hearing stories about families who in extreme circumstances put all their resources and love into their little boys who grew up with an inflated sense of self-esteem and entitlement but, in the real adult world, cannot back it up with actual skills or don't understand why the rest of the world doesn't think they're special. 

I've seen it happen across many cultures, including Asian, Indian, and Italian, to name a few.

I don't mean to make it sound like everything was shitty. Everything was not shitty. There were a lot of really nice things. Still, there's a very particular experience of being the eldest daughter. In cultures where there is so much misogyny, you end up losing a lot of your childhood and being gaslit when you try to do things that are against the typical "greater good" of the family. In my case, it was drinking orange juice.

Aside: I saw this post from Joanne Lee Molinaro (The Korean Vegan) a while ago and I felt it. I love the ending for her. :)

My One Child Policy

It occurred to me that this is possibly why I have an only child. Also, it's because I travel a lot, and children are fucking expensive.

I have a joke where I say we had our own one-child policy, and we gave our child a choice: do you want a sibling or eat organic? 

If my first child was a boy, then, I would have two children because I would have tried for a girl after. I don't know what would have happened if that second child was a boy, then I'd have many boys and children. I'd be very unhappy.

Quite honestly, having one child is fine because we have a girl, and I can give her proper attention. She gets all the juice. Actually, not too much juice and sugar. 

Although this blog/podcast episode is pretty out of context, I understand and appreciate the cultural and historical factors that have contributed to what is quite objectively sexism and misogyny in the culture. Whatever the reason or  justification, I am not fucking having it.

Finally, many of my friends are eldest daughters, and it's because we have the same vibe and . We certainly know how to get shit done. Another common trait we have many of us have this fucking eldest daughter rage, and this may be grief from childhood. 

When I look back at these stories, I don't actually regret how I acted as a child. However, I think it's fucking bullshit how there's still bias in cultures like the Korean culture that I was raised in. I hope they go away.

So yes, I am not the favourite in my family. But you know what? I am my own favourite.