When it comes to going shopping as a middle child, life is made easy. There is no need to make that awful trek to the shopping center and have your mother force you to try things on for hours, opening the curtain in the changing room when you’re not ready, and calling your name when you take too long to change. No. Us middle children do not have to go any further than our sibling’s closet upstairs. No changing room, no schlepping bags, no tags that you forget to take off before you wear it, and the best thing of all…. one size fits all. Well, actually it’s more like “this size fits all”. Welcome to middle child shopping. Why buy new clothes when my sister’s clothes almost fit me?
Hand-me-downs, otherwise defined as discarded, used clothing passed along from one person to another, is common in the world of middle children. We get used to it after a while and eventually start looking forward to the seasonal turnover of our older sibling’s wardrobes. In this time, a large pile of clothing is brought to our rooms for us to sift through and take whatever we like. However, experience has taught me, that there is always going to be something in the pile that was there by mistake (and is obviously the best hand-me-down you ever got), and when the older sibling see’s you wearing it for the first time they realize that they still want it, and force you to give it up even though they didn’t seem to miss it from their closets until they saw you wearing it…
I must admit that there were occasions in which I was lucky enough to get a new dress. For some reason family celebrations meant my two older sisters and I had to wear matching dresses. Why? That I’m not so sure about, but if it meant me getting new clothes, I would suffer the giant pink flowers that were almost as big as my face, and the itchy petty-coats that made the dress puff out wider than my arm’s width. At least everybody saw me as an individual…
– Zulu