As a schoolboy in primary school, I was already very aware that my family belonged to a rare statistic.

Even in the ’80s, to be a child in a family with 4 or more children was to be part of the last of a generation. Looking back, I could count the number of classmates who had families larger than mine on one hand. I have as many siblings as I have cousins combined. In such a family, I had the privilege, or predicament, of being the firstborn child.

They said I was not an easy child. It took five years for them to realise how cute I could be, enough to finally venture making me a sister to add to our household. Then it was decided that, perhaps, the boy and girl should have a companion of the same gender, to top it off. Mother, being an only and lonely child, did not want her children to share the same fate. And that was how we became a family of 6.

I will never be sure if the government’s family planning policies had any influence on my parents’ decisions, but the timing was uncanny. My sis and I came, unbeknownst to everyone then, during the last years of Stop At Two, while No.3 and No.4 were born in quick succession shortly after the policy had given way to Three Or More (If You Can Afford). We seemed like we were running for the model Singaporean family.

Being first has its obvious perks. The novelty of being their very first baby guaranteed that I would have twice as many childhood photos as any later child. Eager to explore their son’s full potential, and to keep me occupied since I didn’t have anyone to play with in the early years, I got to attend whatever enrichment classes I fancied, from electric organ lessons, to cooking classes, to the Young Scientist programme at the Science Centre. As the first grandchild on my mother’s side, “Gong-Gong” and “Por-Por” (dialect terms of endearment for grandfather and grandmother respectively) were not too old to dote on me to the point of excess. Oblivious to the scarcity of money, I would go for endless rounds on the grand carousel in the Ken-Air Funworld at Parkway Parade, hour-long turns on the kiddy rides in Yaohan at Thomson Plaza, “Game Over” fifty times at the video arcade. Gong-Gong would simply smile and oblige me as I beseeched for more, much to my parents’ chagrin.

But I guess nothing in life is free, except maybe breathable air. The price of having grandparents who are still vital enough to indulge you, is one pair of newly minted parents who are naive enough to presume to mould their offspring in their image, and have all the fire to do so. I was scolded, spanked, caned, made to hold my legs out, and locked in the storeroom more times than I care to remember, for things like eating too slowly, and for not being able to stop crying because I was being caned for eating too slowly. When I got too big and too old for corporal punishment to seem effective or appropriate, I was grounded, had my allowance cut, and made to quit the student council I had campaigned so hard to get voted into (because student councils were “nothing more than an excuse for gangsterism anyway”).

Growing up, I got the sense that they were being harder on me than any of their younger children. The intensity of the disciplinary programme seemed to diminish with each successive sibling. Perhaps their experience with me taught them that, more often than not, it was patience rather than punishments that worked, and that children could be trusted to outgrow certain phases in their own time. So, they were no longer as draconian as they had been with their first one.

Eventually, you understand that, to be the eldest, is to bear the brunt of your parents’ idealism. Like it or not, you will be the one to blaze a trail for your brothers and sisters, because you are the pioneer child. You do it anyway, even if they too will reap the benefits, because your own sanity is at stake. Ironically, as the unspoken role model, it is also up to you to break the rules first. And so you set about being the first to eat junk food in the house, the first to watch TV past bedtime, the first to write a letter to your parent to lift curfew, and the first to move out for good so that you can make your own rules.

Then there were the responsibilities. Having spent your formative years mainly around adults rather than playmates of the same age does tend to give you a more grown-up mindset, and you find yourself straddling between two worlds. As a teen, I was tasked with looking after my siblings and keeping tabs on the maid while Pa and Ma were out. “Did they still go dating?” I would wonder.

When my parents were going through a terrible cold war, I became their listening ear and reluctant inter-spousal messenger, and the keeper of calm for my frightened siblings. During those years, it felt like it was I who was the actual head of the family.

You can probably tell that I am not close to my parents. They were outstanding providers – we children never had to worry about food, shelter, clothing or university education – and for that I am grateful. However, ours was a family uncomfortable with emotion, in which acts of affection were rare, sentiments were bottled up, and dinner conversations stayed within “safe” topics such as studies, work, and why we were having chicken curry again.

As for my siblings, rather than resent them for not suffering as much as I did, I was glad whenever another one arrived to take some more parental heat off my back. Sadly, although we are all on good terms, I do not reckon myself especially close to any one of them. Older than them by 5-to-9 years, there was only a small window of time to bond with them before national service, then university, then work, took over. In this small window are crammed all the memories of playing Lego or board games together, weekend outings as a family, and one trip to Perth. I still wish I could have done better.
This SG50, much fanfare has been made about the contributions of our nation’s Pioneer Generation. I don’t think we intentionally chose to be a pioneer. It is just the situation you or I find ourselves in – We either rise against the odds, or we sink. If you too are the eldest child of a big family, whether your experience has been similar to mine, know that you would have contributed to your family in a very significant way, and that you too, belong to a differently defined, yet equally special, pioneer generation. Cheers!