The Not-Rebellious Rebellious Second-Born

In every family has the uptight, overachieving, stressed-out child, usually categorized as the daunting "first-born." This first child sets the standards for the rest of the children; every successive child must strive to copy and out-do the oldest child, proving their worth when in comparison. Some second-born kids even go so far as to rebel, demonstrating the obvious differences that are blatantly clear if you would just look at the second oldest child as not following in the footsteps of the eldest because they are obviously different people.

And then there's Lauren, who really couldn't care less about being the second child.

The second child must try to live up to the standards of the first child? Who cares. She must prove that she is equally talented? Yeah, whatever. Life is life, and she's living it young, wild, and free.

Lauren doesn't try to be like me. Okay, disclaimer: this isn't "Inception" in any way, I'm not living inside of her, and I have no way of creeping on looking inside her brain, therefore I cannot back this up with empirical evidence. But I have been putting up with living with this kid for the past thirteen (almost fourteen) years...just saying.

She has an air of individuality about her - not the hey-I'm-wearing-candy-for-clothes-or-lingerie-to-school approach (thank God for that) - but a reckless approach to life that lets her define who she is by her own standards. I don't know many freshmen girls who would jump from lunch table to lunch table, friend group to friend group, grade to grade, hanging out with whoever they knew and liked. She doesn't care what people think of her. Being around her makes you feel reckless in a good way.

After all, I'm the frugal, no-nonsense child who couldn't make a decision if my life depended on it, and a little recklessness helps me to decide. "I don't know if I should buy that shirt. Am I really, like really, going to wear it?"

Lauren, on the other hand, is Lauren. "Well...just buy it. You could always return it later. Or I'll wear it. It's going on the credit card anyway."

"I forgot you were a bad influence."

This little individual just happens to be quite a contrast to me; she's 5'6" with straight hair (most days), a wicked sense of style, "popular" friends, a knack for taking risks, serious determination to do what she wants, and a cool life-is-chill vibe about her. She doesn't try too hard for anything; she's automatically friends with the right people, her homework is fine if it isn't perfect, she doesn't need to be in the front row for dance, and her room is more or less clean. Life just happens for her. Lauren spends her weekends seeing movies, going to games, hanging out with friends, and chasing boys. I spend my weekends reading books, learning music, and doing homework. Do we try to be opposites? No. It just happens.

But there's a part of her that likes being this close in age to one another. We are three years apart, so I'm the senior driving the freshman to school; her first homecoming is my last homecoming. I give her advice like she gives me cute outfits. Sometimes I have to go steal my clothes out of her room when she isn't home, but that's another matter entirely. We are actively involved in choir, dance, and theatre. She has some of my old teachers. We talk shows, characters, cast drama, boy drama, friend drama, stupid inside jokes, music, and school. We even defend our ages and heights on a daily basis:

"Are you guys twins?"
"No...we're just sisters."
"Oh. You look really similar."
"Yeah, we get that a lot."
"Who's older?"
"She's three years older but I'm two inches taller." Yes, thank you Lauren. I was not aware that I am short. 

Even though we have our differences, I can't help but wonder if she feels pressure being related to me. I mean that in the least-cocky way possible, of course. I've never been the younger child, but there must be pressure to be just as good as your older sibling. Mr. Dahl mentioned that today, saying, "Your sister has made incredible progress. She might grow up to be just as good as you...but don't tell her that. It must be hard being your sister." That's when I question if there's undue pressure on my sissy, my Lolo, my confidante. Maybe in her subconscious mind, she's urging herself to live up to my standards, to prove she's different, to show she has more to offer than being "Julia's little sister." She doesn't know it,  but she's her own kind of rebel. She's the carefree, high-achieving, talented second-born, and it's blatantly clear that she is here to give 'em hell.

Turkey Lurkey: Take Two

 I leave the auditorium, walking past my friends. Lauren sidles up alongside me. "What's up with you guys? Why is she avoiding you?" I manage to huff out an irritated response with the least amount of expletives possible. "I really don't know. And at this point, I give up. I don't know what I did, so she's going to have to tell me before we can figure this out. I really don't give a damn anymore." She pauses for a moment, thinking. "That's really bitchy of her. But hey, my friends aren't being great either." Now it's my turn to pause. "How about we get a movie, buy a lot of candy and chips and crap, and have a screw-the-world night?" Her response: "Sounds good to me."

That night was filled with Baked Lays, chocolate, licorice, chocolate, peach tea for me and Arnie Palmer for her, chocolate, chocolate, and Channing Tatum. Thank God for sisters (and for Channing Tatum).

Sometimes she's better at being the big sister. Sure, I'm the one that picks her up from cold football games when he friends are being exclusive and takes her to get chocolate (don't judge me, I'm a girl; chocolate is a girl's best friend when life gets rough), but she is smarter in other ways. Every night she comes down to my room, pops her head in and asks, "What kind of tea do you want in the morning?" This I'm-your-little-sister-but-I'm-also-kind-of-your-big-sister thing has been going on since the beginning of time; I'd come down for breakfast before elementary school and Lauren, little four-year-old Lauren, would look at me and say, "That doesn't match." Sorry for not wearing matching clothes every day of my childhood...but now I go to her when I need a cute first date outfit (or any cute outfit at all). I do not shop for dresses, especially homecoming dresses, without her. I drag her along to Target to buy groceries. The people who work at Heartbreaker know us as "the sisters who come in every couple of months and buy a lot of stuff together." Yup, they know us. But we have our moments when the friendship turns into a relationship of tension and teenage angst - long showers that begin the second I decide I'm going to shower, constantly being late. My father often jokes that he doesn't want to know how long it would take an ugly girl to get ready for school if my sister is attractive and it takes her almost an hour. Me? I just call her high maintenance. When you require a shower before going grocery shopping, I question how concerned you are with your image.

Ever the social butterfly, Lauren spends most of her days connected to the worldwide web. If you see her without her phone or iPod in hand, you'd better call an ambulance; she might die of shock. If she doesn't, my parents will when they see her. It's normal for me to come up from the basement and see her on the computer, GoogleDocs homework "in progress," iPod in hand as she stalks Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, phone buzzing the entire time. Thanksgiving wasn't much different; when we weren't competing in tic-tac-toe on the tablecloth or keeping Mom sane helping with food prep, the kid was stuck to her phone.  I even have proof. Sure, she looks borderline possessed, but when you spend that much time "connected" to the rest of the world, are you really human?

We also have our jokes. After all, the kid's a dork. We play off of each other, throwing songs and words out, going back and forth as our mom shakes her head at our obnoxious giggles brought on by stick drawings or funny words. Lauren accidentally wrote our address on one line instead of two for her audition form, so we spent the next twenty minutes doubled over in laughter as we tried to find the weirdest, most obscure towns in the United States to fill in for where she lives. While Spunky Puddle, Ohio, seemed like a good choice, she ended up choosing Ynot, Montana, as our current place of residence.

Dear Progressive commercials, you inspire us. This is now a constant phrase in our household :)

In the end, we're dorks together. My sister is a piece of my childhood that won't go away, and I like it that way. She keeps me sane and always laughing. We've gotten closer this year than we have in the past, and it's weird to think I'll be at college next year while she's trying to find someone to drive her constantly late butt to school. There's nothing I can hold back from her, and she's become my confidante. After all, you can kid the world, but you can't kid your sister.

Turkey Lurkey!

Thanksgiving was quite interesting for us this year. There were lots of alterations to our norm: we had two Thanksgiving dinners (called T-linners from here on out...just bear with me!), our official T-linner was not at Grandma and Grandpa's house, certain cousins were absent, and I spent the day coloring the tablecloth. Yes, the tablecloth. 

Tehee. We had more fun than our younger siblings did when it came to coloring the tablecloth!

Our masterpiece. P.S. I totally won tic-tac-toe.

Here's what normally happens:

1. Thanksgiving dinner is at Grandma and Grandpa's house around 3pm.
2. I usually help with all of the cooking.
3. My grandpa cuts the turkey (shaves the turkey?).
4. Uncle Steve, Aunt Jeanine, and our cousins Jack, Nick, and Charlie are there.
5. My cousin Stephie arrives late, usually for dessert.

That's just how it works! But this year was different.

We had T-linner on Sunday at Grandma and Grandpa's because Uncle Doug flew in from Costa Rica - leaving my aunt and our two cousins there, apparently - and my cousin Chris magically appeared from college. Sunday was the only day we could get them together to have T-linner, so Sunday it was. It functioned as a normal T-linner for the Bassetts: the men discussing politics, the cousins running around   wrecking havoc on the peaceful world, myself and my sister listening to the women discuss cooking, college, children, and everything under the sun. Eventually I disappeared to do physics homework.

The real T-linner happened at our house on Thanksgiving Day, and that's when I did my creeping observing.

As the eldest child, I knew I would need to be ready to help Mom with anything and everything, so I dragged my butt out of bed and into the shower at 9am. Yeah, yeah, I know... 9am isn't very early, but let me remind you that as a high school student, I do not sleep. Breaks are meant for sleeping because weekends are meant for homework. Therefore, 9am was still quite early in my book. I ascended out of what my siblings call "the cave," which normal people would call "Julia's room, consequently in the cold basement," and noticed that the furniture had been moved. It reminded me of the weird stories of burglars that burgle (hahaha what a weird word) someone's house but only move the furniture around. Clearly it was my mom's doing, and my brother probably helped. When you get up at five o'clock in the morning every single day, you have time to move the furniture around.

The house was strangely silent, especially for a day when the kitchen is usually abuzz with food preparing, food burning, hurried scolding, direction giving, dish cleaning, and the general chaos of hosting Thanksgiving. In truth, we've never hosted Thanksgiving Day at our house, usually pawning off all the cousins and uncles to Grandma and Grandpa's house, a central point of gathering for our family, but there's always time for firsts. Here's the information I gleaned from stalking watching the people in my house:

Dad: Well, he was relatively easy to observe; he wasn't there. He spent the day working at my gramma's house, preparing it for my great-grandma to move in. This is the epitome of his work life: not working when we are at school, but spending long and strange hours working when we are home. Thanksgiving Day was no different, and it was clear that my mother was not happy with his absence. I've never realized how much my mom wears the pants in our family, but boy does she wear them. Seeing as how my father is a self-employed contractor, my mother is the source of steady income. His absence on the day of our T-linner reinforced this idea; she spent the day reheating the food she had made the day before, moving furniture, cleaning the house, cooking the turkey, and trying to keep track of the two youngest kids. He scooted in at the last minute, roughly twenty minutes after the grandparents arrived, took a shower, and came down in his pajamas. Mama wasn't exactly happy. He also managed to slice his hand open sometime during the day, so while the rest of us were saying grace, he was finding a plastic glove to keep his hand from bleeding out. Lovely. It also seemed like his way of getting out of praying, but that's just my opinion. 

Mom: Oy vey. She spent all day on Wednesday cooking so Thursday wouldn't be as hectic; typical Mom planning ahead. The house was mostly ready by the time I emerged from "the cave," proving she'd been up early to try to get a head start on the day's duties. For a couple hours, we got to hang out as the turkey cooked and the siblings disappeared. She's as easily amused as I am; I can spend hours on StumbleUpon, and I will never introduce her to that website. She's independent but loving, not relying on my dad to move the furniture but also giving us ways to help her in the kitchen. She's very modest about her abilities; my grandma complimented her on the stuffing and she brushed it off, saying that she'd only taken my grandma's advice and that it really wasn't that different. 

I asked her what color a turkey's beak is? She stuck a carrot in her mouth as an answer.

Grandpa: Grandpa is my biggest fan, as my father tells me every time I see my grandpa. I absolutely adore him. His body is riddled with ataxia, impairing his movements more than ever. It's hard to see him stumbling around, and he does his best to cover it up. We have him lead us in saying grace, and I'm shocked by how hard it is for him to speak clearly. He fights the disease every second, gently refusing our help as we offer to carry his plate or reach something for him. I know his ataxia makes him feel useless; when we go over to their house to rake leaves or lay wood chips, he insists on paying us. He doesn't want to feel like a charity case, so he does his best to be independent. Ever since his ataxia has taken a greater toll on him, I always say goodbye to Grandpa and give him a hug; time with him is precious. I can't help thinking that this could be the last Thanksgiving prayer he gives with us, and I sent up my own little prayer that it won't be his last. He chats with my dad about work, window installations, and my dad's cut hand. We laugh as he reminisces on cutting off his finger while working with my dad in Colorado...it's clear he is the forgiving type, even though it wasn't Dad's fault.

Grandma: I swear surviving the Great Depression has made her inclined to bring us food whenever possible. It is literally impossible for her to come to our house or leave hers without food in our hands. This time she brought candy corn and other treats. It's ironic that she brings us unhealthy foods because she spent my childhood worried I was going to be obese, and now she's bringing us candy. She's sweet, but I can tell my mom is on edge with her around. She doles out compliments to my mom on the food, discussing how it is that the turkey is so juicy (oven bags) and how delicious the stuffing is. For once the discussion doesn't turn to college, and I'm beyond relieved. 

Lauren: Lauren sauntered into the kitchen about an hour after my mom put me to work. This couldn't be more true to Lauren's personality; she gets up half an hour before me on school days, but I'm always the one waiting for her in the car. She's definitely not the most helpful child, meandering through the kitchen, back to her room, down to the kitchen to get food an hour later, then back to her room. She's easily angered by our little sister, taking on the don't-touch-that-it's-mine-and-don't-look-at-me-like-that persona that I had around her age. Although I swear I did not get that PO'd that easily! We spent our downtime coloring the tablecloth. The two high schoolers coloring, while the 5th and 6th grader are nowhere to be found. This is what our relationship is like: we're either happy and joking while coloring the tablecloth and singing show tunes, or we're at odds when I chastise her for not helping at all. 

Quintin: The kid does his own thing. The only boy in a family with three girls, he's prone to disappearing with his iPod to laugh at dumb YouTube videos that only twelve-year-old boys can find amusing. He's a really sweet kid but he's easy to anger; keep him in the same room with Erica for too long and you'd better get some earplugs and possibly some bandaids. He helped Mom move furniture in the morning, but I didn't really see him after that. When we had our downtime and Lauren had wandered away from coloring, Quintin emerged from wherever he was and colored with me. He's the artistic genius in the family, so his turkey was reflective of that. 

Yeahh...this is how he takes pictures.

Peacefully coloring, for once so write that down; it won't happen again.

Erica: This child will be the death of my parents. She tries to help but doesn't really help, inevitably making annoying noises, creating messes, and generally wrecking havoc in the world. As the youngest child, we don't really have the most (or any) patience for her habits. When you give her something to do she can complete it, but it's rather hard to keep her entertained and out of the way. Part of that is her ADHD, and part of it is the fact that she's ten years old. She spent most of the day playing in her room, but she did come down to help set the table, and to color on the tablecloth of course! I think we've just been writing her off as hard to handle. She can be super helpful; she spent three hours the next day cleaning my room so my best friend could come over :)

And then there's me.

Here's what I did: enough said.

Our dog spent the day stealing socks out of the laundry basket. I think she was feeling a little left out of the Thanksgiving Day celebrations and needed a little bit of attention :)

Uhhhhh....whaddaya mean were dum?

Bauerlein splits up his argument into smaller sections. The overall argument is that our generation, including everyone under the age of thirty, is dumb. We are dumb because we are not book-smart, history-smart, or aware of the world around us. Correction: we are aware of the world around us in regards to social networking, pop culture, and Web 2.0, but we are not aware when it comes to politics, world problems, and the bigger issues in life than who is dating Taylor Lautner.

Here's what Bauerlein's argument boils down to: this generation, including anyone under the age of thirty, is dumb. We have been proven dumb because our test scores are falling, our reading time is flat lining, if not declining, and we are attached to screens and technology, yet we are not learning anymore from the technology. Each point is presented in a different chapter with statistics, surveys, testimonies, and modern examples to prove what Bauerlein is saying. In splitting up the sub-arguments of his argument, we are convinced that we are dumb, one point at a time. At the end of the book, it all comes around to the conclusion: we are dumb, but there is something we can do about it.

This is the sole definition of concerning. Mark Bauerlein, for the sake of your sanity, I hope you never ever ever ever ever ever saw this and never do. This is Kellie Pickler, a 26-year-old country singer and American Idol contestant. Try not to cry at her stupidity. 

Two passages I agree with: 

"To replace the book with the screen is to remove a 2,500-year-o.d cornerstone of civilizations and insert an altogether dissimilar building block. The enthusiasts of digital learning maintain that screen-influences brains possess qualitatively different mentalities than book-influenced brains, and so we must conclude that the e-book and the rest will spawn other knowledges and altered communications."

Dear Mark Bauerlein, we are the same person in regards to this statement. I agree with him because as a  hardcore reader, I love holding the book in my hands. This inevitably makes me biased against e-books and reading online. At the same time, Bauerlein provides statistics and all sorts of proof that we are not learning online. This goes to prove that replacing a book with a screen would not help us read and learn; technology hasn't been furthering our learning, so why would giving us e-books change that? Sure, it could be a different kind of learning, but is that what we are looking for? I'm all for sticking with I-can-hold-it-in-my-hands-and-turn-the-pages books :)

'"What are you doing?' That is the genuine significance of the Web to a 17-year-old mind, not the universe of knowledge brought to their fingertips, but an instrument of nonstop peer contact."

Sadly, this rings true to me. As a child in the dumbest generation, the web seems to exist to please us. Go on Facebook and what does it say? What are you doing? Well, someone should tell all the annoying people of the world that we don't care what they are eating right now. If you don't have something interesting to say, don't say anything at all. We go online to visit social networking sites, to find pictures, to chat with friends, find help on homework, and occasionally conduct research for school. but even when "conducting research," the web is there to please us. Just type in anything you want to look up on Google, and you immediately get thousands of results. Don't like what you've found? Reword it or - dare I say it - go on to the second page of search results. You can click around until you've found what you want. The web appears to be there to please us.

Two passages I disagree with:

"Let's get specific," I goaded. "You are six times more likely to know who the latest American Idol is than you are to know who the Speaker of the U.S. House is." At that point, a voice in the crowd jeered, "American Idol is more important!"

I dislike agree this passage in the sense that it writes off all teenagers and young adults as unconcerned with the world of politics. Walk into any MoPro class and you will know without a doubt that high school seniors are aware of politics and what political party they identify themselves with. I understand that Bauerlein is providing an anecdote to show that young Americans are more concerned with pop culture than they are with the people who run their country, but not everyone knows who the latest American Idol is...I haven't watched the show in YEARS. Overall, I think young adults are more likely to know facts about pop culture and social networking, but we aren't limited to that kind of knowledge, contrary to what this segment is implying. 

"May generations ago, adolescent years meant preparation for something beyond adolescence, not authentic selfhood but serious work, civic duty, and family responsibility, with parents, teachers, ministers, and employers training teens in grown-up conduct...not anymore." 

Okay, first of all, we do not spend our adolescence frolicking through fields and disregarding all responsibility for the future. Sure, years ago adolescence was not nearly as socially bound as it is today, but that doesn't mean that today's kids aren't preparing for the future. I started working as a dance teacher in seventh grade, but I also have a Facebook. Does having a Facebook mean I am not preparing myself for adulthood? Not last time I checked. Today's students are cramming their schedules full of honors and AP classes, clubs, intramurals, sports, volunteering, church groups, and jobs. During the rare spare time (at least it's rare for me, and I'm assuming for many other students with busy lives), students end up online. We consider it a break from our busy lives, the busy lives that are preparing us for college and the world beyond college. There are the kids that play Call of Duty all night, get drunk, do drugs, spend all their time on technology and friends and never do their homework, but there are always those kids. The rest of us are trying to prepare for adulthood. 

How effective is Bauerlein's argument? Effective. He begins with his warrant in the preface, explaining that he isn't writing this book to out our generation; this is a serious problem, and he has enough authority to discuss it. Throughout the book he shocks the audience with horrendous statistics and embarrassing moments. We laugh when reading that the caller identified The Great Gatsby as "that guy who was great," but we cannot identify Mitch Albom or the U.S. Speaker of the House. Bauerlein's examples are easy to connect with; he references Jay Leno, Harry Potter, Google and video games. The way he presents the information makes us, the audience, realize that WE are part of the problem. It isn't as funny when we can't answer the questions he poses, or when shocking statistics prove that we aren't doing as well as we think we are. Bauerlein backs up everything he says with statistics and information from other sources. This helps to establish his credibility throughout the book, giving us reason to listen to him. Whether or not we agree with Bauerleins argument that we are the "dumbest generation," we are inclined to listen to him as he reasons out his argument and persuades us to listen to him with examples and situations we can identify with.