'When my younger brother was born, I was almost 11 years old, yet I had a certain sense of responsibility for him. "I would sit by his bed and watch him sleep just to make sure he was okay ," Wolfe said. - Not that I doubted my mother's ability, but I felt that we were both responsible for the family, she explained. – In short, I felt more like a second mother than a big sister.
'Big Girl Syndrome' is a pop psychology term, not an actual diagnosis. However, there is more scientific research into the pseudo-syndrome than previously thought.
Wolfe is known for the 'big girl syndrome'. As an older sister, author YL Wolfe often felt that the line between her role and that of mother was blurred.
Thoughts on this syndrome are flowing on Twitter. One woman joked on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, saying: 'If you are an older sibling and above all a girl, you have your right to ask for financial compensation.'
A research team led by the University of California, Los Angeles found that, in some cases, girls who are born first tend to mature earlier, enabling them to help their mother raise younger siblings.
The study posits that girls mature enough to care for their younger siblings while they are physically unable to bear children of their own.
It is different with older siblings, who are unhappy when it comes to this type of parenting. Researchers have not observed the same syndrome in first-born male children.
"One reason we didn't find this syndrome in first-born boys may be because they help less often, so mothers have less of an adaptive incentive to speed up their development," Hahn-Holbrook explained.
Also, the study considered several other factors related to early maturation or signs of puberty in children, such as the death of a parent or divorce before the age of 5 and the absence of a father and economic insecurities at the age of 7-9.
Taking all this into account, it was older girls who matured faster when their mothers experienced high levels of prenatal stress.
Other studies suggest that there are some subsequent benefits to older responsible girls: A 2014 study found that older girls are more likely to succeed, while a 2012 study found that older girls have more more likely to hold leadership roles.
The studies ring true for Wolfe, the aforementioned author, who said she felt like a second mother to her siblings.
'I'm not at all surprised by the study,' she said. - My story is a bit different: I went through true puberty, not just adrenal puberty, at the age of 12, although I suspect I experienced early puberty.'
