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Middle Child of 3 Boys

Middle Child

By Kyle PhamPublished 6 years ago 13 min read
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Hi, I am Kyle, I am 26 and I still do not have a college degree whatsoever. I am truly lost in this world and have no clue what I will be doing with my life. I am sure your story is different or can be similar to mine. I have a lot of people saying to me, "You are 26, you should be done with school and living life" or "I don't want to date someone who doesn't have a degree." Or "Your family is rich, there is no excuse because you are rich." There were people who also said, "Yeah, I had a bad childhood too, my parents didn't let me go out, but I was able to join clubs so I did." Well....here's my story.

I was the middle brother of 3 boys growing up. Growing up was really hard for me. I am Asian, Vietnamese to be exact and Catholic. I don't know its the middle child syndrome, but growing up, I felt as if my parents never really cared for me. I remembered the first time i got hit by my dad. When I was 5 years old, my older brother had stolen water balloons from Stater Bros. When we got home, my dad found a bag balloons he did not purchase. My older blamed me, as I blamed him, but who do parents believe in more? At the end of the night, we both got whipped with the broomstick until it broke. Our butts were bruised the next day. My little brother is 3 years younger than me and my older is 1 year and 8 months older than me.

When I was in 3rd grade, I started "talking back" to my parents, I quote it because what I did was replying to their questions, not talking back, but my parents believed it was being disrespectful, so I got hit. After that year, everything just went downhill. Every time I replied to my dad with an answer, that he thinks I "talked back to him" I got hit, to be more exact, a powerful kick or getting whipped with a wooden stick, broomstick, or a belt. My brothers, they are a different story, they didn't get hit. I am not sure why I was the only one who always gets hit, my brothers did the same thing as I did, but my dad didn't do anything to them. In fourth grade, my family and I went to Las Vegas, Nevada. In Circus Circus, my dad and mom were holding my brother's hands, and I was holding one of my brothers. During the stroll around the casino, I somehow was lost, they didn't realize I was missing until almost an hour later.

In 5th grade, my memory is very vague, but I only remember bits and bits. This is the year my little brother had stolen money from my parents, I would say about 300~500. Obviously, they would go to me first and ask me with a stick in their hand. I didn't do it, so when they found out it was my little brother, one single hit, just one hit and my dad said, "I hit you to teach you a lesson, but because you are the youngest, I don't want to hurt you." If I had done something like that, I'd probably have more than just a hit or a slap.

In 6th grade, in school, we had to get signed to get permission to take sex ed, my older brother did, so I thought I should be able to do it right? No, they refused for me to take it. During the same year, we had reading logs, in which was needed to be signed by parents every day. My parents were never home, so I was always with my grandparents or at home with my brothers. I forged my dad's signature every day. I was then caught at my parents/teacher conference, later that day, I got whipped with a belt, at my parents work, in front of my family. On the same year, I was doing very poorly in one of my subjects, my teacher gave my parents a choice to either repeat the grade or to forward my education to 7th grade. They didn't think about it even when my older brother told them to let me go to 7th grade, they held me back.

Then in 7th grade, at the beginning of the school year, there were a lot of clubs openings. I asked my parents for permission to let me join in those clubs because my older brother, a 9th grader, was joining clubs and doing sports, they said no. Of course I asked them why my older brother can but I couldn't, they said it is because he is older, he can do whatever he likes. I can't complain to them because it would lead to more hits. So, me having to stay home right after school, I was stuck with the chores, I did every chore you can think of, my brothers didn't help. I can't tell my older brother to do it because he is older than me, I can't tell my little brother to do it because my older brother will say no because he is too little. So basically, I became the slave of the house. Did I tell my parents? Yes I did, but they seem to not care much, all they did was ask my brother to help, he said okay, but all he did was sit at his computer playing games. I wasn't the smart kid, education wise. My little and older were the ones with all the A's and very little B's, as for me, I was the one with A's, B's, and C's, even D's. My accomplishments were never enough for them. I remember I got a 3.5 GPA in middle school and they said, do better. Well, my older got a 3.2 GPA in one of the years and they praised him.

Throughout that year, I made friends and those friends had asked me to hang out with them after school, my parents had met them and said they were good/nice people, so I asked them if I could, they said no. There were many no's after that, so every time my friends ask me to hang or go to a birthday party, I had to nicely decline. But these things didn't apply to my little brother or my older brother, which was totally unfair. Around that time, my dad told me, "You shouldn't have any friends, they are not trustworthy, they will backstab you, you can only have family." I asked, "Dad, why do you have a lot of friends?" He replies, "I am different, I am a businessman, I need to have many friends." Lots of hypocrisy that supposedly only applies to me.

During the middle of that 7th grade, there was one day I came home from school and my whole family was home including my uncle, my dad's little brother. We were doing our own things in the living room until my dad told us to do our homework. I told him, "Today I don't have homework." He then asked, "Why don't you have homework." I said, "Dad, you can't expect me to have homework every day." He angrily replied, "EXPECT, EXPECT, YOU EXPECT." I have no clue what he thought the word "expect" meant and was yelling me that word, but after repeating that word, he rushed to me and kicked me really hard on the side of my body, as I fell to the ground. As he was about to rush in for another kick, my uncle protected me and told my dad to calm down. I rushed upstairs and locked myself in the restroom crying for hours. What a memory that was.

Moving on to 8th grade, I don't remember much during the 8th-grade year, but at the end of the year, there was my 8th-grade graduation to high school. My parents didn't go. They said it isn't important enough for them to go. They went to both of my brothers though. So during my 8th-grade graduation, I was in the same grade as one of my cousins. Her mom came, so they celebrated with me instead of my parents.

Then came high school. In high school, everything was just a repetition of every other year. I talk/reply back, I get hit. I go home after school, do all the chores, I do bad in school, I got disciplined. During that year, my older brother had crashed my mom's car into the garage and told me to take the blame for it, of course, why would I take the blame? So when he got in trouble, no hits, no slaps on the butt, just a kneel on the ground for 30 minutes. This is the year my dad told my older brother, "you are almost 18 years old, I will never hit any of my sons when they are close to an adult."

In 10th grade, I was able to join volleyball, it was my go-to place after school, but only because my graduated brother did volleyball when I was a freshman. That was the year I got to release some of that anger and get out of the house.

In 11th grade, my family had moved for the 7th time I believe. I went to 4 elementary, 2 middle schools, and 2 high schools. We moved because of my family's business, they had found a place to create another one. During that year, ever since having to work with them, I am not sure why it is always me, but every single time my dad is there, he always makes a problem with me for very small details, it gets very annoying.

My senior year I joined the swim team. I didn't ask permission because I had to make it to the team. I made the team and so they couldn't do anytime about it. New friends but I wasn't able to hang with them because my dad knew their friends of friends.

The only incident I remember through my senior year was when my dad was teaching me how to drive. We were driving around and the entry of our front yard was very narrow. So, turning into the driveway, I had stopped before I entered. I had already stopped and my dad says, "STOP" so I replied to him, "Dad I already stopped." 2 seconds later, a punch across the face. I turned off the car and started walking. As I was mad, needing to cool off so I wouldn't have to deal with my dad, he said, "Get the F*** out of my house, you are not my son." That memory had always stuck in my head. Of course, my mom went go looking for me, 30 minutes later, I was found. She told me to apologize to my dad, I did, but I never meant any of the sorries I ever told him. Going back to 9th grade about never hitting his kids at almost to adulthood, then again, it only applied to me.

After my senior year, my parents had sent me to a religious college to see if GOD calls to me and to become a priest. I loved the fact I was away from my parents. I didn't have to deal with my dad or even see any of my family, but I had to come home every summer and winter break to work. I didn't look forward to seeing them, but if I wanted to go back to Iowa, I had to. After going to Iowa for 3 years, I had realized I ended up hating that place so I went back home. I was about 22 I think when I came back. In the summer, I was working with my mom and dad during lunch time. I had the balls to confront them of all the wrongdoings they have done to me. Of course, they denied all of it, they said, "We never treated you such ways, we treated all our sons the same." "To tell you the truth, we loved you the most." "You are hurting our feelings, why do you say such things." Then my dad makes a comment I hate because growing up, I have always been teased for acting like a girl, "You act like you are our daughter," I then replied because I was angry, "Yeah, maybe I was meant to be a girl then, too bad for that." Next thing you know, my dad starting throwing things at me. A plastic plate was thrown to my head and the plate broke into two pieces. I remembered growing up, I was always crying so people teased me about such things, my dad sometimes would tease me as well and tell people to stop, but that time he went out of hand. Being 22, he still treated me differently.

I was afraid of my dad, I am not sure what age I was, but he said, "If you call the cops one day on me, I'll get to you before they get to me." So I never did.

When I was 23, I didn't feel any emotions any longer. I wasn't afraid of my dad anymore because I have gotten so used to all the BS he has done to me. I also had to stay home because if I went out to the real world on my own, without any experience of anything, being an introvert, I probably wouldn't even last a week. People say you know what you want to become through your childhood experience because you know what you like and dislike. Well, I never had that childhood, I was never able to go out, make friends, enjoy doing things as kids suppose to enjoy. I stayed in school of course, I tried and tried and tried, I found myself changing 6 different majors in 8 years. Me being 26 now, I am still lost. My past has ruined me for good. So I've been in college for 8 years now, I think it is time to not go to school and put myself to fully work to buy my own place.

I know there is so much more to this story that I have not yet explained, but these things do happen. To those parents out there, if you have 3 of the same gender kids, make sure you treat them all the same because the middle will feel left out. I know a lot of people or relatives in the new generation, they are afraid of having 3 same gender kids because they know about me and is afraid of this would happen to them, so they decided to either have only even numbers of children.

Wow, I can't believe I am finally blogging about this, even though not all the stories are on here, but you get the idea of my life. I am still trying to live it out as I believe there is more to life in the future, it can't be all about unhappiness.

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