For a short while, I was an only child. I can imagine that having my parents' undivided attention was a positive experience. Then Pook and Marv came along, just before I turned three, and my status eventually changed from prodigal daughter to guinea pig.

It's tough to be the oldest child, especially when it's discovered early on that you're the smartest in a pretty darn intelligent family. There's expectation and pressure placed upon you that's not expected of your younger siblings. In my case, I developed a certain bitterness at my standing. While the Thunderkittens had normal, happy, fairly unremarkable childhoods, I put in an awful lot of work for seemingly few rewards. I was a Billy-no-mates, but I could play guitar, so I was okay. I practically invented the term "emo" when I was seventeen, but I was destined for some top-end high-salary career, so my anger was sure to pass.

Ech.

My folks (read: my mother; my dad's style of parenting never really came to much) didn't take it too well when I chose the starving artist path. I'm 25 next month, and my mother still tells me she worries most about me of the three of us. She who I have spent my whole life trying to please, she who is constantly disappointed in me despite my best efforts. My sister dropped out of uni and spent eighteen months unemployed and mooching off my parents, before coming to Manchester and spending a further six months mooching off me. I'm sure that you can guess from my tone which one of us sees more of the good time.

You see, the guinea pig analogy really rings true in my family. I've grown up being controlled and dictated to, being poked and prodded and experimented on. My brother and sister have had it much easier. They've had the kind of freedom I've never known. I'm not sure whether all eldest children feel as though they've fallen out of favour in the same way that I do, but I keenly feel the difference between my parents' attitude to me and their position of near-deference to my younger siblings.

Okay, maybe I've let my inner emo a little too loose on this post. But I'm not on the best of terms with my family at the moment, regardless to all of this. Another story for another time, perhaps...