So in my previous post, I had mentioned my other brother Stephen briefly. In our family, Stephen was what we called a late birth. There is a 10 year difference between us. People have even mistaken me for his mom (... which means I would have had the child while I was 10... and sex probably at 9) because I'm so close and protective of him. Before my youngest cousins Nathan and Samantha were born, Stephen was the youngest of all the cousins as well. It was weird because I mentioned that I was also the oldest of my cousins and now, Stephen was the youngest.
Stephen as a brat.
As the youngest, I think Stephen grew up stereotypically pampered and babied. As much as I would like to just blame my parents for treating him like he isn't capable of doing anything by himself, everyone treats him like a little kid, and don't really expect him to do anything too difficult. Only Raymond treats Stephen differently (I'll elaborate later).
Because of this preferential treatment, Stephen is a bit of a brat. He acts like a prince. Well, that's not entirely true. He acts like a prince when he's around my grandma. Sometimes when I'm home for the weekend, I wake up to Stephen screaming at my grandmother about how he doesn't want to eat this or doesn't want to do that. This makes really pissed off because I hate it when people treat elders this way. Especially when they're just trying to do something. This is a bit of hypocritical of me because I occasionally get annoyed at the constant nagging (which is her way of caring) and snap back. But I don't do this on a constant basis and I do feel bad afterwards. It's just hard to not get annoyed when people ask you the same time over and over again. Unfortunately, neither of my brothers have the same restraint as me, and they both snap back violently (not of physical kind) and then it turns into a scream fest. (I might make a post about this later).
In any case, I think Stephen really grew up extra pampered. Since he's pretty smart (well, he is Asian), my mom and grandmother is constantly praising him. I think it really goes to his head too. Often I hear him boasting about how he's smarter than grandma. I mean, sure, you're more book smart than someone who never went to school, but you're definitely not as skilled as her. Sometimes when Stephen is boasting, I just want to smack him and tell him to be more modest. If you flaunt how smart you are, you're just going to get bullied. (In comes old memories...)
Anyways, despite that attitude towards other people, when I hang out with Stephen, he knows not to pull that kind of shit around me. Like I do pamper him, but I don't praise him nonstop and I don't just let him disrespect people, especially myself. I occasionally take him out since he is unfortunately stuck in the house for most of the week, buy him something for lunch, and maybe buy him something like clothes (which by the way are getting way too small for him. They grow up too fast.) And I do like his company since he's so obedient in public and is pretty well behaved.
Actually, I should mention that he acts differently out in public. All of a sudden, he becomes really shy and indecisive. Instead of saying how he definitely doesn't want to eat something, as he would have done at home, he can't come up with a decision about what to eat or won't complain about the food even if it's not something he likes. This disparity kind of makes me think that he might have some kind of problem socializing with other people. I hope he doesn't turn into one of those people that can't approach someone or is afraid of making new friends.
He doesn't have that kind of confidence that I would like him to have as a kid. When we go to a park or something, he wouldn't play with other kids, and would just kind of sulk on the side or make me play with him. When I was a kid, I played with all the other kids on the playground. (Even when I got to an age that I was kind of too old for the equipment, little kids would come up to me and ask me to play with them.)
However, I do think that with Stephen, he has a lot of time to correct any undesirable flaws in his personality. He is a bright kid, even I get jealous sometimes of how he's always praised, but I feel like my parents should let him roam around. Like he's always confined in the house and has become pretty much a mama's boy. Sometimes I feel as if Stephen isn't really eight since he acts like he's four.
Oh, I should mentioned that Stephen is really into computer games too. I think it's because I grew up without a computer (I didn't even use the internet until I was around 13) and Stephen started using the computer at around 4. This makes me kind of worried that he wouldn't be able to handle real life situations and will revert to some fantasy world on the internet. Don't get me wrong, I play MMORPGs sometimes, but I've come to realize that it just stresses me out. I just hope that Stephen realizes that computer games are just to pass time, not a way of life.
There isn't as much to say about Stephen as Raymond since I've known Raymond longer and Stephen hasn't really gotten to that point where he has formed some kind of identity, but I hope that he grows up well especially now that I'm not around to correct any bad behaviors.
Anyways, I'm gonna probably write one more entry about my brothers, how they interact together later. I'm a CS major, not an English major.
