But what's the third kid's name? Merrilee? Marian? Maryanne?

Read Dooce drunk...it's 100 times funnier...which is PRETTY damn funny.

I was the same as you Heather (I had to scroll up to remember, I am drunk) about grades in school. There is no point to this message...just that I love DOOCE!

The oldest of my two girls must have accidentally missed your family and landed into mine. There are moments when I have to walk out of the room when she's doing her homework for fear that I will shake her...and then I do my best to resist the temptation to go back and change all of her answers when she's not looking. Just to build character.

My parents have four girls and for some reason we're staggered twins. The oldest girl is almost 6' tall, brunette, super sensitive, and is married. The second oldest is barely 5'6", blonde, thick skinned, and vows to never marry. Then there is myself who is just like the oldest. I am tall, brunette, I cry at the drop of a hat and I am married. Finally the youngest is short, blonde, borderline insensitive, and also isn't interested in marriage. If you saw the four of us in a room you would think that the brunettes are sisters, the blondes are sisters, but there is NO WAY you would think all four of us are sisters. My facial features are even just like the oldest sister's but nothing like the other two. Aside from appearances, my personality is also more like the oldest where as I can't be in a room too long with the other two or they drive me crazy. Genetics can be a strange phenomenon.

Seriously, I hope Nifle is in another country, because even if you're on the east coast, where it is after 8 p.m., it's too early to be reading Dooce drunk!

Unless you're dying easter eggs...

ohh, my sister and i are those children. sort of. i did the weird thing of being very competitive about grades, but also really lazy about schoolwork. she's just bad at math, and has crazy tattoos.

I have 6-month-old triplets. Cannot wait to see how all that turns out.

I am cracking up. That is my girls. Although they're young, I can already see it. They will be so much like that when they're older.

Oh and I read the half-socked baby post too. To freaking funny. I adore baby feet. I would have been nice enough to tell you, not to whisper behind your back.

oh, wow. the whole world? and every country?

i would fail so very miserably.

I could try to be obnoxious and name them all here, but I fear that my lack of knowledge would just embarrass me.

I'm twice as old as Meredith and if I wrote my list of goals right now, I'd have exactly the same 2 and 3. In fact, the only good thing about being 26 is that I've now at least learned how to do hard stretches.

When I was in high school, I would hyperventilate if I thought I wasn't making an A. I wish I could write a letter to myself back then, advising me to inhale like the other kids and chill out.

Meredith's list of goals is admirable. And much easier achieved than my own. I might have to swap a few on my list for a few on hers.

It's a similar situation in my family.

Me? I'm pretty boring in that I'm the older child who is very organized and pretty responsible. Although I never figured I'd make it to university (lackluster grades in high school), I worked hard and was always relatively confident that something would work out.

My sister? She's sixteen now and figures everything will be handed to her, because everything HAS been handed to her. She's threatening to move out, get a job and still go to school. Everyone knows that she's dreamin', but it won't stop her. I just know she'd do it just to spite everyone.

I wish I learned earlier on that high school isn't the be all and end all...but just a stop along the way to real life...whatever that is!! I would have said, done and been whatever I wanted, and not given a shit what other people thought. Hind sight is so hard sometimes.

I'm a Junior in high school, which means that I've had three years of people telling me that the Mariahs of the world will one day conquer all and that the Merediths will become Bagpersons (Rather than baglady, because, face it, if she was a Mike, would you have any doubt why she was distracted from being anal with schoolwork?)
In 3rd grade I told myself I would be valedictorian. The next day, I forgot to turn in a homework assignment and, so I thought, my dreams were shattered. I still don't do my homework because a part of me quietly reminds me that I will fail in life and that, if my "dreams" follow through and I become a teacher, I probably will fail the kids too.
So, I'm slowly tugged from being Meredith to being Mariah. Every day I'm still constantly reminded that upper middle class snobs, such as myself, will have to fight to get into college and get scholarships - and that my Meredith moments will disgrace my family as though we lived in a Confucian society. But, I wish that for one day I could drop all remorse for my school transcript and my dismal 3.2GPA and live like a hippy and worry about all of the cute girls instead of Mao Zedong and the Pythagorean theorem - but this just isn't the environment for that.

I don't know what to say. Maybe Meredith missed the day the other kids on the playground decided to make Mariah as determined. And while both have noble efforts, ten years down the road, they could be a completely different person. So, I still don't know who is better. However, I do know how hard it is to break this caste of slacker-wanting-to-be-an-overacheiver, and that one day, none of it will matter and we will all order fastfood at the same day.

Praise Buddha that I, uh, still have my wits...

I love that God lets us have moments like that. It's like a glimpse of the past in the present. Sometimes I feel the same way...like I wish I knew then what I know now, but I guess we just have to go through it to get that knowledge and wisdom. And the journey's pretty good, too.

Hey man, *I* grocery shop in bare feet.

I'm not like anyone in my family...

Holy crap! She has to draw the whole world from memory!? What for???

My list at 30 is very different from my list at 13. I wanted to perfect that backhand spring too and get straight A+s. Being an overachiever kinda sucked!

Now here is my new list:

. Learn how to do proper tequilla shots
. Meet cute men
. Learn to scuba dive
. Travel
. Meet more cute men

I love you for saying what you said and not what you thought :)

Shhh.... peeps won't burn in hell.... THEY'RE DEMONS!!!! AHAHAHAH

sorry

I have just begun enjoying you so prior to today I had no knowledge of the sockless baby incident and want to tell you to be sure to do an underwear check as they get older. My son was having his 5th grade check up and the Doc asked him to strip to his underwear and to my absolute HORROR he was not wearing any that day. Thank goodness my doctor knows that I provide underwear (due to my other 4 kids being her patients)and was not a neglectful reject of a parent.

Yay for saying what you said instead of what you thought; what you thought wasn't really bad or negative, but what you said was better.

I was kind of a mix of both of them. In my earlier years of school (7,8,9 grades) I didn't care much about my grades and only worried if I got a C- or something. As I got older, I started to freak out if I got a B-, but that's as far as it got. I worried about the almighty GPA, but only because I wanted to graduate with a higher class ranking than my older sister (which I did by 1 or 2 places...hehehe). I was still pretty easy-going about schoolwork and only tweaked when I had major projects or papers to do, both in high school and college. My perfectionism was more that I was worried that I wasn't a perfect daughter, girlfriend, employee, etc. Mostly the daughter part. Growing up as both the middle child and the "easy" child was a double whammy in the fear of disappointing people realm. I still worry that I need to be perfect so I don't disappoint people and the fact that I'm not perfect means that I AM a disappointment. I'm sure it'd be worse if I wasn't in therapy and on the meds. Do you ever get over perfectionism?

If I could go back in time and have a sit down with my 16 yr old self, I'd tell myself that high school isn't the be all end all of life, and to not be so uptight about life.

High school is such a crappy mandatory four years,

My brother, 10 years my junior, while not exactly like Mariah, had the maturity at a young age to think about what he wanted to do with his future, and while it wasn’t charted out in detailed, he knew that to achieve anything he had to work hard.
My 15-year old sister who is 14 years younger than me (I’m sure my parents had a plan with the age gaps  ) cant think beyond the next hour. Shes at the stage where she wants to do what’s glamorous (like be a fashion designer) but not work at it (like learn to draw).

I worry to no end about her future and WHEN WILL SHE SNAP OUT OF IT AND REALISE THAT NOTHING IS GOING TO MIRACULOUSLY FALL INTO PLACE. Today’s post helped. I just need to stop fretting so much and know that she’ll eventually figure it out.

On a side note, Dooce, you ROCK!

In high school I was a slacker that wanted to be an over achiever, so I ended up somewhere in the high middle. Then I graduated, realized none of it meant anything anyways, went to college with no desire to be an over achiever, and am now just a slacker with a lot of run-on sentences in this post. And now I look back on my A's and B's with fond rememberance of how, at one point, my guilt over not wanting to get my ass in gear was enough to get my ass in gear...

Sounds exactly like my 2 daughters. #1 is a perfectionist & #2 is super laid back.

Kudos to you for recognizing their differences and supporting both.

Thirteen is ridiculously awkward to experience as an age. You did a great deed by telling her her list was perfect. :)

Ah, the classic Type A Eldest Child. I know all about that one. Life is so much easier when you lose your perfect 4.0 GPA. As a 23 year old graduate student I am now striving towards what I call "Type Q," the reformed Type A. Happiness for the Q personality lies somewhere between a slacker's ability to not feel the need to volunteer to help with everything and be absolutely perfect every time and the Type A's ability to get done what needs to be done and do it well.

I wish I was motivated enough to learn how to do a back hand spring.

Eh.

I don't think Mariah was sent to the wrong person - it's so much easier for her that you are her *aunt*, because your parents are never that cool and you never see them for what they are - and certainly, as you get older and high school, their advice is *never* as valuable. But an aunt is never out of vogue.

If you were her mother, then you wouldn't be able to get her as well as you do, and she wouldn't see in you what she needs to see - that maybe letting up a little is okay, and that an alternative path is there if she wants it (and if she doesn't, that's okay, too). Sometimes - many times, I'd venture to say - the person who guides us the most in certain ways isn't a parent, and isn't even present every day. Even if she can't see it at this exact moment, she will someday. And maybe you will, too.

And because I have had three - no, four - glasses of wine, I feel like I need to tell you how hilariously and embarrassingly EARNEST I am being when I say this. I'm taking this comment SO SERIOUSLY, as if it will change the angle at which the earth spins on its axis. Brow wrinkled, lip jutted out. I am, apparently, Very Serious.

And I also think I'm right.

I would have been a Meredith, if Meridith liked to smoke a lot of pot and spend at least half of the school year skipping it. Ah, how I miss not going to school.
I grew up to have a usually fully clothed baby, and I failed math consistantly (I mean several times, in a row). Actually, maybe not, when you consider the hat thing, which is much like the sock thing, but worse, since I do it all the time.

My god! My baby will never make it into Harvard! What have I done?? (wail, moan, sob loudly) Someone call CPS, I'm a terrible mother.

Aunts are great though, and easier to talk to. Boot for her and you'll have her in the palm of your hand. Because we all know intoxicating your relatives shows your coolness factor.

I'm kidding.

I think.

haha missy, I'm an IS major also. I'm at Ohio State.

Anyways, YEAH, I would NEVER be able to draw the whole world and name the countries from memory. The 54 countries in Africa were enough to memorize, and I didn't have to draw a damn thing.

She either goes to a REALLY GOOD school that likes to challenge students (or drive students to suicide), or a REALLY CRAPPY one with teachers who don't realize how many countries are in the world. Geez.

Kids always have a way of figuring it out in the long run. I was just like Mariah, always getting As, kicking my ass if I ever got anything less. I was a very good student, and could have done anything, but I decided to go to art school. I worked as a designer for a few years, got better and better and then what? I quit my "real job" to go work at a zoo. Go figure! What did I learn? It is ok to change your mind, and the most important thing is finding out what really makes you happy. I'm sure that both of these girls will find it someday, no matter where their paths lead them.

Hi there. I would like to ask you a couple questions for a dooce story that I am working on for my school paper, the Daily Sundial. I hope to hear from you soon. My deadline is Friday so please contact me before Friday if possible. E-mail me your number and when it is best to call you. Thanks so much for your cooperation. I look forward to hearing from you.
MJ

My sister is a Mariah and I was a for sure Meridith!

My little sister was and is a girl genius and nothing aside from perfection will do. I would love to make funny of these sort of people being the opposite sort myself but I can't. See that perfection has actually worked for her. She started University 2 years ealrier then a normal person and finished 3 years earlier then a normal person. She was offered jobs with major companies but when they saw her age they said ' nope way to young'. If that had been me I would likely have stuck 2 fingers up at them all and worked at Macdonalds ha ha !! Not Alex she only went and landed a job with NATO in Brussels.

( yes I occasionally have jealous sister syndrome ... very rarely though )

Me on the other hand ...... yeah I just did not care . Not in a bad way just did not care plain and simple. My dad used to say my life was like one big ' soap' he was pretty much right to be fair.

I am still the Meridith of the family even though I moved from home in Canada to the UK my ' Meridith' life followed me. Wouldn't have it any other way to be honest and I am sure that Alex would never have it any other way she loves her life as a ' Mariah'

I would most surely be pacing the room if I had a test where I had to draw and label the entire world. I mean, really, do they expect such knowledge to be useful in "The Real World," beyond the drunk conversation starter/bet winning opportunity? "Hey guys, while you were doing that keg stand I just drew a map of the globe, from memory. Bet you $50 bucks and that beer in your hand that you can't label every country, and I can." Ok, on second thought, that girl better get to studying.

You are such a great Aunt. I would have been teasing my neice about her list just to be fun. But, no you encouraged her to keep going with her goals and that is great! As for your other neice, I hope she does well on her Geography. I only wish I had been as intense about my schoolwork, somehow I didn't care enough. They are fortunate to have such a great Aunt!

Genes are great aren't they ?

My sister is 12 years younger than me and she is officially my half-sister as we only share a dad. We never lived together even bar for a few weeks when she was 17 and I was 29 ... for reasons which are boring - this was 13 years ago.

We are great friends.

She was telling me last week about how she was advising a friend about something and I laughed and said to her how she was advising her friend in EXACTLY the same way as I do ... and ain't that a thang!

A few days later she was telling a mutual friend what I had said and the friend said incredulously:

EMMA! Don't you know that you are a clone of Gillian? But don't worry cos we all love her.

my twin brother and i are a lot like meredith and mariah, in that we're complete opposites. i'm the one that obsessed over grades, was always responsible, etc. he's the one that barely passed in school and was always causing trouble. i swear, i was switched at birth.

My daughter is the anal/self-important/perfectionist in the house (just like her mother). My son gets by on charm, wit, brain and humor (just like the mailman?). I tell daughter to be nice to son, because at some point in her life, she WILL need to borrow money from him.

Signed,
Their Mother

Draw the whole world? They still make kids do that? I don't see that it matters anyway. They should just have them draw a map of the world and then label everything America to save us from having to do it 10 years down the line.

Wow. I have a list of goals and now I totally want to add 'learn back handspring' to that list. I'm still a big kid at 27 years old...

I share your amazement regarding how two (or more) people could be born into the same family and raised by the same parents, and yet turn out so differently.

In my family, the outcome is not all that surprising. My husband's family is another story. He's the youngest of three boys, and he is BY FAR the overachiever of the bunch. The oldest has never really gotten on the right track (but he's a hell of a nice guy). The middle one has been ALL over the map (and I used to think he was great, but for the life of me I cannot understand him now). But Kyle has always been on the straight and narrow, more or less. Smart, witty, athletic, outgoing, and driven to succeed, but not so driven that he can't remember to have a good time along the way.

What really boggles my mind about how differently these guys turned out is that they are all so different from their parents, especially Kyle. I can't wrap my brain around that.

Ailuron, Delurking to respond to your question. I wouldn't wish it on anyone, but post partum depression is a real humbling experience.

You may hate hearing this, but at twice your age I can tell you factually that alot will happen in the next twenty years. However, knowing what excellence looks like and how to strive for it isn't such a bad skill to have at any stage in life!

Heather, you didn't ask but, here are my top 5 goals:

1. Win the Lottery
2. Save the Planet
3. Travel in Space
4. Turn 2 boys into thoughtful responsible men (currently a work in progress ;)
5. Smoke a bowl with Jon & Heather

I can't remember what they were when I was 13 exactly, but I'm pretty sure "Save the Planet" and "Smoke a bowl" were somewhere on that list too.

Your nieces sound like me and my husband. He's the perfectionist worry-wart. Me, well, I'm much more interested in drinking a good cup of coffee while reading a book then making sure there aren't any creases on the back of my shirt that is hidden under my jacket. Though this may be the key to Mariah's survival: Make sure she marry's someone like her sister.

I have 5 kids and it's sometimes amazing to me that they all came from me, my parenting style, my genes. The oldest two are night and day. If they didn't all LOOK so much like me, I'd swear they had been switched at birth.

test (please delete this comment)

Isn't it funny how we seem to be the first generation of women willing to audibly acknowledge that we learn from our experiences and that maybe it would be good if we TOLD young and future women that life isn't easy even if you're perfect, yet it's equally not as hard as we sometimes make it for ourselves? Striking that balance might be the hardest thing about being a grown-up! if that's what I'm supposed to be....

Having kids also turns what you already knew about yourself on its head...I thought that I'd be the earth-mother, high-volume mommy. Instead, that's my sister, who we had previously pegged for not becoming a mom at all...go figure.

I never cease to be amazed at the variety of personalities within families.

I grinned while reading about Meredith, because your description of her reminds me so much of myself in high school. I never studied and skipped a LOT of school (I probably attended classes about 90 days out of the 180 days of my senior year). Somehow I also graduated at the top of my class and was a National Merit Finalist. I can only imagine what I could have accomplished if I'd actually given a shit. (Although, given the universe's keen sense of irony, I probably would have flunked out of 10th grade or something.)

Her list is definately perfect as it is. I am a total Meredith and even though I sometimes wish I could have been a Mariah, I think I turned out okay. This is a great post

Wow, I was one of those students, too, who cried when she got high-80s on a math test.

It's a rough way to live; I grew out of it, hopefully Mariah will, too. You're absolutely right, though, you won't change her mind with anything you say now.

Oh my gosh! I actually saw someone the other day at the suburban store I frequent, grocery shopping in bare feet! And she did look absolutely carefree.

I always thought that either my younger sister or I had to have been adopted, because we are that different in looks, personality and the way we see the world. (One day when we were younger I convinced her SHE was adopted because she was the only redhead among the rest of us brunettes, and she ran crying into the house demanding to see her birth certificate. Good times.)

Now I no longer think one of us is adopted but clearly *I* am the one who was dropped off with the wrong family in the first place. I'm the oldest, but I'm not the typical oldest child overachiever... that was my sister. I'm more open minded and liberal whereas my family is more conservative and tend to go through life with blinders on, such as believing President Bush is doing a great job. And somewhere along the line, my sister and I switched lives: I always thought I'd be married with two kids and be a school teacher, but my sister is living THAT life while I am nearly 45, single with no desire to necessarily marry, and no desire now to have children. And I changed my major from education to business years ago.

There is no telling why some siblings in a family turn out completely different even when they are having the same experiences more or less, or at least have the same parents. I love my sister and I know she loves me, but we don't understand each other very well and her life, while a good one, would drive me up a wall. I daresay she's say the same thing about me, if asked.

Amazing how much personality matters every bit as much as upbringing. I have two girls as well, and wonder how much they'll be alike and different.

I'd describe my oldest as a perfectionist, but I don't think that's quite fair, as she's not quite three yet and children this age are anal about the strangest things. She can run around with frosting on her chin all day long, but if the straps on her shoes aren't completely straight...hell hath no fury like a toddler with crooked straps.

It sounds like you've learned enough about yourself to let the Meredith side come out and have fun too. I love that you told her the list was perfect.

I completely agree that it is amazing how two completely different people can come from the same family. My two daughters are 8 and 6. My 8 year old is very serious, studious and well, uptight. My 6 year old is a fly by the seat of her pants kind of girl. I’m sure I have scarred (and will continue to scar) them for many years to come. 8 takes after me. I wish I could be more like 6.

I saw this and thought of Dooce. It's like the Mormon bookstore post meets the Amsterdam post: http://www.justaplant.com/story/index.html

Oh my good. That link to about the sockless baby just made me realize how long I have been reading your site.

I actually remember reading that. Like when it happened.

Crazy.

Heather,

I just love reading your site!

My god Dooce, I commented on this and have had about a *million* hits. It's incredible! I must confess I am a blog-hit-whore.

Hm. Now I love you even more!

Smoke a bowl? (lol)

I bet the older child can't accomplish the goal list of the younger child. It's just as hard to learn a backhandspring at 13 as it is to memorize the globe at 15. As a parent of a 17 year old and a 14 year old I find the globe thing ridiculous. But I'd be way more stressed out over it than either of my kids.

Great Aunt response. I just found out one of my cousins (I could be her aunt but aren't) is self-mutilating. I only hope my letter to her was as cool as your response to your niece!