When I first decided on my topic, I immediately thought of my friend, Alexa. I first met her at Emory University while helping our sisters move into their dorms, when we were both in our freshmen year of high school. A couple years later, we planned to go on Tennis: Europe, a teen tour with tennis tournaments. This is when we became very good friends. A year later, we both received acceptances to Emory University. Alexa is similar to me in regards to having older sisters and being the "baby" in the family. She has two sisters, Carly who is "intellectual, generous and sympathetic" and Danielle who is "successful, popular and caring".
So, I began my interview with her. So I get right to the point, asking the difficult questions: "'Do you feel that your parents raised you in any different manner than your siblings?'" I asked. Before I could finish asking the question she responded, "'definitely! Having already raised two girls by the time I came around, they were very lenient and they like knew I would be okay having my freedom and liberties and so they were very relaxed and understanding and have experienced two other daughters before I was just like let on my own a lot'" she quickly answered. I then ask her if she thinks her birth order reflects her personality/behavior. She thinks for a minute and responds, "No, if anything because of having seen how like how academic and successful both of my sisters have been I've been motivated to do that for myself and not depend on them but that has also been influenced by the fact that because each of our strong suits are in different fields; one is in business one in medicine and I am and health and humanities -- and because of that I don't rely on them to help me -- if anything they set a bar for me." Since we went on the same Tennis trip, I wanted to ask her if sh ever tried to experience the same activities and sports which her siblings tried. She said "Absolutely! (cutting me off before I finished) each of my sisters one thing tennis team we were on the same tennis team at the same position even though they were both better than me we went on the same trips same camps... All of my activities out of the academics were similar to theirs". I then asked her if her college decision ever changed because of her family’s input. While asking her this question I was very eager to hear her response since my college decision was very influenced by my family. She responded: "'Definitely! My middle sister went to Emory and we are very similar and seeing how happy she was here and how successful she was here and all of the opportunities she had here, made me want one for myself and I also was comforted by knowing that she had experiences here and able to help me transition but at the same time her not being here was important to me because I want to have my independence.'" I was happy with this response in that it made me feel like I was not alone. |