Today Is Middle Child's Day, Not That You Remembered

As a middle child, can I just ask you all to please take a minute to acknowledge this holiday OK so sorry I won’t bother you again.

Bruce Hopman — long-suffering middle child first and former advertising executive second — created the above membership card because “our whole lives, middle children crave attention, but we’re always ignored, so it’s typical that someone would give us a holiday just so they could ignore it.”

I feel you, Bruce Hopman. I really do. Once, my family left me at a rest stop and didn’t come back for a FULL HOUR. Like, it took them an entire hour to notice I wasn’t in the car — and there are only five people in my immediate family. I knew then what all middle children come to know: You might be left for dead on a rest stop on the 5, but you can also basically get away with murder and nobody notices. It is a blessing; it is a curse.

Wearing my older sister’s hand-me-down cardigan, I raise a glass of my younger brother’s leftover beer to middle children everywhere!