My favorite "oldest daughter" characters in fiction.
TikTok psychologists, do your stuff.
The oldest daughter discourse. Dun dun duuuun.
As an oldest daughter myself, I have mixed feelings on the onslaught of “oldest daughter” memes, articles, and psychoanalysis that has pervaded the internet over the past few years. Do I relate to a lot of it? Absolutely. Do I relate to all of it? No.
I wonder if this deluge came about because all of us oldest daughters collectively snapped during the pandemic, when our “take care of everyone else and not yourself” tendencies got pushed to the limit and we could rant about it on TikTok. For me, I started exploring this topic when I was contemplating doing the absolute unthinkable for an oldest daughter: moving far away from my parents. It didn’t matter that my younger sister had moved far away from home at age 18; the voices in my head berated me for being so selfish and so irresponsible for “abandoning” my parents and my entire extended family to move to my husband’s hometown. (My parents were supportive, but I was wrestling with my own feelings about this change.)
Once I was exposed to oldest daughter content, I started paying closer attention to how they were portrayed in media. Today, I’m sharing some oldest daughter characters that I have found the most compelling. Disclaimer: This is not a list of the best oldest daughter characters in fiction, just the ones that have meant the most to me personally. Sorry Meg March stans, we’re Team Beth in this house.
1. Katara, Avatar: The Last Airbender
As I’ve mentioned in previous Substack posts, I didn’t watch Avatar: The Last Airbender growing up, but since Charlie showed it to me recently, I’ve been hooked. And by far, the character I relate to the most is Katara.
She takes on the maternal role in her family and village after her mother’s death at the hands of the Fire Nation. Though she’s not the oldest child, her own older brother admits to not being able to remember his mother’s face, imagining Katara’s face instead. Katara is the ultimate “mom friend.” She emotionally supports every single member of Team Avatar, but especially Aang, helping them work through their own trauma. On top of all that, she becomes a master waterbender over the course of the series.
But what I love the most about Katara is that the writers mostly avoid making her a perfect Mary Sue. There are moments when her motherly nature is rejected as annoying and over-controlling by her friends. She doesn’t always make the right decision. She has to work for every inch of waterbending skill she has. She gets clowned on for being a “preachy crybaby who can’t resist making overly emotional speeches about hope all the time,” but first of all, girl same. Second of all, if you were the caretaker for everyone around you with little to no consideration for your own needs, don’t tell me you wouldn’t also cry a lot.
Also, the desire for someone else to take care of Katara for once instead of sticking her in a couple where she’s doing all the caretaking is a big reason why I choose to pretend the last 30 seconds of the series didn’t happen. I’m not even sorry.
2. Belle, Beauty and the Beast (1991)
OK, OK, Belle is technically an only child. But I’m willing to bet that many oldest daughters would name her as their favorite Disney princess. (I am one of them.)
She’s got quite a few of the characteristics of oldest daughters floating around the internet, but the one that stands out for the purposes of this discussion is her relationship with her father. She encourages him. She believes in him. She sticks up for him to both the Beast and the Gaston-led mob. She manages the household so he can work on his inventions. And oh yeah, she took his place as the Beast’s prisoner even though, as Maurice argues, he’s old and doesn’t have as much time left on earth as she does. Additionally, she abandons her budding relationship with the Beast when she learns her father is ill and stranded in the forest. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing—it’s a very admirable action and an important story beat—but it’s also very oldest daughter. If you need any more proof, listen to the Belle/Maurice duet from the Broadway musical.
3. Isabela Madrigal, Encanto
I enjoyed this film, but it definitely isn’t a Disney favorite for me. However, while everyone else was raving about “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” and “Surface Pressure,” the song that hit me the hardest was the one sung by the “perfect” oldest Madrigal granddaughter, Isabela. “What Else Can I Do?” is really about rediscovering your creativity after years of stifling it to fit everyone else’s expectations of what you should make. I also really love the mutual understanding that Isabela and Mirabel come to at the end of this song. I want to post this lyric up by my desk: “What could I do if I just knew it didn’t need to be perfect, it just needed to be?”
4. Wendy Darling, Peter Pan (1953)
In the pantheon of Strong Disney Heroines™️, Wendy is so often overlooked, and she shouldn’t be. A woman portraying stereotypically feminine traits doesn’t make her weak. I can’t believe we still have to say this in 2024, but here we are.
As motherly as Wendy is, she has no compunction about showing anger and doesn’t tolerate disrespect—at least from the villains. (I still wish she told Peter off for saying girls talk too much, but that’s another story.) She also gives off major mama bear energy when she, her brothers, and the Lost Boys are kidnapped by the pirates. She holds true to her values, resisting the pressure to join Captain Hook’s crew so forcefully that she’s willing to walk the plank for it. If protecting those entrusted to your care isn’t badass oldest daughter behavior, I don’t know what is.
5. Angelica Schuyler, Hamilton
I’m not speculating about how much oldest daughter syndrome the real Angelica Schuyler had, but she has quite a bit in the 2016 musical Hamilton. Yes, she suppresses her own feelings for Alexander Hamilton after her younger sister, Eliza, expresses interest in him and is the main cheerleader for their marriage. However, the line that gets me every time comes during the song “The Reynolds Pamphlet,” when Angelica returns to the US upon hearing that Hamilton has published a pamphlet detailing his affair with Maria Reynolds, humiliating his wife and Angelica’s little sister: “I love my sister more than anything in this life. I will choose her happiness over mine every time. Put what we had aside, I’m standing at her side.” Sisters over misters. Period.
6. Jane, 27 Dresses
OH BOY it was a mistake to watch this movie with a bottle of wine because it basically turned into therapy.
This movie exposed eldest daughter syndrome before TikTok, and showed how, if taken to an extreme, it can be destructive to both the oldest daughter and the entire family. Like Katara, Jane takes on the motherly role to her father and younger sister, Tess, after her mother’s death. As an adult, she’s an over-giving, empathic people pleaser with a penchant for planning other people’s weddings and a total lack of personal boundaries. She derives her self-worth from what she can do for others; she doesn’t believe she has any value in and of herself.
For my money, the best scene in the movie is the big fight and reconciliation with Tess in their dad’s hardware store. When Tess says that Jane didn’t have to be the mom figure in her life, Jane protests, asking who she would be if she didn’t take care of people. Tess responds, “You’ll just be my sister, which is what it should be…You’ve got to stop taking care of me, of everybody.”
Shout out to all the younger siblings who have no bones about telling us oldest daughters exactly what we need to hear—including my own. We need you just as much as you need us. ❤️
Should I do an oldest daughter saints post? Let me know in the comments!
Off My Bookshelf
This one’s pretty straightforward: I give my initial thoughts on a book I just finished. Also, there may be spoilers. Sorry.
Bearing False Witness: Debunking Centuries of Anti-Catholic History by Rodney Stark: This book started out as the reading selection for my young marrieds small group, though we quickly abandoned it when we had more fun talking about other topics. I decided to finish it anyway, and honestly, I’m not sure what to think.
The main point in Stark’s favor is that he is not, and has never been, Catholic. He has no personal stake in redeeming the Catholic Church’s historical image. His bibliography is extensive. Several arguments he makes I have heard from other secular historians before—the “Dark Ages” weren’t really dark, Galileo’s beef with the Church was more complicated than “science bad, religion good,” etc.
However, Stark is not the totally disinterested historian he portrays himself to be. The latter chapters of the book take a weird anti-liberal, pro-unbridled capitalist turn. I’m no socialist, but don’t tell me you’re being objective and unemotional while inserting personal barbs at your ideological rivals.
This book is not the be-all, end-all of my research into these topics, and I think Stark would approve.
⭐️⭐️⭐️ - 3 stars
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Free Things that Make Me Happy
I started doing a blog series about this a while back and I still love the idea, so I’m bringing it to Substack! And for the purposes of not splitting hairs, my definition of “free” is “not spending money I haven’t already spent.” OK? OK.
Weekly artmaking sprint. This newsletter comes out on Fridays, but I start the writing process every Tuesday morning with the Catholic Artist Connection’s weekly artmaking sprint. To be honest, I’m not very good at making time to write all by myself. But having even just one other person working on their art on Zoom helps me stay motivated. And while I rarely finish a whole Substack post in the 50 minutes, it’s been so helpful having something to work with on Thursday night and not just a blank page. If you’re looking for a more secular or in person option, I’ve started following Shut Up and Write! on Instagram, though I haven’t been to any of their events. Having a weekly writing obligation in my calendar (that other people have set for me) has been probably the biggest reason I’ve stayed consistent with posting on Substack. Maybe it’s the Obliger in me…
Thank you so much for reading! Let me know what other topics you’d like to see from me, and I will see you next time.
I can relate!