The eldest daughter often bears a wide range of expectations. She is expected to understand how hard her parents work and help maintain the cleanliness of the household. She must also take care of her younger siblings—and ideally, be a role model for them.

Even though she is just one of the children, the eldest daughter is expected to excel, show empathy toward her parents, and help manage family affairs.

The author of this book is an eldest daughter, as is her mother. She discovered that they share a similar fate of constant toil. Whether at home or in the workplace, they are often entrusted with heavy responsibilities, yet are frequently excluded from benefits like inheritance or promotions.

To explore how the role of the “eldest daughter” is shaped and what challenges they face, the author conducted interviews and observations, documenting the life stories of more than a dozen eldest daughters from different generations and social classes.

These stories reveal the roles that “daughters” and “women” play in contemporary Taiwanese families. They expose the seemingly natural expectations that give rise to the “eldest daughter syndrome,” where these women consistently become the ones who overextend themselves—both at home and at work.