We Know the Eldest Daughter Experience Is Real. Now What?

I’ve Heard More Stories Than I Can Count

Stories of young girls forced to play mother to others—even before they hit puberty.

Stories of being the one the family leans on—but never the one who gets to fall apart.

Of carrying the weight of a household, of culture, of expectation.

And yet, when I began building Ada Love, I kept wondering:

What stories haven’t been told yet?

The Problem Was Never “Proof”

Let me be clear: I didn’t start Ada Love to prove eldest daughters exist.
I am one. And everywhere I turn, I meet another.

In fact, because I’ve been hiring for different roles on my team, I’ve had the chance to meet dozens of “Adas” who responded to job posts—and, often unexpectedly, shared fragments of their own stories.

I’ve listened to these women not just as candidates, but as reflections. I’ve reviewed transcripts, underlined quotes, and noticed the patterns.

Without trying, we’ve already begun building an archive of what it means to be “the one who holds it all.”

So the question for me was never, “Do the stories exist?”

It was, “What do we do with them?”

From Auto-Pilot to Aha Moment

I was supposed to schedule research interviews last month. I’d even started blocking my calendar. Why? Because that’s what you do when you’re launching something new.

You talk to your “target market” to get real insight.
You design, then validate your concept.
You find hunt for that elusive signal of demand.
And when you find it, you build around that.

I’ve spent most of my career building and launching products, brands, and programs. Rapid discovery and experimentation—figuring out if you’ve got something people want as fast as possible—has always been the name of the game.

Or at least, that’s what I told myself.

But something didn’t sit right.

The closer I got to sending those calendar invites, the more it felt like I was falling into auto-pilot. Like I was applying the logic of Silicon Valley-style innovation to something much more sacred. Like I was rushing toward proof instead of pausing for truth.

So I stopped.

And in that pause, something important clicked.

The Scholar I Never Let Myself Become

I’ve always revered scholars.

There was a time—multiple times, actually—when I convinced myself I’d leave the world of tech startups behind, go back to school, and bury myself in research.

I imagined I’d study something like technology and the future of work—something meaningful, rigorous, related to my career but a little removed from the urgency of capitalism.

I imagined I’d find safety and depth there. A pace of thinking that wasn’t so extractive, or unapologetically driven by commercial logic. A place where I could ask harder, more critical questions—the kind that could shift something for the communities I care about.

But I never went.

Life kept pulling me into urgency, into building. And over time, I told myself that was the smarter choice. The more useful one. The one that paid the bills. (And preserved my mother's bragging rights.)

Still, I carry that tension.

It’s probably why, when I first imagined Ada Love as a research institute, I started researching other academic centers—trying to model us after them. I thought, maybe if we looked like them, we’d be taken seriously.

But here’s the truth I’m learning now:

We’re not trying to become an academic research lab. We’re becoming something else. Something that doesn’t yet have a name.

Research Doesn’t Have to Look Like Academia 😅 

Reaching for familiar markers of legitimacy didn’t just take me off track—it obscured what I already knew:

we’d already been doing research—we just hadn’t been calling it that.

Every conversation. Every comment. Every moment someone reads the Ada Love concept deck and whispers, “This is me.”

That’s insight.

That’s data.

That’s knowledge-making.

What we’re doing at Ada Love sits somewhere between research, storytelling, cultural memory, and soul retrieval.

We don’t need more data points.

We need new questions—the kind that unlock what hasn’t yet been said.

So Here’s What We’re Doing…

We’re launching a series of insight sprints—quick, question-led explorations to uncover the stories and truths still living in the margins.

We're not asking, “How hard is it to be the oldest daughter?” 
(or perpetuating the idea that being an eldest daughter is a syndrome)

We’re asking things like:

• What do people get wrong about your experience?

• What’s a story you’ve never told out loud—but still carry?

• When did you learn to swallow your needs—and what helped you spit them back out?

These aren’t just research questions. They’re conversation starters. They’re the beginning of new language, new rituals, and new ways of seeing ourselves.

And yes—what we learn will shape our content.

It will also shape our community design, our partnerships, our tools.

Because research, for me—for us, isn’t separate from the brand.

It is the brand.

Want to Be Part of This?

We're building a Research Collective—a constellation of scholars, researchers, and storytellers who want to explore the eldest daughter experience in all its global, cultural, and emotional nuance.

You don’t need to be part of a university to join us.
(But if you are—wonderful. We need you, too.)

We’re especially looking for folks working in or curious about:

• Narrative studies & oral history

• Diaspora & cultural studies

• Afrofeminist & de-colonial psychology

• Sociology of kinship and care

• Behavioral science

• Community-based research

• Media, design, and cultural criticism

• Black studies, African studies, and Latin American studies

• UX research or service design with an emotional core

Does this sound like you—or someone you know:

👉🏾 Register your interest here.

And please, forward this to those for whom this initiative might resonate.

What We're Building

Ada Love’s Research Collective will focus on:

• Surfacing under-told truths

• Supporting community-generated insight

• Creating tools, language, and stories that help eldest daughters reclaim themselves without losing their people

• Informing culturally specific care practices across communities, systems, and geographies

We’re not waiting for permission. We’re finding each other now.

The Ada Love Collective’s Research Manifesto

Share the manifesto.

Join the Collective.

Let’s make knowledge that heals.