Spring Break
A Family Affair
Lauren Kawam
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First is the worst, second is the best, third is the one with the treasure chest.
Most are familiar with this silly rhyme sung during childhood – one of the many ideas that further the myth that the order you’re born in among your brother and sisters affects your personality. In this case that the first born child is bad, the middle is good and the last is rich.
What if these stereotypes are closer to the truth than some think?
Linda L. Dunlap, a birth-order theory expert and chair of psychology at Marist College in New York, suggests they are. She says that family dynamic during the formative growing years is very important to the way people act and react in their adult lives.
“Sibling relationships help explain why children in one family tend to be so different from one another,” Dunlap said. “Siblings differ from each other in terms of their personalities, talents and even troubles almost as much as do children who aren’t related at all.”
She also said that children who grow up under the same roof actually experience very different families.
“Take, for example, a family with three children: The oldest, perhaps a boy, experiences a family with a younger brother and sister,” she said. “The second child has an older brother and a baby sister. And the third child has two big brothers to deal with.”
“For each child, where he/she stands in the family’s hierarchy influences what he/she needs to do to win parental attention and approval, and what the other family members’ expectations of him are.”
I grew up the third child in a household with four women and one man. My mother was a stay-at-home mom while my dad worked a 9-to-5 job for most of my formative years. Being kid three of four had its perks and, I feel, really shaped the person I am today.
A study done earlier this year by Joy Wilson, a psychology professor at Missouri Western State University, said that overall, more positive traits were assigned to the oldest/only position with middle being next and the youngest being last.
The study was done with 50 participants who were randomly chosen college students of varying ages, both male and female.
They were asked to list five characteristics describing each of the three birth order positions – first, middle and last – and denote whether they were positive or negative traits.
When asked whether or not the characteristics listed for one’s own birth position described them, 28 out of 50 of the respondents agreed that they did.
What does this show? That more than half of people feel their birth order shaped who they are, too.
Older & Bolder
The eldest children are typically natural leaders and problem solvers, with strong organizational and reasoning skills, according to Dunlap.
Twenty-one of the first 23 American astronauts were firstborns, and they’re well represented among Rhodes scholars and university professors, according to a study by Kevin Leman, Ph.D., and author of The Birth Order Book: Why You Are the Way You Are.
Elisa, the eldest of my sisters, said that she always felt like our parents were a little bit harder on her.
“From the time I was in grade school, I felt like Mom and Dad expected a lot from me. And, I think it was because I was the first born. As time passed, they definitely got more lenient,” she said.
Firstborns are normally predicted as leading either practical lives and have high-paying executive jobs, or leading rebellious lives with unsteady and frequent jobs, Leman said.
Elisa, 23, is living in between these two worlds, in a sense, because she is a social worker as Child Protective Services, but also has four tattoos and multiple body piercings.
“I felt the urge to get a good job, but then I also felt pulled to do something that Mom and Dad wouldn’t necessarily approve of,” she said.
Leman, also a psychologist and well-known birth-order specialist, said firstborns tend to be “reliable, conscientious and perfectionists who don’t like surprises.”
“They are model children who have a strong need for approval from anyone in charge,” he said.
He also noted that only children are something he called “firstborns in triplicate.”
“They are even more responsible and even bigger perfectionists,” he said. “They usually get along better with people older than themselves.”
Dunlap said that the dynamics in step, blended, single and divorced families “add a whole other layer of complexity” that mustn’t be forgotten.
“Only-children get all the attention that a firstborn wants, but they still have all the pressure a firstborn gets,” she said. “It’s kind of difficult to cope with until the child finds him/herself.”
Stuck in the Middle
Middle children are great negotiators and peacemakers, with laid-back attitudes and a love of socializing, Dunlap said.
“They’re the most likely to move far from home once they grow up, partly because they’re seeking a clear identity after having spent their early years sandwiched between siblings,” she said.
Kristen, the second oldest sister, was the first to move out of the house and the first to get engaged.
At 21, she said she feels like she wanted to build a life with someone outside of the family.
“I love my sisters and my family, of course,” she said. “But, being the second born, there’s only so much time I wanted to spend around my other sisters before I felt like I had to live up to them and what they were doing.”
Middle children often feel like their older siblings get all the glory while their younger siblings escape all discipline, something Leman calls the “inconsistent paradox.”
He said that the product of the pressures coming from different directions can affect the middle children in very different ways. He also said he thinks this is the stem of the stereotypical middle-child-syndrome.
“I never really felt pressure from Mom and Dad to live up to the ideal they had for me, because I feel like they fostered us to self-motivate,” Kristen said. “But, I do kind of relate to this ‘inconsistent paradox’ idea.”
Middleborns are usually thought of as being teachers or taking on something with the arts and are notorious for being laid back.
Kristen is currently working on her veterinary tech degree, but through an online college, so she can “work at her own pace without the boundaries of a traditional university.”
Little Sister
Youngest born have the most experienced parents.
“However, they’re the least likely to be disciplined, perhaps because Mom and Dad are by then too laid back or worn down to freak over every infraction,” Dunlap said.
Alyson, the youngest sister at 18, said that getting into college was a challenge because she felt like if she didn’t, she would be “the failed sister who didn’t amount to anything unlike her older sisters.”
But, once, we, the older sisters, moved out, things changed.
“After they moved out, Mom and Dad pulled back and let me have a later curfew and an increased allowance,” she said. “And, of course I soaked that up, because I didn’t know if they were going to eventually realize what they were doing and stop.”
Babies of the family are social and outgoing, they are the most financially irresponsible of all birth orders, Leman explained.
Although, while lastborns may be charming, they also have the potential to be manipulative, spoiled or babied to the point of helplessness.
“I sometimes feel like even now, both Mom and Dad baby me to the point of helplessness, but I know their intentions are good,” Alyson said.
“The last born is the one who will probably still have a pet name although he’s 29 and has a master’s degree,” Leman said.
Me + Three
As for me, I never really gave into the whole middle-child-syndrome. I do remember my mother making sure to check in with me every so often and ask me if I felt like she paid attention to the other three more than me. She was very aware that having check-ins would shape and guide me as a person.
Experts say middle children feel “less defined” because of their position in the family. I always liked feeling “less defined” because I thought it meant I had less boundaries to restrict me. This, in turn, allowed me the freedom to explore the person I wanted to become.
Leman said that middle children can usually read people well, they are peacemakers who see all sides of a situation and they are independent and inventive.
“If a firstborn is a company’s CEO, the middle child is the entrepreneur,” he said.
Dunlap and Leman both agreed that there is obvious wiggle room for these birth order definitions and both said that there are variables that affect these general ideas.
“Parental marriage status, adoption and even moving can affect how birth order affects personality,” Leman said.
“Impressions are made when you’re young that are, for the most part, undeniable and unchangeable,” Dunlap said. “Birth order makes one of those lasting impressions that you will carry with you forever.”
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