I have one sibling. He's about a year and a half younger than me. When we were younger, I was the dominant older sister. Pierced his ear. Made him eat goop. As we've gotten older, the roles between us have shifted. We give each other advice. We listen to each other. He is my equal now and we rarely fall into those old roles. (Okay, I know more than he does, I do, I do, na-na-na-boo-boo.).
Jeffrey Kluger's new book, The Sibling Effect: What the Bonds Among Brothers and Sisters Reveal About Us, and a whole lot of research on siblings, show that our birth orders do have more weight in our lives than, say, horoscopes. Says Kluger in an interview on NPR's Leonard Lopate show:
"There's a certain amount of lock in... You can't change history, you can't change the present things like birth order patterns... those things are fairly well fixed up to a point, when people get out of the house and once you get out of the house that history stays with you, sort of like a programming......And it is essentially, very broadly, true that firstborns will be the most successful. They will be the ones who earn the most. They will be the ones who are most loyal to the family, most driven to achieve in traditional ways.
They will also be the tallest, even if it's only by a few centimeters, and they tend to have higher IQs by about three points over the second-born."
Am I the tallest? No. Earn more? No. The smartest? No. But our smarts are different. My brother is more street smart. Me, more book smart. Does that put us in a mold? Maybe so.
What I find most interesting about this isn't really about my role in my family with my brother, but the role that I had during the time my father was remarried and I gained two new people in my family: a stepmother and a stepsister. Stepsister (let's call her Wanda because, why not?) was two years older and was an only child. Wanda lived with my father (I lived with my mother) and I visited there every other weekend.
This was a problem for a few reasons.
1. Wanda had always been the one and only focus in her family. She now had to share focus.
2. Wanda didn't know that I was the older sister. Age took back seat to birth order. She didn't get to boss around my little brother. I did. She didn't get to boss me around because in my mind, I was the head sibling in charge.
3. I wasn't the middle child. And as everyone knows, the middle child is stuck in birth order hell. The middle child isn't the safe older one. Or the racy baby. You're in purgatory as the middle child, and since I had always been in charge of the sibling dynamic, my childhood self couldn't control those urges to break free of that middle child syndrome. Wanda, if you're reading this, don't blame me! Blame the 12 year old me!
4. Wanda got to live with my father, and for this I was (albeit unconsciously) jealous.
If we had better help transitioning to our roles, maybe I would have enjoyed having an "older" sister. In truth, there was one year when we were first blended where I looked up to her. She was a great artist. A confident girl. But once the power struggles between she and I began, they could never really be repaired.
Studies from the past three years show that birth order determines IQ and our personality traits. If this is so, then how do sibling rivalries shake out in stepfamilies when birth order becomes an issue? What about blended families? My daughter is the baby of the family. My son is the oldest. That's in OUR house. My son is an only child in his father's house because his father doesn't have any other children, right? Or am I wrong? I know Jake is connected to his sister outside of our house--it's not that she stops existing when he's away from her--but the dynamic is entirely different. At his father's, he doesn't have to share. He can have more adult conversations because there's not another child in the house demanding we get down to toddler level.
Look, I'm not saying any of this is good or bad. I'm simply fascinated by it--and more, I'm interested in how it forms us as a person for the rest of our lives. If children in blended families have both siblings, steps, halves, etc. then their birth order changes... constantly?
Thoughts?
Follow Hayley Krischer on Twitter: www.twitter.com/hayleykrischer
Sam Barondes, M.D.: Making Sense Of People: Decoding The Mysteries Of Personality
"the power struggles between she and I began..." Between her and me!!!! "She" and "I" are subject pronouns, not object pronouns. In this case, we are looking for the object of a preposition, "between." You would, not, for instance, say "John gave the ball to I," or "The bee was on she."
Absolutely nothing.
What is being discussed is development based upon status and role within a familial group.
I believe more in environment, parenting and DNA. Although I also believe people can change of their own free motivated will if they are enlightened enough. Most people don't live a life of enlightenment but rather experience moments peppered through their lives with deep clarity. Facing reality without prejudice, malice or connotation takes selfaware courage. Few people want to know the truth it might mean they'll have to live with it or the challenge of changing. They'd willingly take the blue pill.
I was a daydreamer as a boy. I was content to fantasize and watch butterflies flicker above me while I lay motionless on a fallen tree. My imagination now is full throttle. I analyze things. I observe for a long time and read. My older sister reacts.
I still observe and daydream but now I can use it as a tool, a toy and a skill. I can apply it. I have spent a life time applying it to understanding who I am. I'm not happier than those who don't but I'm much more conscious about my choices than
I think these and many more factors are part of the equation. To put it simply to "birth order" almost makes it sound genetic or some side affect of a new vs. used uteris, as though the mother's body knows this is to be the first, middle or last child and injects special hormones. I think its extremely complex and probably more due to society at the time the child grows up than anything else.
Just my 2 cents. Oh and I'm the youngest of 4 ;)
The bird at the top of the pecking order will have first access to water, food, the best roosting place and so on. The bird at the bottom of the pecking order has the least ‘rights' in the flock and will usually be the last to the food and will ‘skirt' around food that is scattered for them, nipping in to grab a beak full when possible
I think personality is a combination of nature and nurture, and blended families and step families are changing the overall dynamic of how people, both adults and children, interact with each other.
I'm a good example of this. I'm the oldest, youngest, and only child in my family. According to popular psychology I'm a leader, follower, caregiver, selfish brat, spoiled, ignored, relied upon, doted upon, the "mother", the "crone", simple, difficult, intelligent, and missing a few IQ points.
I think I'll go back to relying on my horoscope to predict my future.
When I married my husband, I had one child and he had custody of one of his two. My daughter went from being the only to the youngest, except when my step-son lived with us, then she was the middle. When we had our first child together, the step-daughter had already gone back to her mom's - so my first daughter became the oldest, not the youngest. Then, a few years later, the youngest became the middle - in our house, but the 4th of 5 total. (If your head is spinning, that's okay, it happens to us too!)
Our youngest is taller than any of her sisters or her brother (we don't do steps and halfs around here). She's also the most outgoing and the most athletic. The smartest is the 4th of the 5.
Looking at our kids, the classic "birth order" projections do not fit.
Oh - I'm also from a "blended family", my sister and I lived with our mom, the two oldest step-brothers lived with their dad, and the youngest lived with his mom and my dad. Yeah - we kind of fit the typical birth order expectations, but only if you put us all together. I'm the middle, the peacemaker.