Birth Order and You
Have you ever wondered if your birth order is responsible for some of your personality traits and behaviors? Birth order, referring to the order of you in relation to any siblings, has been widely studied as an influence on personality development. If you think about it, it makes sense why something as trivial as birth order could have such a strong impact on a person, as oldest, middle, youngest, and only children are all raised very differently.
Stereotypically, the oldest child may be expected to take on extra responsibilities such as caring for the younger kids or more chores around the house as they are more capable. They may be given more authority over their younger siblings to help out their parents, thus instilling in them from a young age that they can be leaders. Youngest children may find themselves on the other end of things, being given very little responsibility, as everyone else older than them can do everything they can do and more, and less freedom as they must listen to the people older than them. Only children may end up less socialized than children with siblings, causing them to demonstrate greater independence and self-reliance. Middle children are traditionally portrayed as being the last child on the minds of the parents, yet they may find themselves the “peacemaker” of the household.
While all of this sounds very oversimplified and cliche, there is a lot of research backing up these things. More than half of our country’s presidents have been oldest children. Thus, one could say that oldest children are more likely to be leaders and responsible from their upbringings. Middle children are, unfortunately, the most likely to end up with mental health disorders. There could be many reasons why to speculate about, but it is important to know so that parents can be sure to consciously reach out to all of their children more equally to alleviate this concern. Youngest children make up the majority of our entertainers and typically have the highest level of social skills among their siblings, as they even learn to talk and walk faster than their siblings due to having plenty of kids and adults around to teach them these things. Only children on average make more money than their peers, and make up quite a bit of business owners, perhaps due to their internal independence and being raised in an environment with mostly adult influences.
What does this mean for us as adults? Perhaps it is important to take a look at ourselves and think about how our childhoods led us to where we are now. Younger siblings may find that they matured faster, as they grew up playing with their older siblings and their friends, forcing them to act older than they were to “fit-in” better. Do we do the same things all of these years later that we learned so early on? What about only children, who likely had a lot more alone time than any other group. Are they more introverted as adults, or did they feel lonely as children, causing them to cling to socialization even more as kids and on into adulthood?
Everyone has a birth order, and it affects everyone differently depending on many different factors and coping mechanisms. If the age gap between siblings is larger, some people may be nothing like their birth order group because they were raised more similarly to a different group. If there were a lot of children, or multiples, or the kids were raised very close to their cousins or other family members their upbringing would be very different as well.
What does this mean for us as parents? Being aware of how differently we treat each of our children can allow these differences to be minimized. While some of the groups show positive traits being more prominent, it is important to be sure the benefits of instilling these in our children outweigh the negative risks of their opposites harming our children. Our oldest children will grow up to have tremendous leadership if we allow them to, yes, but what is the possible cost? Awarding them too much authority could cause them to develop feelings of superiority, causing them to become bullies as some studies suggest. In addition, relying on them for too much can cause them to feel overwhelmed and too “grown up” for their age, as they miss out on childhood things taking care of others.
Birth order is an extremely interesting psychological phenomenon to examine as everyone has one and everyone becomes so different because of them. Trends may exist within the groups, but that doesn’t mean we will always follow them as every person is unique. Do some research on the interaction of your birth order and personality and see what matches and what doesn’t, it could cause you to learn new things about yourself, your spouse, and your children!
Kyndal Sims
Birch Psychology
Resources
https://www.pnas.org/content/112/46/14224.short
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0092656615000525
https://www.parents.com/baby/development/social/birth-order-and-personality/
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-10-26/how-birth-order-can-influence-personality/7959170