Does it matter if you’re the firstborn, the middle child, the youngest or somewhere in between?
Where do you fall in the family birth order? Are you the eldest? The middle child? The youngest? Or are you an only child? Do you think your placement has affected your life and how your family sees and treats you?
In “Why Your Big Sister Resents You,” Catherine Pearson explores the question of whether birth order shapes who we are or not:
In a TikTok video that has been watched more than 6 million times, Kati Morton, a licensed marriage and family therapist in Santa Monica, Calif., lists signs that she says can be indicative of “eldest daughter syndrome.”
Among them: an intense feeling of familial responsibility, people-pleasing tendencies and resentment toward your siblings and parents.
On X, a viral post asks: “are u happy or are u the oldest sibling and also a girl.”
Firstborn daughters are having a moment in the spotlight, at least online, with memes and think pieces offering a sense of gratification to responsible, put-upon big sisters everywhere. But even mental health professionals like Ms. Morton — herself the youngest in her family — caution against putting too much stock in the psychology of sibling birth order, and the idea that it shapes personality or long-term outcomes.
“People will say, ‘It means everything!’ Other people will say, ‘There’s no proof,’” she said, noting that eldest daughter syndrome (which isn’t an actual mental health diagnosis) may have as much to do with gender norms as it does with birth order. “Everybody’s seeking to understand themselves, and to feel understood. And this is just another page in that book.”
The article examines what the research says about birth order:
The stereotypes are familiar to many of us: Firstborn children are reliable and high-achieving; middle children are sociable and rebellious (and overlooked); and youngest children are charming and manipulative.
Studies have indeed found ties between a person’s role in the family lineup and various outcomes, including educational attainment and I.Q. (though those scores are not necessarily reliable measures of intelligence), financial risk tolerance and even participation in dangerous sports. But many studies have focused on a single point in time, cautioned Rodica Damian, a social-personality psychologist at the University of Houston. That means older siblings may have appeared more responsible or even more intelligent simply because they were more mature than their siblings, she said, adding that the sample sizes in most birth order studies have also been relatively small.
In larger analyses, the link between birth order and personality traits appears much weaker. A 2015 study looking at more than 20,000 people in Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States found no link between birth order and personality characteristics — though the researchers did find evidence that older children have a slight advantage in I.Q. (So, eldest daughters, take your bragging rights where you can get them.)
Dr. Damian worked on a different large-scale study, also published in 2015, that included more than 370,000 high schoolers in the United States. It found slight differences in personality and intelligence, but the differences were so small, she said, that they were essentially meaningless. Dr. Damian did allow that cultural practices such as property or business inheritance (which may go to the firstborn) might affect how birth order influences family dynamics and sibling roles.
My students, read the entire article and then tell me:
How has birth order shaped who you are? What do you see as the burdens and benefits of being a child in your birth position?
If you’re an only child, how do you think not having siblings has shaped who you are? How might your personality be different if you had a brother or a sister? What in the article resonates most with your own experiences? Have you ever noticed patterns of behavior based on birth order in your own family? Ms. Pearson writes, “The stereotypes are familiar to many of us: Firstborn children are reliable and high-achieving; middle children are sociable and rebellious (and overlooked); and youngest children are charming and manipulative.” Do you think there is any truth to these stereotypes? Or are they meaningless generalizations — or even harmful?
The article describes the pitfalls of “eldest daughter syndrome.” Have you ever felt hemmed in or saddled by certain expectations because of your birth order? What would you like your siblings — and your parents — to know about what your particular position in the family is like? How much stock should we put into the psychology of birth order? Is it an illuminating way to understand our families and ourselves? Or too broad to describe or predict an individual’s personality?
In “Why Your Big Sister Resents You,” Catherine Pearson explores the question of whether birth order shapes who we are or not:
In a TikTok video that has been watched more than 6 million times, Kati Morton, a licensed marriage and family therapist in Santa Monica, Calif., lists signs that she says can be indicative of “eldest daughter syndrome.”
Among them: an intense feeling of familial responsibility, people-pleasing tendencies and resentment toward your siblings and parents.
On X, a viral post asks: “are u happy or are u the oldest sibling and also a girl.”
Firstborn daughters are having a moment in the spotlight, at least online, with memes and think pieces offering a sense of gratification to responsible, put-upon big sisters everywhere. But even mental health professionals like Ms. Morton — herself the youngest in her family — caution against putting too much stock in the psychology of sibling birth order, and the idea that it shapes personality or long-term outcomes.
“People will say, ‘It means everything!’ Other people will say, ‘There’s no proof,’” she said, noting that eldest daughter syndrome (which isn’t an actual mental health diagnosis) may have as much to do with gender norms as it does with birth order. “Everybody’s seeking to understand themselves, and to feel understood. And this is just another page in that book.”
The article examines what the research says about birth order:
The stereotypes are familiar to many of us: Firstborn children are reliable and high-achieving; middle children are sociable and rebellious (and overlooked); and youngest children are charming and manipulative.
Studies have indeed found ties between a person’s role in the family lineup and various outcomes, including educational attainment and I.Q. (though those scores are not necessarily reliable measures of intelligence), financial risk tolerance and even participation in dangerous sports. But many studies have focused on a single point in time, cautioned Rodica Damian, a social-personality psychologist at the University of Houston. That means older siblings may have appeared more responsible or even more intelligent simply because they were more mature than their siblings, she said, adding that the sample sizes in most birth order studies have also been relatively small.
In larger analyses, the link between birth order and personality traits appears much weaker. A 2015 study looking at more than 20,000 people in Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States found no link between birth order and personality characteristics — though the researchers did find evidence that older children have a slight advantage in I.Q. (So, eldest daughters, take your bragging rights where you can get them.)
Dr. Damian worked on a different large-scale study, also published in 2015, that included more than 370,000 high schoolers in the United States. It found slight differences in personality and intelligence, but the differences were so small, she said, that they were essentially meaningless. Dr. Damian did allow that cultural practices such as property or business inheritance (which may go to the firstborn) might affect how birth order influences family dynamics and sibling roles.
My students, read the entire article and then tell me:
How has birth order shaped who you are? What do you see as the burdens and benefits of being a child in your birth position?
If you’re an only child, how do you think not having siblings has shaped who you are? How might your personality be different if you had a brother or a sister? What in the article resonates most with your own experiences? Have you ever noticed patterns of behavior based on birth order in your own family? Ms. Pearson writes, “The stereotypes are familiar to many of us: Firstborn children are reliable and high-achieving; middle children are sociable and rebellious (and overlooked); and youngest children are charming and manipulative.” Do you think there is any truth to these stereotypes? Or are they meaningless generalizations — or even harmful?
The article describes the pitfalls of “eldest daughter syndrome.” Have you ever felt hemmed in or saddled by certain expectations because of your birth order? What would you like your siblings — and your parents — to know about what your particular position in the family is like? How much stock should we put into the psychology of birth order? Is it an illuminating way to understand our families and ourselves? Or too broad to describe or predict an individual’s personality?
