Families are beautiful, amazing, and yet complicated organizations. Based solely on the foundation of blood and bond, all relations in a family come with their predetermined roles. You might see a very independent, hardworking head of a company and instinctively think that they might be the firstborns of a family. And when you come across demanding, adventurous youth somewhere, you are more likely to think of them as the youngest born of a family. While more rebellious, stubborn, and pessimistic people are to be thought of as the middleborns of a family.
How do we base our sibling assumptions?
Siblings are a group of people who are always ready to defend your back and also smack you on your face. There will be a few days when you will miss them and times when you will be barely able to suffer their existence. Though every person is unique and comes with his/her specific traits, there always seems to be an order portraying how siblings in a family will possibly behave.
According to Austrian psychotherapist Alfred Adler, and his 1930 study, all developmental issues in children arise from the universal rivalry of siblings. As firstborns of a family receive more attention, they grow up to be responsible, and in the constant search of perfectionism.
The middleborns of a family are more likely to be struggling with attention issues as their younger and older siblings overshadow them.
Hence, this leaves us with the most pampered and spoiled youngest born of a family that gets everything at their beck and call. While these factors impact the development of the siblings, Adler believed that other considerable factors like family size, sex of the siblings, the age gap in the siblings, and cultural influence mattered, too.
What present-day studies suggest?
Are you always tired of how your older sibling acts like the boss of the house? Well, they are not much at fault. A recent Swedish study suggests that with evolution and the instinct of existence, parents invest most love and attention in the older siblings. Hence, the firstborns of a family develop an attentive and bossy persona as the surrogate parents of their siblings, mimicking their parents themselves. So, don’t grudge your older sibling. All they are doing is trying to take care of you, while they also succeed majorly as holders of essential posts.
The middleborns of a family, as born later to their older sibling, are taken less care of because parents usually exhaust their resources on the older children. Hence, the middle children become rebellious and stubborn to gain as much attention as they can. Which again comes back to the oldest sibling, who will then try to make up for the reduced parental care.
Now, again we are left with the pampered children, which are the youngest born of a family. As parents are much older now and are most likely to have saved some money, spend their time and attention to more preferably take care of the “baby.” Growing with the constant attention of parents and envy of older siblings, the youngest siblings tend to be more demanding, and adventurous, due to lack of responsibility.
These studies can not be held valid in all cases, and differing personalities can not be subjected to birth order alone. As all people are unique, children can develop personalities of differing values. However, the case may be, the bittersweet rivalry of siblings always adds a beautiful dimension to families.
