October 28, 2024 • 16 mins
Are the classic birth order stereotypes of the responsible eldest, the overlooked middle child, and the free-spirited youngest really grounded in science—or are we just buying into myths?
Join us as we unpack the surprising research behind these family labels and discover what truly shapes your child’s personality, beyond their place in the sibling lineup.
In this episode:
- Birth order stereotypes
- What your sibling birth order does—and doesn’t—explain | VOX
- Birth Order Theory - Alfred Adler
- Gender roles & family dynamics
- Family size, age gaps, & unique circumstances
- Confirmation bias
- Personality traits & birth order
- Avoiding rigid labels
Supporting Autistic Children Course with Dr Justin Coulson & Dr Joey Lawrence
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
It's the Happy Families Podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
It's the podcast for the time poor parent who just
wants answers.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Now, Hello, and welcome to the Happy Families Podcast. It's
so good to have you along, Money and stops, Justin
Corson and who with my wife and mum to our
six kids, Kylie and miss Happy Families. Kylie. Is something
a little bit different today? You said that you wanted
to run the podcast. I'm not sure if I'm understanding
you correctly. You wanted to run the podcast. You said
you want the rains to kick things off, and all
(00:32):
I know is that you want quiz me on some stuff.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Well, I'm not even sure if we're going to get
through this. In the last thirty seconds, we've had three
different children come to the doors. So hard, How hard
is it?
Speaker 1 (00:42):
It's so so a few minutes of peace, please. I
think this is why people like major organizations have started
to say that work from home is not a thing
and it can't keep going. So many interruptions, My goodness. Anyway,
what do you want to talk about today?
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Birth order ideas are everywhere at the moment in my
social feeds, right right, So I wanted to talk to
you about whether or not there is actually any scientific
proof to birth orders.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Well, before we talk about birth order generally, let me
just quickly suggest that you can safely disregard I'd say
ninety percent, maybe ninety five, maybe ninety nine percent of
what shows up your social feeds. It's credibility, reliability. The
quality of information that you get on social media is
generally low. I know that there's more and more people
taking relationship and parenting advice on TikTok and Instagram. It
(01:29):
is true that there are some really smart people doing
some really good things there, so I want to be
supportive of that. But you kind of have to have
a PhD in the thing that you're interested in, so
that you know which of the one hundred percent is
the ninety pcent you should ignore and which of one
hundred percent is the tempercent that you should take on that.
Does that make sense?
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Just lost me.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
What I'm saying is most of it is rubbish, and
you've got to be really smart to know what's good
and what's not. That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
But the challenge is for the average person. I'm looking
at the fact that there's been a bajillion view is
right on something it's tracting, which.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Gives it credibility exactly. So you see something's had three
million views and you think, well, this must be really good,
And it might be really good, but it doesn't mean
it's right. It might just be really funny or really
clever or whatever, but not necessarily right.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Well, the general gist of birth order stereotypes the eldest.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Hang on a second before you go on, Is this
your general gist from what you've picked up on your
social media?
Speaker 2 (02:25):
No, not so much from social media. I think across
the board over the years, with its kind of an environment. Yeah,
over and over again. Eldest children they're the responsible, reliable ones. Yeah,
middle children. We call it middle children's syndrome for a reason.
They feel hard done by because they're kind of left
out in the in the middle of no man's lands.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
Are often spoken of as being very competitive, though I
was about to.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Say there is a different element to that as well.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
You've got to clamor for attention because the oldest and
the youngest always take.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
It, and then the third born or last born is
fun loving, attention seeking and one responsibility. They're the one
that gets away with everything becausemum and dad are so
tired by that point. They don't have rules like they
had for baby number one.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
And the otherest one off and also gets all of
the treats and all the goodies because Mum and Dad
have gotten themselves into a financial position that the oldest
kids never had. Right Like, the longer you live life, ideally,
the more established you become and there for the more
you can afford. I remember watching my youngest siblings go
on the best holidays ever.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Ahhuh.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
And I'm not going to complain and say I never
got to go on holidays with my family, but nothing
compared to what my my younger sibling's got. And even
in our family, I'm seeing that happen as well. Our
eldest daughter mid twenties, is watching what the youngest kids
are getting and going. They're doing pretty well, aren't they?
Speaker 2 (03:41):
And she makes sure everybody knows that's right. And I
think the only other thing that comes out is often
the youngest children have very little photographic evidence.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
Well again in our family, so so fishing. Now, our
eldest you did all this beautiful art and put together
this incredible photo album that you did a cross stitch
for wall with her birth date on it and a
picture of a baby sleeping and under a blanket ian.
It was just gorgeous. And you started a cross stitch
for Abby, our second born, three years later, which was
never completed. And I don't think any of our kids
(04:12):
have got photo albums other than Chanelle.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Hey, hey, hey, I'm throwing shade. Let's just be real. Chanelle,
our eldest, she got chill. She was too. It's not
like I did a grand job of her existence. And
I am doing my very best to catch up on
the other five children in the process.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
And so there's a whole lot of people who are
out there who are writing books about birth order and
getting paid big money to give birth order talks and
all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
It's a big deal and there's a huge market for it.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
There's a really big market, and people are a super responsive.
People really seem to I don't get caught up in it.
People really love the whole birth order thing.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
I think I know what you're going to say. What
your answer is based on your reactions already.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
By birth to say, based on the fact that we've
been married for twenty seven years.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
But is there actually any truth to birth order?
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Oh? So, Kinlie. The tricky thing here is that so
much of it feels right if.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
You were to ask me whether or not I fitted
the eldest child bracket.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
And there's a lot of stuff on social media at
the moment about eldest daughter syndrome, specifically because the eldest
daughter is the one from in terms of a distribution
of labor and expectation and being the responsive one because
they're the oldest. There's heaps of stuff that's been booming
for a few months now about the eldest daughter having
to carry the weight of the family.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Well, growing up, my mum specifically rode me really really
hard in learning how to take care of a home.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
I remember you're saying that you were making beds with
nice hospital tucks on the corners from like five or
six years of age.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Yeah, easily easily. My little sisters did not. When I
got married and left home, they literally would call me
almost in tears because they had no idea how much
of the low I had carried for all those years or.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
True eldest daughter syndrome. It must be a thing.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
So I'm just saying, so here's.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
What we know from a research point of view. It
feels right, but it's not really right. There are some
things that you're going to tick the boxes and go yeah, yeah, yeah, okay.
Birth order is a thing. This all came about from
the nineteen twenty is a guy called Alfred Adler, and
this is what we would call Adlerian psychology, and he
came up with this whole birth order thing, and really
(06:28):
it's just vexed. The evidence doesn't support it. I'll tell
you why. You've got issues around gender and gender roles.
So eldest daughters and eldest sons have different experiences. And
when you have boy girl boy or boy boy boy
or girl girl girl or whatever, that plays havoc with it.
The size of the gap between the kids has a
huge impact on whether or not these stereotypes fit. And
(06:51):
there's so much more. Like you have blended families. You
have families whether it's twins. You have families where there's
the tragedy of a death of a sibling. Let's say
the eldest child passes away. Does the second child now
become the eldest child and take on those attributes and characteristics?
I mean none, none of this really works. And then
you've got families like ours where you've got six kids.
(07:11):
So what happens when you get to number four and
number five? Which one is the middle child? When you've
got six children.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
Well it's two, three, four and five.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
They're all competitive. That makes so much sense. Yeah, right
now in Australia as well, there's real concern that there
are no more middle children at all, because the average
Australian woman is presently having one point five children.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
I don't understand that mass, but anyway.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
Well, on average, I mean, nobody's really having one five
children obviously, but when you have fewer children, that means
most families today are only having one child or two children.
And it's amazing, especially when I'm doing talks in inner
city schools and in corporations for people who are working
in their sort of more high powered jobs.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Well, it's one way to get rid of sibling rather,
or isn't it.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Just don't have siblings. But increasingly I'm meeting people who
are stressed out and worried and hot housing their one child.
And maybe some of you right now are listening to
the podcast and thinking, oh my goodness, that's me. He's
talking about me. He's throwing shade at me. Maybe because
we're investing so much in our one or in our two,
but middle children are literally in some suburbs of Australia
(08:21):
are literally becoming a thing of the past, which I
think is really astonishing. So the whole Adlerian birth order
conversation is potentially becoming less relevant than ever. Kylie, my
impolite version of this is that while some families might
experience some of this with birth order, it's basically a
lot of rubbish. The evidence is really shaky at best,
and so I get really concerned when people are out
(08:44):
there trumpeting this stuff and making money off it, because
it's just just rubbish. Like so that sounds really harsh,
But the evidence isn't there to support it. The evidence
just isn't there to support it. Some of it rings true,
but the evidence isn't there.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
I want to say, really really, because it's just so accepted.
But when I look at the experiences that we're having
within our family just alone, let alone our friends' families,
I don't see the evidence. I remember a long time
ago you telling me that I could read my star
signs and I would find correlation in my life on
(09:25):
a daily basis. There would be some truth in there
that would marry. And I think that we see that.
I look at our eldest daughter, and she is ridiculously responsible.
She's the first one to jump in.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
But she's also in her mid twenties, and all of
her sisters are they're in their teeth. Well, there's a
couple in their early twenties, but they're still living at home.
She's married, like, she's at a totally different point in
her life, which is much more likely to explain what's
going on.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
And that's what I was going to say. It is
a maturity thing. And you think about any other relationship
where you're dealing with somebody who's ten years older than
you or whatever. You often will deflect to them because
of senior already an age. Often not always the case.
But I just think as our children, as we've watched
subsequent children age and grow and mature, they're taking on
(10:11):
responsibilities that they wouldn't have done five years ago because
they're matured.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
And that's the thing. So Chanella aged out of the system,
and Abby became the big sister, and then Abby aged out,
and Ella did, and now Annie has and we're watching
Lily mature into that as well as Annie's getting close
to finishing her schooling and moving on with her life.
So I would argue that much of this is about
maturity and losery correlations, Kylie. There are some studies that
(10:38):
do indicate that birth order has an impact on some
things like higher IQ. I just want to put this
out there in bright, flashing lves because I want to
emphasize I am an eldest child. I don't know what
happened to me there, and you are also. When it
as child and eldest kids do have a slightly higher
IQ compared to their siblings, they are known as being
more intelligent.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Again, I can only go on the experiences we've had,
But when I think about parenting our eldest child.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
I'm not actually kidding. The research does show that.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Yeah, I know. And when I think about that, I
think about how much more uninterrupted time she had with me.
It's not that she got more time with me. She
got uninterrupted time with me. She didn't have to share
me with anybody else.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
It comes down to parental investment. I'm convinced of that.
It's all about parental investment. They're more likely eldest children
are more likely to stay at school longer. As well,
although the research around that is not particularly strong, but
it's sort of strong ishue.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
But do you think again, when you look at that
uninterrupted childhood experience, when we understand and know that the
first seven years of a child's life is foundational to
their growing they've been invested with so much because they're
not more competent, Yeah, that's got to play a part.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Yeah. Yeah. Also in terms of research, from a personality
point of view, there's no relationship between personality and birth order.
Like if you meet some body at a parent meet
and greet or at a picnic and you bumping into
somebody for the first time saying hi, I'm justin you're Kylie,
nice to meet you. You can't look at that person
and say, you know, I've been observing you for the
(12:10):
last four minutes and I'm pretty sure you're a middle child,
aren't you, or you're you're definitely a youngest, Like you
can't tell when you're working with somebody, You've got no
idea where they.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
You have had plenty of people tell me I'm an
eldest child.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
Must be that eldest eles daughter syndrome thing coming out
again anyway.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
So why do the ideas persist. Then, I mean, like
I said, this is going around like crazy at the moment.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
Yeah, A couple of things. First off, I think that
there's just that illusory correlation thing going on, and it's
in the water, it's in the ether, it's in the environment.
We've been talking about it for so many decades. It's
just one of those conversational topics that comes up. So
I would say that that's what's going on. Ultimately, what
we're not what we're talking about here is not a
birth order reality. I think it's just that family patterns
(12:51):
change and people mature. To me, that's the that's the
whole thing.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Earlier you talked about this whole idea of oldest daughter syndrome.
I actually haven't heard the words before.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Yeah, it's huge on social media, but I can relate. Yes, Yes,
as you have suggested, here's the thing. A bulk of
the caregiving, care taking, kin keeping. I don't know what
word you want to use, the work of keeping a
family together falls to women. That's the way that it
has been in most societies, across the generations, across time,
(13:23):
across cultures, rightly or wrongly, that's the way that it
has been It's.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
Interesting you say that because from I guess a historical
point of view, with that patriarchal society, yea, I would
have thought that the eldest son would have played a
much bigger.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
Role provide and protect as opposed to doing the social
work provide and protect. So you read a book like
The Weirdest People in the World, you read something like guns,
germs and stilled basically any.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Really, no, no one's reading books.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
These are incredible books. Any any book that does major
work on the anthropological history of our culture and our species.
They all point in the same direction, like this is
not a politically loaded thing. It's simply the history of
the world in an unfiltered fashion. But if you look
at it, if an oldest daughter happens to have a
younger brother, research shows that the split of gendered expectations
(14:16):
is even stronger. We see older daughters take on more
housework than the little brothers. Even younger sisters will do
more housework than their older brothers. That's the world that
we live in, which is a really big concern here.
I think. I mean, we talk about I'm writing this
book about raising boys right now, and I'm really taken
by the idea that Richard Reeves highlights about how you
(14:36):
go from being a boy to or a man when
you start to contribute more than you take, and we
see boys as they're growing up. There's just a completely
gendered split when it comes to the division of labor
in the household, especially when it comes to kids and
their chores. It's absolutely fascinating. But again, this is less
about birth order and more about gender division of labor.
(14:57):
Now we're sort of stepping into a different area as well.
I guess the other reason that these ideas persist, Kyle,
is there's confirmation bias at play. So if you've been
consistently told that you're the responsible one, or the athletic one,
or the helpless one, or the musical one or the
funny one, it starts to become part of your identity.
But a second child or a later born child might
(15:17):
be more artistic or more funny or moor whatever, because
they've been exposed to more opportunities. Because, as we said,
parents have more financial stability as they have more kids
and as life goes on. So my app shot of
this is that birth order isn't destiny, and to make
sure of it, to make sure of it. As a parent.
What we need to spread the love around and spread
the responsibility around as well. And if someone tries to
sell your book about birth order, hold one of your
(15:38):
money and run. I'm really glad you took control of
the podcast today, Honey. That was fun.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
I love your sense of control.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
I like it. I like it when you're in control.
We should stop there. The Happy Family Podcast is back tomorrow.
Thanks so much for Justin Rulan from Bridge Media. He's
our producer and he makes the podcast sound great. If
you'd like more information about making your family happy, please
visit us at happy families dot com dot au. Oh
tomorrow tomorrow on the pod, Can't wait for this one
talking with Brett Campbell, the CEO of YUCA, the homeschooling
(16:10):
company that provides curricula to families who are trying to
pull their kids out of school and do it all
at home. Can't wait for that one.
It's the Happy Families Podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
It's the podcast for the time poor parent who just
wants answers.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Now, Hello, and welcome to the Happy Families Podcast. It's
so good to have you along, Money and stops, Justin
Corson and who with my wife and mum to our
six kids, Kylie and miss Happy Families. Kylie. Is something
a little bit different today? You said that you wanted
to run the podcast. I'm not sure if I'm understanding
you correctly. You wanted to run the podcast. You said
you want the rains to kick things off, and all
(00:32):
I know is that you want quiz me on some stuff.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Well, I'm not even sure if we're going to get
through this. In the last thirty seconds, we've had three
different children come to the doors. So hard, How hard
is it?
Speaker 1 (00:42):
It's so so a few minutes of peace, please. I
think this is why people like major organizations have started
to say that work from home is not a thing
and it can't keep going. So many interruptions, My goodness. Anyway,
what do you want to talk about today?
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Birth order ideas are everywhere at the moment in my
social feeds, right right, So I wanted to talk to
you about whether or not there is actually any scientific
proof to birth orders.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Well, before we talk about birth order generally, let me
just quickly suggest that you can safely disregard I'd say
ninety percent, maybe ninety five, maybe ninety nine percent of
what shows up your social feeds. It's credibility, reliability. The
quality of information that you get on social media is
generally low. I know that there's more and more people
taking relationship and parenting advice on TikTok and Instagram. It
(01:29):
is true that there are some really smart people doing
some really good things there, so I want to be
supportive of that. But you kind of have to have
a PhD in the thing that you're interested in, so
that you know which of the one hundred percent is
the ninety pcent you should ignore and which of one
hundred percent is the tempercent that you should take on that.
Does that make sense?
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Just lost me.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
What I'm saying is most of it is rubbish, and
you've got to be really smart to know what's good
and what's not. That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
But the challenge is for the average person. I'm looking
at the fact that there's been a bajillion view is
right on something it's tracting, which.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Gives it credibility exactly. So you see something's had three
million views and you think, well, this must be really good,
And it might be really good, but it doesn't mean
it's right. It might just be really funny or really
clever or whatever, but not necessarily right.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Well, the general gist of birth order stereotypes the eldest.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Hang on a second before you go on, Is this
your general gist from what you've picked up on your
social media?
Speaker 2 (02:25):
No, not so much from social media. I think across
the board over the years, with its kind of an environment. Yeah,
over and over again. Eldest children they're the responsible, reliable ones. Yeah,
middle children. We call it middle children's syndrome for a reason.
They feel hard done by because they're kind of left
out in the in the middle of no man's lands.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
Are often spoken of as being very competitive, though I
was about to.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Say there is a different element to that as well.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
You've got to clamor for attention because the oldest and
the youngest always take.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
It, and then the third born or last born is
fun loving, attention seeking and one responsibility. They're the one
that gets away with everything becausemum and dad are so
tired by that point. They don't have rules like they
had for baby number one.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
And the otherest one off and also gets all of
the treats and all the goodies because Mum and Dad
have gotten themselves into a financial position that the oldest
kids never had. Right Like, the longer you live life, ideally,
the more established you become and there for the more
you can afford. I remember watching my youngest siblings go
on the best holidays ever.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Ahhuh.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
And I'm not going to complain and say I never
got to go on holidays with my family, but nothing
compared to what my my younger sibling's got. And even
in our family, I'm seeing that happen as well. Our
eldest daughter mid twenties, is watching what the youngest kids
are getting and going. They're doing pretty well, aren't they?
Speaker 2 (03:41):
And she makes sure everybody knows that's right. And I
think the only other thing that comes out is often
the youngest children have very little photographic evidence.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
Well again in our family, so so fishing. Now, our
eldest you did all this beautiful art and put together
this incredible photo album that you did a cross stitch
for wall with her birth date on it and a
picture of a baby sleeping and under a blanket ian.
It was just gorgeous. And you started a cross stitch
for Abby, our second born, three years later, which was
never completed. And I don't think any of our kids
(04:12):
have got photo albums other than Chanelle.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Hey, hey, hey, I'm throwing shade. Let's just be real. Chanelle,
our eldest, she got chill. She was too. It's not
like I did a grand job of her existence. And
I am doing my very best to catch up on
the other five children in the process.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
And so there's a whole lot of people who are
out there who are writing books about birth order and
getting paid big money to give birth order talks and
all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
It's a big deal and there's a huge market for it.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
There's a really big market, and people are a super responsive.
People really seem to I don't get caught up in it.
People really love the whole birth order thing.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
I think I know what you're going to say. What
your answer is based on your reactions already.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
By birth to say, based on the fact that we've
been married for twenty seven years.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
But is there actually any truth to birth order?
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Oh? So, Kinlie. The tricky thing here is that so
much of it feels right if.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
You were to ask me whether or not I fitted
the eldest child bracket.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
And there's a lot of stuff on social media at
the moment about eldest daughter syndrome, specifically because the eldest
daughter is the one from in terms of a distribution
of labor and expectation and being the responsive one because
they're the oldest. There's heaps of stuff that's been booming
for a few months now about the eldest daughter having
to carry the weight of the family.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Well, growing up, my mum specifically rode me really really
hard in learning how to take care of a home.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
I remember you're saying that you were making beds with
nice hospital tucks on the corners from like five or
six years of age.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Yeah, easily easily. My little sisters did not. When I
got married and left home, they literally would call me
almost in tears because they had no idea how much
of the low I had carried for all those years or.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
True eldest daughter syndrome. It must be a thing.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
So I'm just saying, so here's.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
What we know from a research point of view. It
feels right, but it's not really right. There are some
things that you're going to tick the boxes and go yeah, yeah, yeah, okay.
Birth order is a thing. This all came about from
the nineteen twenty is a guy called Alfred Adler, and
this is what we would call Adlerian psychology, and he
came up with this whole birth order thing, and really
(06:28):
it's just vexed. The evidence doesn't support it. I'll tell
you why. You've got issues around gender and gender roles.
So eldest daughters and eldest sons have different experiences. And
when you have boy girl boy or boy boy boy
or girl girl girl or whatever, that plays havoc with it.
The size of the gap between the kids has a
huge impact on whether or not these stereotypes fit. And
(06:51):
there's so much more. Like you have blended families. You
have families whether it's twins. You have families where there's
the tragedy of a death of a sibling. Let's say
the eldest child passes away. Does the second child now
become the eldest child and take on those attributes and characteristics?
I mean none, none of this really works. And then
you've got families like ours where you've got six kids.
(07:11):
So what happens when you get to number four and
number five? Which one is the middle child? When you've
got six children.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
Well it's two, three, four and five.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
They're all competitive. That makes so much sense. Yeah, right
now in Australia as well, there's real concern that there
are no more middle children at all, because the average
Australian woman is presently having one point five children.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
I don't understand that mass, but anyway.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
Well, on average, I mean, nobody's really having one five
children obviously, but when you have fewer children, that means
most families today are only having one child or two children.
And it's amazing, especially when I'm doing talks in inner
city schools and in corporations for people who are working
in their sort of more high powered jobs.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Well, it's one way to get rid of sibling rather,
or isn't it.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Just don't have siblings. But increasingly I'm meeting people who
are stressed out and worried and hot housing their one child.
And maybe some of you right now are listening to
the podcast and thinking, oh my goodness, that's me. He's
talking about me. He's throwing shade at me. Maybe because
we're investing so much in our one or in our two,
but middle children are literally in some suburbs of Australia
(08:21):
are literally becoming a thing of the past, which I
think is really astonishing. So the whole Adlerian birth order
conversation is potentially becoming less relevant than ever. Kylie, my
impolite version of this is that while some families might
experience some of this with birth order, it's basically a
lot of rubbish. The evidence is really shaky at best,
and so I get really concerned when people are out
(08:44):
there trumpeting this stuff and making money off it, because
it's just just rubbish. Like so that sounds really harsh,
But the evidence isn't there to support it. The evidence
just isn't there to support it. Some of it rings true,
but the evidence isn't there.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
I want to say, really really, because it's just so accepted.
But when I look at the experiences that we're having
within our family just alone, let alone our friends' families,
I don't see the evidence. I remember a long time
ago you telling me that I could read my star
signs and I would find correlation in my life on
(09:25):
a daily basis. There would be some truth in there
that would marry. And I think that we see that.
I look at our eldest daughter, and she is ridiculously responsible.
She's the first one to jump in.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
But she's also in her mid twenties, and all of
her sisters are they're in their teeth. Well, there's a
couple in their early twenties, but they're still living at home.
She's married, like, she's at a totally different point in
her life, which is much more likely to explain what's
going on.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
And that's what I was going to say. It is
a maturity thing. And you think about any other relationship
where you're dealing with somebody who's ten years older than
you or whatever. You often will deflect to them because
of senior already an age. Often not always the case.
But I just think as our children, as we've watched
subsequent children age and grow and mature, they're taking on
(10:11):
responsibilities that they wouldn't have done five years ago because
they're matured.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
And that's the thing. So Chanella aged out of the system,
and Abby became the big sister, and then Abby aged out,
and Ella did, and now Annie has and we're watching
Lily mature into that as well as Annie's getting close
to finishing her schooling and moving on with her life.
So I would argue that much of this is about
maturity and losery correlations, Kylie. There are some studies that
(10:38):
do indicate that birth order has an impact on some
things like higher IQ. I just want to put this
out there in bright, flashing lves because I want to
emphasize I am an eldest child. I don't know what
happened to me there, and you are also. When it
as child and eldest kids do have a slightly higher
IQ compared to their siblings, they are known as being
more intelligent.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Again, I can only go on the experiences we've had,
But when I think about parenting our eldest child.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
I'm not actually kidding. The research does show that.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Yeah, I know. And when I think about that, I
think about how much more uninterrupted time she had with me.
It's not that she got more time with me. She
got uninterrupted time with me. She didn't have to share
me with anybody else.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
It comes down to parental investment. I'm convinced of that.
It's all about parental investment. They're more likely eldest children
are more likely to stay at school longer. As well,
although the research around that is not particularly strong, but
it's sort of strong ishue.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
But do you think again, when you look at that
uninterrupted childhood experience, when we understand and know that the
first seven years of a child's life is foundational to
their growing they've been invested with so much because they're
not more competent, Yeah, that's got to play a part.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Yeah. Yeah. Also in terms of research, from a personality
point of view, there's no relationship between personality and birth order.
Like if you meet some body at a parent meet
and greet or at a picnic and you bumping into
somebody for the first time saying hi, I'm justin you're Kylie,
nice to meet you. You can't look at that person
and say, you know, I've been observing you for the
(12:10):
last four minutes and I'm pretty sure you're a middle child,
aren't you, or you're you're definitely a youngest, Like you
can't tell when you're working with somebody, You've got no
idea where they.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
You have had plenty of people tell me I'm an
eldest child.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
Must be that eldest eles daughter syndrome thing coming out
again anyway.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
So why do the ideas persist. Then, I mean, like
I said, this is going around like crazy at the moment.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
Yeah, A couple of things. First off, I think that
there's just that illusory correlation thing going on, and it's
in the water, it's in the ether, it's in the environment.
We've been talking about it for so many decades. It's
just one of those conversational topics that comes up. So
I would say that that's what's going on. Ultimately, what
we're not what we're talking about here is not a
birth order reality. I think it's just that family patterns
(12:51):
change and people mature. To me, that's the that's the
whole thing.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Earlier you talked about this whole idea of oldest daughter syndrome.
I actually haven't heard the words before.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Yeah, it's huge on social media, but I can relate. Yes, Yes,
as you have suggested, here's the thing. A bulk of
the caregiving, care taking, kin keeping. I don't know what
word you want to use, the work of keeping a
family together falls to women. That's the way that it
has been in most societies, across the generations, across time,
(13:23):
across cultures, rightly or wrongly, that's the way that it
has been It's.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
Interesting you say that because from I guess a historical
point of view, with that patriarchal society, yea, I would
have thought that the eldest son would have played a
much bigger.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
Role provide and protect as opposed to doing the social
work provide and protect. So you read a book like
The Weirdest People in the World, you read something like guns,
germs and stilled basically any.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Really, no, no one's reading books.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
These are incredible books. Any any book that does major
work on the anthropological history of our culture and our species.
They all point in the same direction, like this is
not a politically loaded thing. It's simply the history of
the world in an unfiltered fashion. But if you look
at it, if an oldest daughter happens to have a
younger brother, research shows that the split of gendered expectations
(14:16):
is even stronger. We see older daughters take on more
housework than the little brothers. Even younger sisters will do
more housework than their older brothers. That's the world that
we live in, which is a really big concern here.
I think. I mean, we talk about I'm writing this
book about raising boys right now, and I'm really taken
by the idea that Richard Reeves highlights about how you
(14:36):
go from being a boy to or a man when
you start to contribute more than you take, and we
see boys as they're growing up. There's just a completely
gendered split when it comes to the division of labor
in the household, especially when it comes to kids and
their chores. It's absolutely fascinating. But again, this is less
about birth order and more about gender division of labor.
(14:57):
Now we're sort of stepping into a different area as well.
I guess the other reason that these ideas persist, Kyle,
is there's confirmation bias at play. So if you've been
consistently told that you're the responsible one, or the athletic one,
or the helpless one, or the musical one or the
funny one, it starts to become part of your identity.
But a second child or a later born child might
(15:17):
be more artistic or more funny or moor whatever, because
they've been exposed to more opportunities. Because, as we said,
parents have more financial stability as they have more kids
and as life goes on. So my app shot of
this is that birth order isn't destiny, and to make
sure of it, to make sure of it. As a parent.
What we need to spread the love around and spread
the responsibility around as well. And if someone tries to
sell your book about birth order, hold one of your
(15:38):
money and run. I'm really glad you took control of
the podcast today, Honey. That was fun.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
I love your sense of control.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
I like it. I like it when you're in control.
We should stop there. The Happy Family Podcast is back tomorrow.
Thanks so much for Justin Rulan from Bridge Media. He's
our producer and he makes the podcast sound great. If
you'd like more information about making your family happy, please
visit us at happy families dot com dot au. Oh
tomorrow tomorrow on the pod, Can't wait for this one
talking with Brett Campbell, the CEO of YUCA, the homeschooling
(16:10):
company that provides curricula to families who are trying to
pull their kids out of school and do it all
at home. Can't wait for that one.
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