Take a number
I’m the youngest child in my family. We are three, and rarely have three people fit more perfectly into the stereotypes of oldest, middle and youngest children. Yes, number one is high achieving and always has been. And yes, she bossed us around unmercifully. Number two was the one who would close her door when upset, refuse to get in the middle of things, and generally tried to live below the radar.
And me? I was jumping around, demanding attention, screaming when I felt unappreciated.
This whole birth-order-as-determiner-of-personality idea took hold in the late 19th century. Not to denigrate the eager social science researchers of the time, but they did tend to make their observations fit their hypotheses (see racism).
So while most of us happily explain our quirks (and those of everyone else we know) by noting where we fall in the family, it's possible that we’re making the same mistake.
I’ve been rewatching Bridgerton in an attempt to allay the innumerable problems currently facing the world. (Efficacy yet to be revealed.) If you’re not in the know, the series (based on a string of books) follows the Bridgerton family through their travails of love and manners in the court of Queen Charlotte. (More or less the second half of the 18th century.)
The family is blessed with eight children, conveniently named alphabetically. And boy do they adhere to the birth order mythology. In this case, we have to ignore the three youngest, who get very little air time. This is in keeping with some of the very families I know; there are often two or three ‘groups’ of kids, and thus who is oldest and youngest gets a bit muddled.
The Bridgerton fam starts with Anthony, a humorless, cocksure paragon of Responsibility and Duty. (Don’t worry, even he finds someone to love.) Number five is Eloise, and a more perfect version of a youngest child would be hard to find. She’s a rebellious risk-taker who is constantly flouting convention and somehow getting away with it. The three in between take on various aspects of the middle child, from quietly doing their own thing while no one is looking to eyeing Anthony’s reign as a challenge.
As I look at more and more fictional families I can see these stereotypes at work. TV families often have three kids, as though the writers were giving themselves an easy framework upon which to hang their characters. They use the trope of the uber-responsible oldest, the overly smart or ridiculously dumb middle child, and a weirdo at the bottom of the pile. It just works.
Here’s one of my favorite quotes about birth order:
“a commenter was in disbelief that two adult youngest children could co-manage a household. “How does that even work?”
I was offended. We’re not subhuman, we’re just more fun than you!!
But then I look around at the run-down franchise operation that is my household, currently being co-run by two youngest children, and I think, hmm we might be……..slightly sub.”
(This is from the newsletter Everything Happened which you should absolutely be reading if you like spectacularly well-written, brutally honest takes on raising kids in America. Check it out here. It’s hilarious and poignant and everything in between.)
My former husband and I are also both youngest children and I’ve got to admit it was a challenging combination. We would have done better with a little Oldest Child Energy keeping us on the straight and narrow.
Our oldest has emerged from the experiment with her eldest-child scars thrumming and demanding action. She knows she’s the only one we could turn to in a Zombie Apocalypse level crisis. The other three of us just look at her with pity as we happily traipse along, enjoying ourselves and ignoring any potential ruin.
We know being the youngest is the best, and it’s hard to hide it from her.
But back to reality and research. It turns out that modern studies, using protocols that are widely accepted as better than mere anecdote, do not necessarily confirm our closely-held belief that birth order makes us who we are.
In 2019, Scientific American more or less debunked the idea, citing several studies. But Shankar Vedantam, the social scientist whose trading card I’d value over all others, reports that maybe it does; at least (or especially) when it comes to second sons behaving badly.
It’s tempting to stick to what we feel in our hearts, and we go doggedly on arguing for what seems true, despite data. That, of course, is how we end up with rich, well-educated people refusing to vaccinate their kids against deadly diseases. What can I say? Closely held belief dies hard. But when the data contradicts itself I guess we’re free to think what we want.
Look, I believe in science. And if in the end it reveals that this is all bunk, a fairy tale made real by the retelling, I’m willing to believe we’ve duped ourselves. And it can be kind of annoying to be pigeon-holed: I’m like this because I’m an Aries. I’m like this because I’m the youngest. I’m like this because I’m Gen X.
But it’s also hard to give up our cultural touchstones. And this one provides such perfect shorthand.
I like being the youngest, which to me means caring less about convention, doing what I want when the mood strikes me, and generally just trying to have a good time while keeping my mind wide open, damn the consequences.
But I don’t really care where you fall in your own family. If you want to join me in a frenzy of irresponsible joy I welcome you to the very best club, Youngest Children Behaving Recklessly.
OK, love you, bye!
Julia
Stay tuned for more about this scintillating topic. I’d be remiss if I didn’t explore the burning question: With so many people having only one or two kids, what on earth will we do without all those middle children holding it down? We need them!
Recommendation!
Prince Harry has a thing or two to say about birth order, and in his case it's hard to deny that it's made an enormous difference in his life. Imagine being nicknamed "the Spare". I love me some celebrity memoir, and Spare is a good one.
I'm a low-grade gossip monger, ad the Royals are such easy targets. Aside from some dishy tidbits, I found the teardown of the British media fascinating. As journalistic integrity crumbles around us, it shouldn't be surprising to learn about the dark guts of it playing out in a society based on class divisions. Still, it's a bit harrowing.
All in all this is a terrific read
HRH Harry was fortunate to team up with J.R. Moehringer, who wrote another fave memoir, The Tender Bar, about his life spent around the men who took over raising him in the wake of his actual father checking out.
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They Might Be Giants have a handle on this whole sibling thing, and so does this email. Forward it to your favorite family member.