I'm smarter than you--even the birth order book says so. Stop looking so glum and accept it.
I have one sibling. He’s about a year and a half younger than me. When we were younger, I was the dominant older sister. Peirced his ear. Told him he was adopted. Made him eat goop. All that shit. As we’ve gotten older, the roles between us have shifted. We give each other advice. We listen to each other. He is my equal now and we rarely fall into those old roles. (Okay, I know more than he does, I do, I do, na-na-na-boo-boo.).
Jeffrey Kluger’s new book, The Sibling Effect: What the Bonds Among Brothers and Sisters Reveal About Us, 
“There’s a certain amount of lock in… You can’t change history, you can’t change the present things like birth order patterns… those things are fairly well fixed up to a point, when people get out of the house and once you get out of the house that history stays with you, sort of like a programming…
…And it is essentially, very broadly, true that firstborns will be the most successful. They will be the ones who earn the most. They will be the ones who are most loyal to the family, most driven to achieve in traditional ways.
They will also be the tallest, even if it’s only by a few centimeters, and they tend to have higher IQs by about three points over the second-born.”
Am I the tallest? No. Earn more? No. The smartest? No. But our smarts are different. My brother is more street smart. Me, more book smart. Does that put us in a mold? Maybe so.
What I find most interesting about this isn’t really about my role in my family with my brother, but the role that I had during the time my father was remarried and I gained two new people in my family: a stepmother and a stepsister. Stepsister (let’s call her Wanda because, why not?) was two years older and was an only child. Wanda lived with my father (I lived with my mother) and visited there every other weekend.
This was a problem for a few reasons.
1. Wanda had always been the one and only focus in her family. She now had to share focus.
2. Wanda didn’t know that I was the older sister. Age took back seat to birth order. She didn’t get to boss around my little brother. I did. She didn’t get to boss me around because in my mind, I was the head bitch in charge.
3. I wasn’t the middle child. And as everyone knows, the middle child is stuck in birth order hell. (Unless you’re Catherine Salmon who swears the middle child holds a secret power. Hum…) The middle child isn’t the safe older one. Or the racy baby. You’re in purgatory as the middle child, and since I had always been in charge of the sibling dynamic, my childhood self couldn’t control those urges to break free of that middle child syndrome. Wanda, if you’re reading this, don’t blame me! Blame the 12 year old me!
If we had better help transitioning to our roles, maybe I would have enjoyed having an “older” sister. In truth, there was one year when we were first blended where I looked up to her. She was a great artist. A confident girl. But once the power struggles between she and I began, they could never really be repaired. Studies from the past three years show that birth order determines IQ and our personality traits.
How do sibling rivalries shake out in stepfamilies when birth order becomes an issue? What about blended families? My daughter is the baby of the family. My son is the oldest. That’s in OUR house. My son is an only child in his father’s house because his father doesn’t have any other children, right? Or am I wrong? I know Jake is connected to his sister outside of our house–it’s not that she stops existing when he’s away from her–but the dynamic is entirely different. At his father’s, he doesn’t have to share. He can have more adult conversations because there’s not another child in the house demanding we get down to toddler level.
Look, I’m not saying any of this is good or bad. I’m simply fascinated by it–and more, I’m interested in how it forms us as a person for the rest of our lives. If children in blended families have both siblings, steps, halves, etc. then their birth order changes… constantly?
Thoughts?
(Image: Michaela Rae)
Nicole CooleyNicole Cooley
September 27, 2011
Hayley,
Thanks for this–I can’t wait to read the book which I saw in the NY Times Book Review. As the oldest sister—and watching my girls as sisters–I am fascinated by it too. Also by only children and what that means. Your observations about birth order in blended families are great–Nicole
Hayley Krischer
September 27, 2011
Now I’m starting to obsess about birth order in relation to marriage. Andy is 3rd, but the middle boy child. I’m the oldest. What happens when birth orders get together? And what makes the match work depending on your personalities and what place you took in your family?
Lisa Kollberg
September 27, 2011
Hi Hayley! I am completely fascinated by birth order and have been for a long time. In terms of romantic relationships, Neil and I are supposedly a terrible match as we are both first borns…but almost 21 years later we have defied the birth order gods! We have just figured out different areas in our lives to dominate!!! I have also heard that people naturally gravitate or look to place themselves into their birth orders when we seek out partners, ie, Andy has an older sister and therefore is comfortable having a wife who is an older sister. You have a younger brother and are used to that dynamic and Andy is a younger brother etc…not a perfect theory but nonetheless interesting. Lisa
Hayley Krischer
September 27, 2011
Yes, totally see what you mean, except it’s kind of weird to think of us with our spouses in terms of sibling relationships-right?
Margaret
September 28, 2011
I get “edgy,” and I’ve enjoyed reading some of your work, but this piece not so much. It would still have been interesting without the adoption comment. I’m concerned that comments like this, however innocently intended, perpetuate negative stereoptypes.
Hayley Krischer
September 28, 2011
Margaret, I was about 7 years old when I told my brother he was adopted. It was cruel and insensitive — of course! I was a sibling who was attempting to convince my younger brother that the reality he knew was not real. It was me as a young kid, tormenting my younger brother for whatever reason trying to convince him that our parents were not his parents. God, it sounds awful now, and I remember getting in trouble for it at the time. I used the example to show how awful I was to my brother and that even though I teased him mercilessly about all sorts of things, that my role has changed. I’m no longer the “older” sister with the power to torment my “little” brother.
It had nothing to do with how I feel about children who are adopted or my views on parents who adopt children. I didn’t think that I would have insulted anyone by writing about my childhood experience, especially because it was such a tiny mention. If I did, my sincere, sincere apologies.
Margaret
October 13, 2011
Thank you, Hayley. I appreciate your thoughtful response. I’m not offended; I just wanted to make a point.
Scarlett
December 30, 2011
Very interesting article, Hayley. Your teasing about adoption was not offensive at all,if everyone was accepted to be politically correct there wouldn’t be any interesting people or interesting posts to read on the internet at all. Plus you sound kind and don’t seem like an offensive person.
Hayley Krischer
January 2, 2012
Thank you Scarlett. We all have our different feelings around certain topics, which I completely understand.