OLDER, MIDDLE OR YOUNGEST?

Madeleine Thompson - 19 Apr 15

I discovered this week that the USA celebrates National Middle Child day every year on 12th August. I discovered this following my husband telling me one day on the way to work that it was Middle Child Day and that nobody cared (it took me a moment to get this joke).

So this led me to ‘research’ if such a thing existed. Excited to find out it does in the US (and penning my own petition for the people in charge on this side of the pond to have a UK Middle Child Day) I got to thinking about my own experiences of being a middle child, how my birth order has affected me and how it may or may not affect my children.

For those of you unaware of this ‘syndrome’ it is a theory first suggested by an Austrian psychoanalyst Dr Alfred Alder about how traits and experiences people have depend on the order in which they were born. So the theory suggests that first borns are the children who receive the greatest attention from their parents, the privileges, the excitement of ‘first’ experiences and are likely to be confident and high achievers.

Last-borns are considered to be the babies, who receive a lot of attention in a different way. Perhaps wrapped in cotton wool and given greater leeway and allowances in their behaviour because of their precious baby status. So in families of more than two children, this then leaves the middle children.

Between the older dominant sibling and younger baby sibling, middle children find themselves quietly sandwiched between the two and whilst logic suggests they should fight for their place and their parents’ attention, in actual fact they are often the quiet, measured, independent children who get on with things without fuss and are happy to have time alone.

If you hadn’t already guessed, I am a middle child. I sit in the middle of my older sister and younger brother, who were born three years apart. And I am quiet, shy, independent, measured, and quite happy to spend time by myself. So I guess I fit the bill. Am I’m not unhappy about that. For I am in good company. Bill Gates, Jennifer Lopez, Chris Hemsworth aka ‘Thor’ and Pippa Middleton are all middle children. And I married a middle child (who also has an older sister and a younger brother).

It is interesting considering birth order as I see my children morph from babies into toddlers, and I wonder what the effect of their birth order will have on them.

I have two children but they both arrived in a somewhat miracle way so we never gave any thought or planning to birth order before they arrived. Our daughter was born following three years of tests, prodding, treatments, drugs, and eventually IVF. Our son was born without any of the above but against the guidance of the professionals who told us we would never have a child without help. So we were blessed twice.

And as is the way in the life, we are often asked if we will have a third. Given our past experiences this isn’t a question we can confidently answer as we know what we are up against so for now I consider our family to be our two small people and their birth orders to be oldest and youngest.

So how do you measure the effect of birth order when they are so young? I tend to go by people’s reactions to them and of course recognising traits I saw in my own family as a child. People already draw comparisons between my daughter and my sister. They are both independent, confident, assertive, headstrong ladies. But within that my daughter also shares some of my middle traits – sometime shy, sometimes reserved, sometimes measured.

My son is still finding his feet as he enters Toddlerdom but by today’s reckoning he is a blend of middle child and baby. We are conscious not to treat them both as defined by the roles society places on them and hopefully we can keep this up but it will be interesting to see in the future to see how it pans out. And interesting to see how they view their place in the family.

Ultimately, it is for my husband and I to look after them both without judgement or prejudice and without letting their birth order affect how we view them. Although maybe that is easier said than done. I wonder how much we as parents naturally give more responsibility to the oldest and mollycoddle the youngest, even when we don’t know we’re doing it. Thus perpetuating the birth-order stereotypes.

If Dr Alfred Alder was right, and our birth order affects our behaviour, then is that one more thing we parents should be on the lookout for? Although actually, scratch that… I’d hate to add another thing to the long list of dos and don’ts… and what’s wrong with being a typical older / middle / or youngest child anyway? Surely all have their perks.

Motherhood is different for all of us… if you’d like to share your thoughts, why not join our Network & start posting?

Madeleine Thompson

I am mum to my little chicks, Aisha, 6 and Abel, 4. Originally from Yorkshire, UK, I now live in a little town in the North West. By day, I work for myself as a freelance PA. By night, I indulge my passion for writing.

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