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Join me, Jess VanderWier, a registered psychotherapist, mom of three, and founder of Nurtured First, along with my husband Scott, as we dive deep into the stories of our friends, favourite celebrities, and influential figures.
In each episode, we skip the small talk and dive into vulnerable and honest conversations about topics like cycle breaking, trauma, race, mental health, parenting, sex, religion, postpartum, healing, and loss.
We are glad you are here.
PS: The name Robot Unicorn comes from our daughter. When we asked her what we should name the podcast, she confidently came up with this name because she loves robots, and she loves unicorns, so why not? There was something about the playfulness of the name, the confidence in her voice, and the fact that it represents that you can love two things at once that just felt right.
Welcome to Robot Unicorn, hosted by my parents, Jess and Scott.
I hope you enjoyed the episode.
Hi Jessica, how are you?
Good morning.
Good, how are you?
Great.
Really?
Great.
Yeah, wonderful.
Why?
We celebrated Canada Day yesterday, so I'm feeling spry, you know.
We had a day off in the middle of the week.
Yeah, that was kind of nice.
Yeah.
Pool day.
Spent the whole afternoon in the pool, which was nice.
Mm-hmm.
How are you doing?
I'm good.
I feel like I have a lot on my mind today.
Just a lot of things I'm working on and projects on the go.
Oh like related to work?
Yeah, related to work, yeah.
Just uh you know
Trying to write a book and uh That's not that hard is it?
Yeah.
We're very excited about the book, by the way.
Yeah
But just trying to write it's just uh takes up a lot of your thought space.
So I was excited to talk about a different topic and uh dive into this.
Yeah.
And I mean we never have a shortage of things we're trying to do.
So yeah
So today we're gonna talk about birth order.
It was brought up by a friend to me last week, so I kind of So you didn't even know that this was brought up to you.
All of a sudden this was just a a topic.
Like I don't remember us talking about this being a topic
Yeah.
It was brought up by a friend.
And I was like, yeah, you know what?
I've always thought of that, of doing that, but I keep forgetting that that I want to do an episode on it.
So
Today we're finally doing that episode.
And let me tell you, the research was very interesting, and my opinion on things has changed significantly.
Okay.
Yeah, Scott's been really excited about this, but also not telling me anything.
So I really don't know where this conversation's going today, but I'm excited to see what you have in store for us with this episode
Well, I feel like we've probably all heard the stereotypes of the oldest child being a certain way, the middle child
being another way, the youngest being s different, or only children being a certain way.
So it was kind of nice to dive into that.
And full disclosure, Jess and I are the best in the birth order, right?
We're the oldest, obviously
Yeah.
No, I'm just kidding.
It'll all become more clear as we go through it.
We're excited.
But full disclosure, we're both the oldest of three in both of our families.
It gives.
Does it?
Yeah.
Maybe it does.
Maybe it doesn't.
We'll find out.
We will find out.
So actually the first thing I wanted to ask, how much do you actually know about birth order?
Have you looked into any of the research before or
learned about any of this in school at all?
Yeah, so I'll say in school we learned about it a little bit and about four or five years ago I did my own kind of research on the topic.
So I'll tell you where I ended up with it and then you'll tell me if
the more recent research alliance with what I think.
So when I originally started doing my own research on birth order a bunch of years ago, I went in with
the idea that there's definitely like these clear roles in the family, right?
Like your traditional, like your oldest is your more responsible one.
Your middle maybe is a bit more sensitive or maybe a bit more
wild child kind of vibe.
And then your youngest is baby of the family, happy go lucky, kind of gets whatever they want, more extroverted.
So that's kind of what I went into it thinking
But then in my research those years ago, what I found was that there's actually not a lot of research to support the fact that the kids do play these roles.
And it's more about
how the parents parent each child differently and how each child relates to the parents kind of given their own experience with them.
parents.
And then that being said, so when I was trying to find research all those years ago, I wasn't finding research that to me really backed up that consistently there are these roles.
But that there are these stereotypes and that sometimes the kids do fit into the roles or we have these kind of preconceived notions about what roles the kids should fit into.
So that's kind of where I ended up and I don't know
I have no idea where you ended up, but So I would say what you've said there is partially true.
Okay.
Essentially the hypothesis I was trying to test here was there is an effect
So that was what I went in thinking that there is an effect based on birth order and it affects a child's personality.
Yeah.
But I'm again all this is based on
Not as children, but as adults.
So after they've kind of come out of it and they're living on their own.
So there's a personality effect, there's an intelligence effect.
And there's a life outcome and choices effect.
So like the things that they choose to do afterwards, there's effects in those three areas.
And
What you're talking about with how we parent, that is a significant factor.
That's probably the most significant factor outside of genetics in terms of personality.
Right.
So the method in which we parent seems to have the biggest effect on all of those outcomes in terms of personality, intelligence, and the life outcomes and choices.
Right, which makes total sense to me because you're gonna see those patterns, right?
Because with your first child, you're new, you're doing it for the first time, maybe you're more stressed out.
it makes sense that it's their birth order that 'cause they're the first, so you're learning it for the first time.
But also it has to do with the parenting, right?
Because you might parent your first child different.
Let's say if you have three like us, by the time the third one comes around, you're like, we've been here before, you know, these things aren't as big a deal.
Like you're just more relaxed.
So then of course that impacts the way that they act, right?
So I think that was also my interpretation of the research was the kids maybe fall into these categories because as parents you parent a little bit differently for each of the kids.
depending on the stages.
But at the same time, let's say families who have one kid and then maybe like a 10-year age gap and then they have another kid, it might look different.
Or if they have two kids and then a huge age gap and then two more kids, it might look different.
So it's not necessarily in that case, just specifically like
you're destined to have this result if you're a second child.
It really kind of depends on a lot of factors.
Yes.
So that is what my mind changed on.
I
went into this thinking it was a little more simple, I think, than it actually is.
And I can't remember what episode we talked about this, but this is again one of those situations where
I think there's hundreds, if not thousands, of variables that change or change how a child grows and develops.
into adulthood.
So this is again one of those situations because yeah, it's not only how we parent, so that is one thing.
It's also, let's say, in our family
What I was understanding at least is that we have to be a little more careful because we have same sex children
So there tends to be a bit more competition when you have, let's say, three kids that are all the same sex, versus if we had a boy in the middle and
Like it kind of that changes things.
What I came to the conclusion of is originally, I think it was Alfred Adler came up with this idea of
individual psychology, I think it was, where children are kind of fighting for the attention.
They're trying to show that they are valuable in the world.
And maybe that's an oversimplification of his theory.
And he created these
like stereotypes for children at different stages, whether it's firstborn, middleborn, later born, and then single children.
But most of that has been refuted.
Not all of it.
There are still some statistically significant results that I found, but it's so minor that in day-to-day life you wouldn't see it.
And I think
What I found was that a lot of the earlier research was, let's say, firstborn children were compared in family A to firstborn child in family B.
But that's not a great way of you can't compare two different families who have very different circumstances versus you can compare family A's firstborn versus their laterborn children to see what outcome differences are there later in life.
Right.
Yeah, and you really have to look long term.
Like if a study is only looking at them for two years, it's kind of hard to see is this actually gonna have a long term impact.
Honestly, it was so interesting though, because I thought there would be much bigger effects, but it sounds like there are some statistically significant effects of birth order.
And it's not necessarily just because of the order in which a child was born.
It's just we see that there's a relationship between firstborn children and the biggest thing was the career outcomes.
So firstborn children are typically or more likely to be in a position of CEO or managerial position, versus later born children are much more likely to
be self-employed and run their own businesses.
Interesting.
Which it was a pretty significant difference.
But overall, let's say with personality traits, the effect is basically nothing.
Like there is a tiny effect, but
in the grand scheme of things, when we see our children older, there's very little difference in per terms of personality.
Unless you control for like socioeconomic
Economic status.
The size of the family apparently makes a huge difference, so I don't know.
The problem with this topic is I feel like I'm not gonna do it justice.
Yeah, I think a lot of people think birth order and like I said, you think, okay, firstborn, you know, leader, rule follower, secondborn, wild child
Thirdborn, everybody loves happy like at least that's kind of what I thought when I went into it, right?
But yeah, there's so many factors, right?
That's assuming someone has three children
Right?
What if you have one?
What if you have two?
What if you have seven kids?
Like you can't just assume they're gonna fit into these boxes, right?
And of course your birth order in your own life is gonna have an impact, right?
I think you talk to anyone who's any
order in the family, right?
And they will talk about the way that that impacted them.
For ex for example, you know, I think about our youngest.
Like she assuming our two older girls go off to university, she will have years at home without her sisters there.
That has an impact on you, I know.
Yeah, the only one that won't is our middle child.
The only one that won't, yeah, is our middle child, right?
She will always have siblings there.
And then you think of being a middle child, right?
Like I think of our middle child.
She never had that one-on-one time with us.
And she was two when our baby was born.
So her toddler years were very different than our last born
child because our lastborn child, she's three and we don't have a baby.
We've never had a child who's three and not had a baby in the house.
So we can do things like lay with her longer to sleep, have longer bedtimes.
So we can't say birth order doesn't have an impact on you, but I think what you're trying to say is that it doesn't it's not like a neat and tidy box the way that it impacts you.
You can't just say you're Yeah, it's much too
Like I th I can't remember what episode we talked about this too, but as humans we want this very simple explanation for the things that we see and then we start looking for things that confirm that.
So we have confirmation bias.
We are looking for those things that confirm.
what we originally thought and then we think, oh yeah, this makes total sense.
When in reality the differences, the long-term or lasting effects are essentially
Nothing.
Yeah, and I thought that was funny because right off the top of this episode, I was like, yeah, we're giving firstborn children, right?
But I also we I've talked about this to you before.
I think in certain circumstances
you appear like your typical firstborn child, right?
You're talking about me.
You're a strong leader, you're independent, self-sufficient, you're the one that your siblings turn to, all of those things, right?
So in those ways, very much your your typical, stereotypical firstborn child.
But you also have another family, which would be your uncles and aunts, because you grew up at
your grandparents' house.
Yeah.
A lot of the time.
Yeah, I spent as a kid, most of my time I lived at my grandparents.
Okay.
So most of Scott's time as a child he lived at his grandparents.
And in that family, how many siblings?
Seven.
There's seven Well yeah, but when I was there
Five of them.
Like when I first started.
Yes.
And then very quickly after it was usually three.
Right.
So he also grew up in another family where there was
these older they're actually his aunts and uncles, but they're not that much older than him, right?
So they kind of acted as older siblings to you.
And when you're around that family
It's so interesting 'cause you kind of change and that's where I can see the baby of the family coming out, right?
Scott will like, you know, he's the one to make jokes.
He's the one to like everyone has a soft spot for him.
Like you can f
pretty much say anything and get away with it.
Everyone's laughing.
Yeah, my grandma will just like slap me on the arm.
Oh Scott.
Yeah, gr grandma will just slap Scott Scott, come on.
You know, but he can get away with anything in the way that you would see a stereotypical baby of the family.
So I think for you, actually it's very interesting because you hold kind of both of those roles and I think in a way that has
shaped who you are, right?
Because not only did you have younger siblings, but you also had these older, I mean aunts and uncles, but they felt more like siblings when you were a kid.
Right.
So I think it
That's why I'm saying like it definitely has an impact on us, but it's not always so simple as to just say, oh yeah, you're just an oldest, so you act like this.
Yeah, it's again the nature versus nurture discussion.
It's honestly both.
Certain things are slightly more weighted towards nurture, so how
You're raised in the situation that you grew up in or the situation that you are in.
But then other things are maybe not more heavily weighted, but
But they're more significantly impacted.
So personality apparently is quite significantly impacted based on genetics.
Mm-hmm.
That makes sense.
So I don't know.
I found this very interesting and I learned a new let's say term.
It's not a real term, but the idea of a zombie theory, which is a theory in science that doesn't die.
So the idea of birth order, really it should die.
It's far too complex to say, yes, there is this order and based on the order you're m much more likely to be this way.
Because one thing you didn't mention, but it's also
significant is older children are typically more mature.
So we think our oldest child is the most mature.
Yes.
But it's because they're the oldest.
Yep.
versus let's say our three-year-old is much more free-spirited, but she's also a preschooler toddler age, right?
Which when our oldest was at that age, if you really think back, was pretty much the exact same.
Oh yeah, you watch videos, they're the exact same.
But you everyone looks at our three year old and they're like, Oh, such a baby of the family, right?
But actually in reality
our oldest was the same when she was that age.
But they have very similar temperaments, I will say.
Right.
But that's potentially a personality or like that side of things, right?
Which again has less to do with birth order and more to do with
genetics and how Yeah that's what I'm trying to say, right?
Like I wonder how much of it is confirmation bias too.
Well that's what I'm trying to say is it is largely because of confirmation bias.
We even myself I'm realizing I'm thinking about all these different things that our kids do, and then I'm r now realizing, oh yeah, I'm just confirming what I already thought about
birth order.
Meanwhile, if I truly try and compare them at the same ages, they're not that drastically different, but because now our oldest is not that age anymore, we're kind of comparing
the maturity she's level she's at versus the maturity level our five year old and our three year old is at yeah and I think about the second child because they often get labeled, you know, wild child or whatever.
But often it's the same, it's exact same thing because you have an older child and then you have another baby and then they reach the toddler age and you're like they're crazy.
But actually they're just being a toddler the same way your oldest child was a toddler.
It's just your oldest child is older and more mature now.
And so you see the second child as being this wild second child.
And also to add on top of it, they have an older sibling, which your first child never had an older sibling.
So of course there's gonna be more tantrums, more fights about things
Because your older child, it was just then.
Yep.
So yeah, I think a lot of it just actually makes sense behaviorally.
And that's the thing again, there's so many different variables that go into it that simplifying it down to birth order, you can't do it
Do you think confirmation bias is potentially damaging to our children?
Like if we have these labels of first is, you know, rule follower, second wild child, third, happy go lucky, baby of the family.
Is there potential harm to having these biases?
I feel like you're the better person to answer this.
The way I would think about it is it can be damaging.
If you, let's say we label our oldest as the most mature and kind of the mini parent in the family and therefore parentify them and make them parent their siblings
and not allow them to do the things that kids their age should do.
And I think same with the other the later born children, if you were to kind of let them get away with anything because they're the babies, they're younger
Whether it's damaging or not, I don't know.
But it would be counterproductive to use birth order as a way to parent, unless you're gonna tr going to try and counteract that.
So now with the information I know, especially with
same gendered children.
There's potential for much more competition where they're gonna try and one up each other.
And I think it's important to
Make sure that you're parenting each unique child, but not based on the label of where they are in the birth order and what you expect that child should be like based on where they are in the birth order.
So our middle child
You don't want to make them the I think often they would be considered more of a peacemaker.
So they're trying to like make everyone happy and make sure that if someone's sad, they're the ones that are going to go and help them and
That's often what I found people expect.
And there's also like a stereotype for yeah, for the middle child, they're the peacemaker, but they're also the ones who are forgotten about.
I think there's like that stereotype too.
Higher levels of anxiety and everything because they're forgotten about.
Which
Honestly, the research doesn't suggest that that can't be true if you're assuming that if you parent them in the way that you say, oh, this is a middle child.
So or you forget you actually forget about them.
I see this damage happening a lot to the older children, right?
Because of parentification or Yeah, because of parentification.
Because we're like, oh, they're more mature.
Because it's exactly what you said.
Of course they're more mature.
They're the oldest.
Right?
But then we think, oh, they're more mature.
They love to help out with their siblings.
So they can always help me out.
They can be a mini parent
And I don't think it's a bad idea to give responsibility to all your children, right?
Especially age appropriate as they get older.
But I do see a lot of oldest children turning into these mini parents, especially when there's lots of kids in the family.
And I think we can
tell ourselves, oh, like they want to be like this.
You know, they're the oldest.
Of course they're more mature and responsible.
But we have to like I always I think about this a lot because I know our oldest, she'll do anything we ask, right?
Who she is
a rule of follower.
She does want to be helpful.
And I do think to myself, okay, when our youngest is this age, would I be asking her to help me with the same things?
You know, when our middle child is this age, will I have this same expectation on her?
I try and think about that so that I can ask her to do things that I think are fair for her to do
and not ask her to help me raise her little siblings because that's not her job, right?
Her job is to play and have fun and be eight and have some responsibilities, but not raising her siblings.
Yeah, I think what we're trying to say is not that you don't give your children responsibilities, but they have to be developmentally appropriate and, I don't know, reasonable
Yeah, and you wanna ask yourself, would I give this to all my kids or am I just giving it to them because they're the oldest?
That's something I think about a lot.
And same with our youngest.
I mean
She is a baby of our family and I recognize that sometimes I baby her a lot.
Well, and the r again, in the research it sh suggests that
Not only do parents baby the youngest, but the older siblings also do the same thing.
Yes.
Everyone babies our baby who's three.
Yeah, which again, yeah, it's not a real baby, but
But that does have an effect.
But in terms of, let's say, if you were to look at the legitimate studies of personality traits, the big five is considered the most legitimate.
the effects later in life are essentially nothing.
Null.
Well that's good.
That's a breath of fresh air for parents.
I find interesting, because if it's not really about personality, why do we all seem to recognize these birth order traits in our own families
Like if you look at your siblings and I look at my siblings, I feel like the birth order effects make sense.
So are we literally just seeing what we expect to see?
Is that just confirmation bias at work?
I feel like it's easy to have that confirmation bias, right?
Because so many kids carry so many traits.
Right?
Like I think about let's say our middle.
I could easily make
the oldest born traits work for her too.
She's a leader.
Yeah.
She's totally a leader.
She's a rule follower.
Yep.
She's a rule follower.
Whatever the ol
Oldest born traits are I could pretty much fit it to any of our kids.
So it's very easy to confirm and in your mind, right
I could also make the baby of the family traits work for a middle child.
Right.
So I think it's just the confirmation bias I think is so easy to have.
And I think a lot of the times it makes sense given their different stages of life
Because you're looking at one kid who is more mature and one kid who is younger.
So it makes sense.
Let's talk about your siblings then.
If you look at them as kids versus now, do you think those personality traits
line up or don't line up?
Or could you line up different traits for yourself?
Like that's what I'm trying to figure out because it I feel like you could kind of I could still see it, but maybe again that's just
To be honest with my siblings, so I'm the oldest and I have two younger brothers and as kids I could see these roles, right?
Like my youngest was the baby of the family, my middle brother is a middle brother, you know, I'm the oldest
But now I really do see us all on equal ground.
I've noticed that the older that we get.
Sure, we all have our unique temperaments.
But I do think that is more of like a temperament thing than a birth order thing.
We're all in our careers, we're all doing certain things with our lives, and I don't really see the birth order as such a profound difference.
Mm-hmm in who we are as people.
I think that's really different now that we are all established and have our own lives and our own kids and families.
So I to be honest, I was thinking about that as you're reading the research.
I'm like, yeah, that makes sense to me.
I think it like the playing field is kinda evened out.
But
That doesn't mean our birth order doesn't have an impact on us, right?
Like my youngest brother, he had to live at home for quite a few years with no siblings there, right?
That's gonna have an impact on you because me and my other brother were gone at school
I was the oldest.
I was the first to do everything.
Of course it's gonna have an impact on me too.
It's not a bad thing, but that your role in the sibling like
in the line of your siblings, of course it's gonna have an impact on just who you become.
Yeah, it's again the environment you grew up in, so that does have an effect.
But again what the research is suggesting is it
has very little effect on the actual on your personality at least.
So that's that's the first line of questioning was just based on personality.
And what I found is that and some of these studies were huge
like tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of people looked at to determine if there were any major differences between the siblings within a family.
And like there were a few minor ones, like oldest
tend to be very, very slightly more rule followers and less agreeable.
It's true for you.
I thought I was a baby with a family too.
Middle are slightly higher on agreeableness.
The latest born children are typically, again, very slightly higher on agreeableness.
But the differences were so minor that you wouldn't actually see it in everyday life.
Yeah.
And then only children were lower on agreeableness but higher on like conscientiousness.
But again the the
differences were so minor that essentially these huge studies said the effect is null.
Which I found very interesting because that's not what I expected at all.
Yeah, I think it's interesting too.
I think to me it makes sense that
You can't just blame everything on I'm a firstborn, I'm a secondborn, I'm a thirdborn.
It's more the way you were parented.
And we'll get into that later.
Yeah.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
Hey friends, so at pickup last week our daughter asked Scott a truly kind of tricky question in front of her younger siblings.
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So where does it matter?
So if they're where are the subtle effects?
Yeah.
So birth order might not make you rebel
But the research points to a small but real effect on intelligence, interestingly.
And again, it's on in huge studies.
So what's going on there do you think?
Are firstborns actually smarter?
Is it firstborns that are showing to be more intelligent?
I wonder if because I could see this happening with our own kids, like you pour a little bit more time and energy into t teaching your firstborn stuff.
But the more kids you have, the harder it is to pour that time and energy into things, and so you leave it maybe more up to teachers, or you read them less
books when they're kids, like our firstborn, we read her so many books.
Like I was reading her so many books every single day.
I was teaching her the alphabet.
I taught her how to sign, you know, all these things.
But by the time you have your third born, if you have three, you have two older kids
And so I'm definitely not doing the same amount of that with our thirdborn child as I did with our first.
So to me, if that has and we know that reading and teaching these things early on does impact
intelligence later on, right?
So to me that actually makes sense just given the time parents can spend and how that gets divided the more kids that you have.
Yes.
That's pretty much what I found.
But it was so minor.
It was like, I think it was 0.
1 standard deviations higher.
So it was, again, essentially you would never see any difference in real life.
with your kids.
And yet has largely to do with the fact that you spend a little bit more time with them.
They're the first, so especially when they're firstborn, you're spending more just one-on-one time with them, helping them develop
Apparently the biggest factors came down to the size of the family, but when that was controlled for socioeconomic status, it had to do with that.
So it's basically the amount of time and resources parents have to pour into their children.
So let's say our kids, like we have no problem getting them books, so bringing them to the library.
We don't have the extra stress of living in an area where like everyone is impoverished, they don't have enough food, like any of that where we are living.
And that has a huge impact on the level of intelligence and the the differences are far less when controlled for.
the socioeconomic status.
And that status is often a predictor of the size of families.
So it's like bigger families, the kids tend to score lower on IQ tests, but it seems like socioeconomic status has a huge impact on the size of families as well.
So usually impoverished families have bigger families.
So I just found that to be very interesting.
All this is to say, firstborns are in real life, they're the same.
All your kids will be
Pretty much exactly the same.
There'll be very little difference.
Again, it has has to do with how much effort and time you can put in to their education and
the resources that you have available for them to continue educating themselves.
Yeah, and I feel like also, I'm sure you'll get to this, but genetics play a role in that, neurodiversity plays a role in that, right?
But these studies were huge and they controlled for all of those things and it's essentially pretty much no difference.
There is like the slightest statistically significant difference firstborn children score
very slightly higher on IQ tests.
That doesn't necessarily make them smarter, but Okay, so let's get practical then.
Your job.
Is there any truth to the idea that firstborns are more likely to be CEOs and laterborns are more likely to be entrepreneurs?
So what skills do you think we're learning in our family roles if that's true?
Yeah, I guess it kinda comes down to what we were talking about before and parentification in the firstborn children, right?
So they might just have more experience leading because
I mean now even think about our daughter, right?
She's eight, but she has her five-year-old sister who's like does pretty well but still has her big moments and her three-year-old sister who's a three-year-old who has lots of tantrums, right?
So from a very young age, eight years old, you get used to dealing with conflict, navigating the sibling conflict, deciding when to pull back, deciding when to intervene, having to have that
strong loud voice that says, you can't come into my room and take my stuff.
Problem solving skills.
Like I feel like there's certain skills she has to have at this age that probably the other girls will get as they get older too.
That I could see
could help in a leadership position later on.
Right.
And I remember having to do the same thing when I was the oldest child.
You have your your two little brothers and they want things from you or they want to play and you want to play with your friends.
Like so you just have to learn some of those
skills.
So it makes sense to me that more of them might end up in a leadership position just because you're used to taking that role.
Yeah.
And I think don't quote me on this.
Although we're quoting it on the podcast.
Take this with a grain of salt.
But I think it was firstborns are three times more likely than average to be in those roles.
Very interesting.
And I can't remember what it was for
the later born children for being entrepreneurs and all that.
But it's like if you look at the average, that was the let's say the biggest effect that can be seen is the types of roles that are taken on
by adults based on their birth order.
Yeah, interesting.
Which yeah, honestly is very interesting.
And one other thing was that so later born children?
So that includes middle and youngest.
They are used to practicing more unconventional strategies to get their parents' attention.
So that is why they're more likely to s
let's say start their own business.
And when they are in the leadership positions, there's studies that show the CEOs that were later born are slightly more unconventional.
They're not rule followers.
They think outside of the box a little bit more.
Right, a little more creative.
A little more think outside the box because they probably yeah, they had to do that because they're like, I'm competing with all these other kids' attention.
So I gotta figure out creative ways to figure this out for my own for myself.
Again, all of this
I'm gonna reiterate.
Is in the the very large scale, but in general terms, you're not gonna see any difference.
That's how slight the differences are.
And for risk taking and creativity, the evidence is mixed and actually inconsistent.
So many large studies have found no effect on both of those.
So there's no clear pattern
linking a specific birth order with being more of a risk taker or more creative.
So like I said, there are some studies that show CEOs in those positions that are in different birth order positions, it makes a difference.
There are other studies that show
To me it makes a difference.
So it's that's why it's slow.
It's so slight.
So then I also looked at the family size, because I feel like that makes a difference.
The number of children, the age gaps, and the gender composition of families
And they're actually it it's a critical factor that can actually amplify, reduce, or even reverse any potential birth order effects that you would think of stereotypically.
So you can't generalize about birth order without actually considering the size of the family, the age gaps, and the gender of your children.
Because they make such a huge difference.
So tell me about the size of the family.
So the size of the family, it ends up diluting
parental resources, which includes time, money, attention.
Makes sense.
Right.
It becomes more pronounced in larger families, which can magnify the small intellectual advantage of
firstborns.
Because they're the first, they're usually getting the most resources.
So that's where that what I was saying before about firstborns tending to score higher on the IQ tests.
it is magnified in larger families.
So when it comes to intelligence, let's say there's a bigger gap
But then children from larger families tend to score in general tend to score higher on pro-social traits like agreeableness and honesty and humility, which
the research was suggesting is because they have to learn how to share more.
They have to learn how to cooperate more.
So they're learning some of the pro social skills versus getting as much time, money and attention.
in their education.
Right.
What effect do you think age gaps has?
I know you said something earlier.
Yeah, I think the age gap would have a big effect on I mean, I think on parenting.
I even think about
the subtle difference for us between our first two where there's a three-year age gap.
And so our oldest was three when we had a baby and
it felt decently manageable because sh we could talk to her, she understood things, we could ask her to help us out.
Go grab a diaper for your sister, whatever.
And she could do that.
She liked watching TV, which was helpful for us at the time, you know.
Versus when we had our third, our second daughter was just two.
Like she had just turned two.
And she has a more sensitive temperament.
But that transition was so, so, so much harder
Because she was in the thick of tantrum.
She couldn't understand things the same way.
She was really still at two, kind of a baby, like needed us a lot more.
And so I always look back on that and I'm like, oh, that was such a hard transition.
Cause now let's say when our final child turned two and three, she never had a sibling
Right?
There was like no baby.
So we could still lay with her to sleep.
We could have more mental space and energy for her tantrums because we didn't have someone else having tantrums too, you know, or a baby crying.
So I think in that way the age gap really impacts you because sometimes you have to grow up a lot quicker than your siblings, right?
Like I think for our second child, like she had to
Like get into a big bed 'cause the baby needed the crib.
Like all of these things, like there's ways she had to grow up quicker just because of the age gap
versus let's say even if we wanted another kid and we had them in two years, like that would be so different for our current youngest child, right?
So yeah, anyway, I just think the age gap impacts the parental capacity, the way that we can pour into our kids, the way they have to grow up quicker or not.
So to me, of course that that's gonna make a difference
And even one more thing I haven't noted, but even in the sibling relationship, right?
Like think of let's say your dad and his youngest sibling
how they're like eighteen years apart or something like that.
I think it was n either seventeen or nineteen years difference.
Right.
So then immediately if you're seventeen years
Somewhere in the middle of the year.
I think it was 19, actually.
19 years apart, your relationship is going to be completely different with your sibling.
Like of course it makes sense that you'd take on maybe more of a parental role or you'd appear more like an uncle or something like that than like a a sibling, than if you're 18 months apart, right?
Like so of course it makes a difference
Yeah.
Well I mostly so yes, that is correct.
The larger an age gap is, the more it effectively restarts the birth order clock.
Yeah.
And that means that there's, again, those slight variations with everyone after.
So if there's a huge difference between your first and secondborn and then you have two more after that, the first and the secondborn are more likely to have
slightly more similar traits.
And that's partly because your oldest, yeah, again, is uh more of like a peer
Right.
And kind of a mentor for them versus that typical sibling where I mean our age gap's three and two years.
That's
I think a pretty typical age gap.
Yeah.
So you'll still see those effects, but the larger that age gap becomes, the more it kind of shapes the effects of the
Yeah, and that's not to say it's bad.
Like I I know lots of people who have, let's say, a seven-year age gap between their kids.
They just needed that time or there's fertility issues or whatever it is.
Yep.
I think it can be great
Right?
It is not to say it's bad or good.
It's just it has different impacts.
Honestly, there's this is again one of those topics where I feel like you could go into each individual piece of it.
Yeah.
In the end, it's important to know that it's so complex, it doesn't boil down to birth order.
Yeah.
Because I was even seeing some research which I didn't include in here, but
children born at different stages, so at in different orders, after or before a miscarriage happened in the family makes a huge difference as well.
Or not a huge difference, but it changes
things slightly for the children as well.
There's so many different variables that go into it.
You could say I had two kids and then a parent passed away and then I had to deal with that trauma and then I had another kid so the way I treated them was different because I
Like and that's where I say it comes so or like you lost your job.
Like so you thought having the third kid was gonna be easier, but then you lost your job right before you had your third kid.
So now
finances are an issue, right?
So then they they're not the typical third kid because you're so stressed out.
It that's where I really do think it comes so much more down to how are we uniquely parenting each of our kids versus where do they fall in the birth orbit.
Right.
So summary, the age gap does make a difference, a very slight difference.
Yeah.
It can turn the child that is born after that big gap to take on different roles.
then maybe they otherwise would have.
What about gender?
Do you think that has any I mean I've already said that it does.
Yeah, you've already said that.
So why don't you tell me what you found?
Uh
So a gender mix of siblings can override the birth rank.
Mm-hmm.
So you can kind of disregard the birth rank because of it.
Being the only boy among sisters or vice versa.
creates a unique status that has a greater impact than the simple numerical order that you're in the family.
Yeah, I've noticed that in my own life, right?
Because I'm the only girl in my family.
And so I feel like that impacts me, right?
I have no other females to be compared to.
I'm the only girl.
So when there's things that like
traditional girly things that my mom's doing.
I'm the only one going, right?
And I think about that often with our three girls.
Like if there's something I'm doing, like let's say I'm gonna go get my nails done.
Now that's not to say I wouldn't invite a boy to go get his nails done with me too, right?
But
All three of them wanna come, you know, or I want I want to go and try on dresses for some sort of event.
All three of them are there.
They wanna do it.
Yep.
Right?
It's not like I can be like, okay, just you today
Like no, everyone wants everyone wants to do everything with me.
Whereas like I remember with my mom, that was special quality time we had together because that was just the two of us.
My brothers weren't interested in doing those things
So for sure, that makes a like such a difference.
I can't imagine and maybe I would have loved having a sister, I don't know.
But I can't imagine sharing all those moments.
Like my mom and I, I think, were able to d develop a bond and even now, you know, I'm still
Like she has my sisters-in-laws who she takes great care of and absolutely loves, but I'm still her only like daughter, right?
So it definitely just has an impact on the role that you play.
Yeah.
Yeah, but do you think like you're saying you developed a deeper bond with your mom because it was just the two of you, but do you think that the girls, if they're going to get their nails done with you or something like that, aren't still developing that deeper bond?
Oh I think they definitely are.
It's just different because
They're also bonding with each other too at the same time.
Yeah, because their sisters are gonna be part of those memories for them, right?
And you can tell me if you grew up with sisters, because I didn't, so I don't have this
to look back on.
I am very close with my brothers, I will say.
I'm very close with both of them.
But everyone I talked to who grew up with three girls is like, oh so nice for your girls.
Oh I can't imagine life without my sister.
Like, oh, my sister's like my best friend, and we're so close.
We did everything together as kids.
Like it just seems like no matter who I talked to, who grew up with three girls in their families, like, oh, it's so special for your kids.
Oh really
And so that's interesting to me.
I'm very close with my brothers, so I don't think it's it's like you can't have that relationship.
Like my brothers are still the people I call if I have a hard time.
Like that
And their spouses, right?
Like that's who we turn to.
So maybe it is the same.
But it just seems like people have very special bonds with sisters.
No, again it the research suggests that it is different.
Okay, interesting.
Not in a bad or good way necessarily
But it can increase the competition and make it more intense between same-sex siblings.
I've heard that as well.
So there can potentially be that because
We have three girls.
It would be very easy to compare each of them to each other as they're getting older and say, well, this one did this, and you need to
Step it up like you could very easily do that.
Absolutely.
I could see that even Even internally they could do that.
Yeah, let's say they're both
They're all similar ages.
So as soon as they get a little bit older, they'll probably be competing for the same sports teams or like doing the same kind of stuff in that way.
Right.
So I could see how as they get older, even friends-wise, like that could be more of a struggle for them.
Yeah.
Okay, let's talk quickly about the middle child syndrome.
So is it a real phenomenon or is it just what happens when you're neither the trailblazer like the oldest nor the baby?
I think any child can experience what we think is the middle child syndrome.
I think it's actually more about being the child who doesn't have the highest needs at that moment in time.
Right.
So I think
A lot of middle children experience this because let's say they're older siblings in school for the first time, they're doing lots of things.
At school, they have extracurriculars, like they're kind of experiencing all these firsts
Your middle child, you've already been through all those first, so they're not as big of a deal with for you.
And then if you have three, your last child's like, this is the last time.
Yeah.
Well I can imagine you're gonna be so emotional with all of the last time for all these different things.
So and your youngest maybe just needs you like longer, whatever, for certain things.
So the middle child I can see it they can get forgotten.
But I've also seen how
I feel the same way sometimes towards our our baby of the family, right?
Where like the two older kids, they need things or they
You know, they have to go to camp or they have to go to school or they're doing a play, and the last child just comes along for the ride, and you're not giving that same special attention.
And I've seen the in our oldest where she's like, you care more about my sisters than you care about me because the two little ones need more time and attention.
So I personally don't think it's just the middle child, but I do think the more kids you have, the more mindful you have to be about
How is my attention being divided?
And is it equal?
And often it's not equal.
Is it fair?
Is there gonna be time when I'm able to spend time with this child who hasn't had my time and attention?
Yep
Like I did a post on this about the oldest child recently.
I had a lot of people saying they felt like I was shaming them.
It wasn't about shaming, it was about reminding ourselves.
Like I know for me, our oldest is very well behaved
She does her own thing and she's not always saying like, hey guys, you spend more time with my little sisters who are having big meltdowns than me.
Right.
So
It's our job as parents to figure that out.
Yeah, we have to figure that out.
So yeah, I don't think it's just the middle.
I think often it can be the middle
makes sense because your oldest doing things for the first time, your youngest is doing things for the last time.
Both are highly charged emotional things.
In the middle can feel like
Well, no one cared the first time I did this, you know, no one cared as much about my first day of school or my first time doing this sport or whatever, right?
So
I just think we have to be mindful of it.
We're gonna hurt all of our kids' feelings at some point, so we just want to be aware of where we're spending our time and energy.
Yeah.
I think that makes sense.
I wonder if
See, this is what I did not find in the research was if shorter age gaps amplify the effects of birth order more or not.
Right, 'cause if you think about you have three kids stacked one after the other within two years of each other each, if that makes a bigger difference or not, I don't know.
I have to maybe I'll have to do some follow-up
research on that.
Yeah, I would be curious.
Because I could foresee then if the age gap is not that big, so the developmental needs of all of them are not
so drastically different if you would be more likely to kind of forget about that middle child.
So let's say if you have your oldest and then
18 months later you have your middle and then a couple years later you have your youngest, which is we know people that have done it.
Pretty normal.
Yeah.
If in that situation the middle child is so close in age to both
that they actually are potentially more forgotten.
Yeah.
And I think you're kind of like you want them to grow up maybe a little quicker because you have a baby, right?
Although I will say I was thinking about this actually on the way in this morning
So our kids are in camp because it's the summer and we're working and they also like it.
But when our oldest went to camp for the first year, she was five.
Okay, so it's the same age as our middle child.
And I had this expectation, because she has aftercare at the camp, that she would be able to kind of stay the whole day and be fine when I picked her up.
Because I'm like, you're five now.
Like you should be fine to do that.
Right?
And now she really?
Yeah.
Well and I had a baby at home.
Oh true.
That's when I had our baby.
And
a toddler at home.
Actually I had a baby and a toddler at home.
So I needed her to go to camp for the whole day so that I was able to get some work done while taking care of the baby and the toddler.
Right?
Life was chaos.
And I would pick her up at the end of the day, every day.
So she'd be there nine to five and she'd have total meltdowns.
She'd lose her cool.
She was really struggling.
And I'd be like,
You're five.
Like what the heck?
Like I was in survival mode.
That was the hardest season of my entire life, right?
So there's grace there.
But today I'm dropping off
our five year old at camp and I'm like, sweetie, do you want me to pick you up early?
Um like I'm worried that today's just gonna be too long for you.
I can only imagine her response to that.
And she's like
Mom, I want to go to aftercare.
Like let me stay.
It's so fun.
Like we get to play Barbies.
Yeah, they have like thousands of toys in aftercare that they would never get to play with otherwise.
Yeah, and I'm just like, are you sure, sweetheart?
Like
Dad or I can can leave work, we'll pick you up early, like it's just a really long day, and I'm just like worried about you.
And I'm just thinking in my head, like
This is where these differences come out, right?
Our oldest, it's like I didn't have a choice.
I needed the help.
Like that was my village when she had to go to
Camp those days.
That was our village.
And life is just different now.
And I'm like, I can pick you up earlier and they just see you as more of a baby than I saw our oldest.
So I feel like those are the little things that shape their personality, which I
you could spiral in guilt and shame over or you can just acknowledge that that is what life was then versus what life is now.
But I thought that was interesting.
I caught myself saying that this morning and then I was like
Man, I felt bad for her oldest for a moment.
She ended up loving camp for that summer.
It was like her favorite thing to do.
Oh yeah, 100%.
I mean it was probably uh less chaotic than being at home with two very
Young children, right?
So and then she loved sitting in the corner playing with all these new toys, kind of on her own, or with one other kid, or something like that at the time
It was the first week that those meltdowns happened, but then it got way easier.
Yeah.
But I do remember the camp director that week looking at me and being like, Do you need help at home?
And me being like
Yeah.
So that was a rough summer for everyone, but that's a whole separate topic, but that's where childcare can be a part of your village and it was.
Okay.
So I think we've covered very generally, hopefully I didn't misspeak.
on any of the research.
I tried to be as accurate as possible as I could.
But I just want to summarize that in general, birth order itself has next to no impact on
personality, intelligence, and most life outcomes and choices.
It's it's so minor that you can't really consider it, uh at least on its own.
So if birth order is such a tiny piece of the puzzle, what are the real heavy hitters when it comes to shaping who we become?
I mean, I think it's
everything we always talk about, right?
The relationship we have with our parents, the expectations that are put on us, right?
So regardless of birth order, your parents put some expectations on you
Like I just mentioned, we put expectations on our kids.
Sometimes they're realistic, sometimes they're not.
That shapes who you become.
The stress level of parents.
I think that has a huge impact.
We don't often talk about that.
But like I was just outlining when we had our third baby, I was the most stressed out I've ever been, trying to juggle everything.
Right.
So of course my parenting looked so different.
in those stages than it looks now.
Now I can say things like, okay, girls, like, you know, I don't I don't want you to have to be there like the full eight hour day.
Like maybe I'll pick you up
You know, at seven hours or whatever.
Because it's just too much for you.
I could never have done that during that season.
And that's okay.
That was just what that season was, right?
And there's always room for repair and so
supporting your kids, but of course your stress level is gonna impact your parenting.
And prolonged parental stress does have an impact on kids, right?
So sometimes it's looking at, okay, well how can I navigate my own stress levels?
And I think that has a huge impact as well.
I think that is where we see or where we talk about birth order differences, but it's also the stress level and the parent differences between kids.
Even in, let's say, with our oldest, right?
You're so stressed out about sleep
You're stressed out about feeding, you're like worried about every little thing.
Is she breathing?
Like, you know, waking up in the night to make sure that's kind of an experience thing, right?
Like you don't you're inexperienced as a parent with your first, but now with our third we're we feel a lot more experienced.
Yeah, and maybe you stress out less about the little things.
The more children you have and let's say tantrums right now, they aren't my biggest worry
If our three year old's having a tantrum, we know how to handle it.
We've done tons of tantrums now.
But with our oldest, I have different worries.
I have friendship worries.
I have
Screen time worries.
I have worries about being exposed to inappropriate content.
And maybe by the time our third is that age, we'll have figured out how to navigate that a little bit better, right?
Those will still be worries, but I think that that impacts your child too, right?
When you're trying to figure out things for the first time.
So it's so much bigger than just what order are they born in?
It's all about all the factors, where you live
Right.
With our first child, we lived in a really tiny basement apartment that got flooded and we had no home.
So of course we had different stresses then than we have now.
So it
I think we have to give ourselves grace too and know that our parenting might look different depending on the season that we're in.
And if you're in that really hard season, like we've been many times in difficult seasons of parenting, and I'm sure we will be again, that doesn't mean it's always gonna be like that.
And to reflect on our own actions, the way we're treating all three of our or however many kids you have, I think that's really important to the parental reflection that needs to take place.
I don't know if you have anything to add to that.
Uh yeah, so I th so parenting style.
is the primary environmental factor when it comes to determining a child's intelligence level, their ability to relate with others, their personality.
It's
Let's say the the primary environmental factor.
And like we've talked about that warm structure or the authoritative parenting style, so warm and supportive.
is consistently linked with the most positive outcomes.
I mean we've probably said this on every episode so far.
Uh and that includes higher self-esteem and better emotional stability.
Makes sense.
But that's just I would say the nurture aspect of it.
Nature, so genetics, behavioral genetics shows that apparently 30 to 60 percent of the variation in personality traits is actually due to inherited
genetic factors.
We need to do an episode on that.
Like I love that topic.
You would love it too, Scott.
Yeah.
I mean I definitely we can do that.
So this provides that fundamental temperament like you were talking about upon which the environment, which is our parenting style.
actually acts, right?
So the genetics is like the base and then we're parenting on that base.
And then the final most important factor in personality development is the socioeconomic status.
That is a huge a huge factor.
So the a family's financial resources, educational level, and the stressors associated with their economic situation have a profound impact on
a child's development and life opportunities.
So it just makes things significantly harder if you don't have enough time, resources, money.
to help your children develop.
It's just a huge part of it.
Absolutely.
I've seen that time and time again in clients, but even in our own life.
If I look back to various seasons of life where finances have been a big stressor for us, or you're traveling for work and I'm alone.
or there's huge other stressors that are going on in our life, of course it makes sense that parenting is so much harder then.
You know, you have to think of your needs.
If it's hard to even meet your own
family's basic needs like eating, food, a home, it makes it so much more difficult to do the these additional things like nurturing the relationship and all of that when you're just trying to meet meet your basic needs.
Right?
I th I think that makes so much sense.
Yeah.
So again I find this this topic to be very interesting because I thought there would be a b much bigger impact based on birth order, but it's there, but it's
So small.
And I think what that tells us actually is a takeaway for parents too is to be really mindful of how much we just pass off as, well, they're a second child.
you know, or oh, they're the baby of the family.
Like I think that actually gives us a bit of a wake-up call to be like, let's not just pass off behavior or just like, you know, be flippant about who they are, or even give them that narrative of like, I'm a firstborn, so I'm this.
because that will be the confirmation bias and that will become the stories they tell about themselves too.
Right.
So I think if that internal voice that internal voice.
So I think it tells us
Let's not feed into that narrative and give our kids that story.
Instead, let's just treat them all as individual kids and and try and meet their needs based on who they are as a person, their personality, like their uniqueness as well
For sure.
So I think just to summarize or conclude, I guess, is maybe it's a good idea for us to think of birth order not as a determinant of personality, but just kind of as a label for the role that the child
or the where they are in the family.
Mm-hmm.
Because the role actually has such a minor and indirect influence.
And it's m
really just on learned skills and some life choices like the career path.
But again, it's so minor that it shouldn't really I don't know, it almost is not worth even using.
That label.
Yeah.
That's what it seems like.
And its impact is dwarfed by the major forces of genetics, parenting style, and the socioeconomic status, like we were saying.
Yeah.
So just to finish, I actually I wanted to do something a little bit different.
I have a question for you, our listener.
I want you to think about yourself in your own family.
So if you have siblings and parents or
you were raised under different circumstances than what you have currently.
What role did you actually play and how much of that was because of your birth order, do you think, versus everything else in the environment that you lived in that makes you you
Hmm.
I love it.
Ending on a self-reflection.
Yeah, I thought that was this You know what I've been thinking this whole episode?
I feel like the students become the master
Like look at you with your research, talking about these things.
I feel like you're just becoming so well versed in the parenting space and not only that, but like fascinated with it.
Yes.
Definitely fascinated.
fun for me to have watched.
Like and I hope that this is happening for our listeners as well.
As I know so many of you listen.
Like you're there Monday morning every episode, like listening to these episodes, right?
But I hope this is happening for you too as you listen to the episodes where you're
getting more excited about the information.
You're seeing how it all links together.
Everything kind of comes back to this foundational relationship and the way that we parent our kids, right?
And that you can see that no matter what your profession is or who you are, like this can be fascinating and exciting and fun to learn about.
I feel like it's been really cool to watch you
go from like, oh fine, I'll do this podcast with you, you know, but I'm gonna ask you all these skeptical questions to you being like, Jess, I can't wait to tell you what I learned about birth order.
Right?
Like he was
So excited I had to tell him, like, don't tell me till we start the podcast today.
But I don't know, it's been really cool to watch that journey for you over the last year.
And my hope is that that's a similar journey to what people are going on.
Who are listening?
And that's what I've been hearing.
And like I just wanted to say too to our listeners, thank you.
I feel like
I see more and more people sharing the podcast, people talking about the episodes.
We're getting more and more comments about the episodes and DMs and emails.
And every week there's more subscribers and listeners and
It's just really cool to see.
So Yeah.
Honestly, it's been since you allowed me to do a bit more research and preparation for the episodes, I have been
way more fascinated.
Yeah.
And I feel like, let's say with this one and all of the like let's say the past ten that we've done, I feel like the more I've been learning about it, the less I feel like I actually know.
Which is a weird
Uh I feel like I do know more than I did before, but because of that I realize how much there is that I now do not understand.
Or like biases that you bring in, like the birth order.
You probably thought, oh, it's gonna be pretty concrete, like firstborn's this, secondborn, whatever.
Yeah, on average across humanity, yeah.
So I think even the fact that you are spending this time to even check out your own biases and see what's there and learn.
I don't know.
It's just it's been really cool to see.
And I wanted to note that because I also I'm just hearing that from everyone too who listens every week and I love that we can provide that.
For folks and Thanks for the positive reinforcement.
Yeah.
Check.
All right, well
Thanks for listening.
Yeah, thanks so much.
This was fun.
Yeah.
See you next week.
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