One Christmas morning in 2006, my grandmother gave a gift to her three daughters: a series books about birth order. Aunt Kim got the firstborn; my mom Debbie, the middle child; and Aunt Lisa, the baby of the family. I've never seen three grown women open those books up and giggle like a gaggle of schoolgirls reading about themselves and each other, passing the books around, pointing at each other and laughing about "that is EXACTLY what you are!" Although Uncle Skip is truly the oldest in the family, he was born much earlier than Grandma's girls and the only boy, and so had established himself as the oldest sibling but, well, he was the only boy, and so it's a little different for him. (Yes, sometimes, gender is a difference we must all accept, no?)
My mom's kids are similarly set. Three girls, one boy. I'm the oldest, technically, but only by 14 months. My brother and I might as well be fraternal twins, as we basically went through high school and college together, and he was a similar role model to my younger sisters. But then there's the trifecta of Weindorf sisters, the first, middle and last. So you can understand why this
article intrigued me on CNN.
Granted, this study was conducted in Norway and had only male subjects. But it suggests that firstborns have a higher IQ later in life than their younger siblings. Maybe there's some truth to it. But then I started reading the "professional advice" that was given in raising each of the kids, and some of it was just plain ridiculous. Not to mention that there is too much advice running around, and that most parents don't allow themselves their gut instinct to take over some of the childrearing and depend on pure STRANGERS to help raise their kids, but that's quite beside the point right now.
I had to disagree with a lot of their "advice." For starters, they suggest saying to an oldest sibling that they have to "set an example" for their younger siblings puts too much pressure on the eldest and is discouraged. What kind of responsibility, then, are they supposed to have? Of course they're supposed to be an example. Everyone sets an example to someone. Kids really do need that kind of responsibility to grow up into responsible adults. This kind of information being perpetrated throughout our society is generating dependent kids and "helicopter" parents. I personally find that kind of behavior, like
bringing your mother to an interview, deplorable.
Then I look at my family. My parents always made sure I was the best example to my younger siblings. My parents had us so far apart, though, that I don't think they had a problem with giving more attention to one sibling than the other. Maybe I'm wrong because I never noticed. Once I graduated high school, started college, and got engaged, I'll admit I probably took up a lot of my parents' time. My brother probably enjoyed that, only because he liked to make sure he kept his end of the bargain by keeping his room (sort of) clean and doing his chores, but then was pleased as pie to stay in his room and feed his fish, read, and play his games. Once Tim got out of his colic stage when he was, say, a few months old, he was pretty easy to raise.
Then my sister came along, and she was like the Tasmanian devil in the family. She had the most spunk, enough for all of us combined. She took the tricycle for a ride down the basement steps and probably sat in the ER and timeout for the most time out of all of us. While my mother and I, when I was 16, would have screaming matches in the kitchen that would fizzle just as quickly, Cindy had a glowing ember that would more or less spark a just few times a month. And then the baby, Sara, 12 years my junior, is about to get the house all to herself. Tim and I left home very soon after graduating from college, and Cindy's less than a year away from moving to North Carolina with her beau. Sara was a huge surprise for my parents, but probably the most pleasant and laid back. Everyone at school likes her. She loves sports and keeps busy. She rarely needs discipline and has a big heart (sometimes too big). We joke that my parents go too easy on the baby, but she really is a good kid.
As for the IQs, we've never taken an IQ test. So far, all of us have gone to local (Erie) colleges for education and have done quite well. We all had honors classes and graduated near the tops of our classes. But Cindy was the valedictorian at college, not me, and Tim graduated summa cum laude with 3.999998 GPA or something like that. I was somewhere in the top 10%. And Sara's doing a fine job, too, so what's a few IQ points? None of us want a piece of paper from a college to do the talking for us. We can prove ourselves just as well, thank you very much.
An Anonymous Friend has made the front headlines of CNN with the title: "Rust Belt City gets $100 million anonymous gift." Fox News has this story, and even the AP picked up on it.
