Birth Order

Birth Order

I was raised as the first born and only girl of three children.   My mom, a middle child herself, frequently bemoaned the plight of the overlooked and forgotten middle child.  My father was an easygoing and charismatic last born.  Neither of them knew what it was like to be the oldest.  There’s been a lot of research and theorizing about how birth order affects us, and I believe most of it. 

For example, first borns are supposed to be respectful of authority and conditioned at an early age to try to please adults.  My middle brother and I took some change from the top of my mom’s dresser when he was 6 or so.  That would have made me 9 years old at the time. It was less than a dollar’s worth, but when we took it to Gil’s, the corner store, it bought us a nice stash of dum dum suckers, Lik-M-Aid (you dipped these pieces of candy in this god awful artificially colored powdery sugar substance) and Jolly Rancher hard candies.  When mom questioned where we got the cash to buy all this candy, I immediately caved and told her the truth.  My brother was livid with me.  He had kept a straight face and made up a very plausible story about finding bottles and using the recycling fees for cash.  “We were in the clear, Bridg!  Why ya have to tell her?!”  

When I was a teenager I worked at a city swimming pool and one of my jobs was to work the front desk and check people in.  Most people had season passes but many paid a cash admission-$1.25 for adults, $.75 for children.  At the end of a 12-hour day the proceeds could exceed a few hundred dollars.  I didn’t realize how loose, I mean how non-existent our accounting practices were at the pool.   I added up the money at the end of the day with little to no oversight, made out a deposit slip, and rode up to Central Trust Bank a couple blocks away with a bag containing a few hundred dollars in cash to take to the night depository.  Fortunately, I never got mugged.  But the other thing that surprised my middle brother about the whole deal was that I never took any of that money for myself, not even a penny.  I was such a goody two shoes growing up.  I never even had to stay after school ever, not once. 

First borns tend to be confident, and we like to be the center of attention. We don’t have anybody to watch, no one to compare ourselves to.   We have our parents’ undivided attention-for a time.  There is no jockeying for their affection.  I do remember being kind of ticked that my parents would wake up on a Saturday morning if my one of my younger brothers started crying.  When I was 6 or so I’d try to get mom to wake up and watch cartoons with me and make some breakfast.  She’d ignore my tapping on her bedroom door but let one of my two baby brothers so much as let out a whimper—they were 3 months old and 3 years old- and she’d bolt to their side.  I didn’t realize at the time that she had done the same for me when I was their age.  I just thought she liked them better.   So how did I respond?  I am not proud of this, but I’d try to say or do something to make one of them cry so mom would wake up.  I didn’t want to harm them, of course, just wanted the Saturday morning pop tart and Super Friends party to start.  Once I lifted my middle brother out of his bed and set him on the floor and urged him to cry.  He looked at me sleepily and blankly so I poked his arm until he let out a yelp.  Mom came running. 

For obvious reasons first borns are born leaders.  There are no older siblings to consult for advice.  We don’t get to watch anyone else screw up.  We get to learn everything the hard way.  I’ve kept that decisiveness of the first born into adulthood.  It’s served me well in the workplace and even in every day life.  If anything, I’m maybe too quick to jump to a decision.  I don’t mull things over for days and I don’t do a lot of research first.   I have no trouble delivering bad news or sharing a dissenting viewpoint.  Nothing made my beliefs about the effect of birth order on personality development grow more strongly than did the entry of my older sister into my life at age 49. 

You see my mom had given a baby girl up for adoption two years before I was born and a year before she met my father.  It was 1963 and nice Catholic girls didn’t become single moms.   I didn’t know about my older sister until I was 18 years old and my strong willed, outspoken and sometimes downright bossy personality was already well formed. 

My big sister found us in 2015 and she became part of our family.  She had been raised by adoptive parents as the baby of the family.  She is kind and sweet, way sweeter than I can hope to be.  She’s not terribly decisive or impulsive with her choices.  When our mom was dying the doctor entered the room where all four siblings were gathered and demanded to know which one of us was “the oldest.”  I pointed to my sister.  The doctor said there were some decisions to be made and he had found that the oldest child was usually the best person to start with.  Not surprisingly, the doc revealed that he was the first born in his family.   All three of my siblings protested and said the doctor should really be talking to me, that although my sister was officially the oldest, she doesn’t fill that role of the oldest, that first born role.  She has never acted like the “older” sister.  When we are trying to decide where to go out to eat, I usually end up making the call.  She’s just so chill and easygoing and thoughtful and kind.  I find myself emulating her, trying to be more like her.  So, I guess she is my big sister after all.