Birth order is fascinating. I first talked about the concept way back in 1967, and there’s a reason The Birth Order Book has sold over a million copies.1 Not only does birth order help us understand our own uniqueness, our role in the family, and how to make the most of our life skills in every area of life, but it also assists us in understanding others and how to work more effectively together. Firstborns, middleborns, and lastborns clearly have different personality traits and skills, which come with both strengths and weaknesses. By understanding the birth orders, we can forge stronger bonds and happier families.
Amazingly, a child’s view of life takes shape early in life. How does that happen?
You’re a first-time mom, enjoying a beautiful day in the park with your 3-year-old. He reaches down and picks up some foreign substance you can’t identify and pops it into his mouth. What do you do? You freak out. “Oh no! What is that? Get a doctor. Call 911. Swab out his mouth!” Meanwhile, your 3-year-old is chewing away and thinking, Hey, this is an interesting taste.
Fast-forward six years to the same mom, the same park, but her third child. The 2-year-old reaches down and picks up an old, filthy cigarette butt complete with filter, puts it in his mouth, chews a little, and swallows with difficulty. You look up from your magazine. Your husband, who is sitting right by your side soaking in the sun’s rays, flicks a glance your way and says, as only husbands can say, “Honey, don’t worry about it. It’s good roughage.”
Don’t you think those cubs are going to respond differently to the world because they’re treated differently by Mama and Papa Bear? You bet.
So let’s take a look at each of the birth orders. Who is your firstborn, your middleborn, your lastborn? What are they good at? Not good at? And how might you more effectively communicate with them?
Firstborns
Let me give you a short little quiz.
Name a Baldwin brother.
For you tennis fans, who’s the oldest Williams sister—Venus or Serena?
And for those of you who are old like me, name a Mandrell sister.
Okay, got your answers?
Bet you anything you got them all right—Alec, Venus, and Barbara.
You named the firstborn child in each group. Why? Because firstborns are groomed for success, for recognition.
US presidents tend to be firstborn children or functional firstborns (more on that term later) because firstborn children rule. In the last US election, before the nominees were narrowed down on the Republican side, of the nine candidates running, eight were firstborn children or functional firstborns.
Take a look at the leader of your local PTA sometime. Chances are good he or she is a firstborn. Firstborns tend to be our leaders.
The 1984 hit Ghostbusters, with Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, and Sigourney Weaver, launched a popular song by Ray Parker Jr. that included the lyrics, “If there’s somethin’ strange in your neighborhood, who ya gonna call? Ghostbusters.” Well, in the family, if there’s something that needs to be done, who ya gonna call? The firstborn—because he or she will not only get it done but get also it done right.
Consider the Carter family. Jimmy Carter became president of the United States. His younger brother, Billy, got his picture on a bottle of beer.
And there’s not a firstborn alive who hasn’t heard these lines growing up: “What did you say? . . . No, you’re the oldest, and I expect more from you.” Or, “You don’t want to take your little brother with you? Then fine, stay home.”
Firstborn children are groomed for success from the moment they exit the womb, and the way they are treated begins to shape their personality and perspective as soon as they arrive on the scene. They are natural leaders who learn to dominate their surroundings because they go unchallenged within the first few years of life. Who are their role models? Their parents—adults.
But the firstborn is also the lab rat of the family as parents learn the ropes of parenting. They respond to every cry immediately, overreact to everything the firstborn does, and plan every detail of that baby’s day. Is it any wonder that later in life your firstborn will expect immediate attention, may overreact to stimuli (everything becomes a big deal), develops the need to know exactly what each day has in store, and doesn’t like surprises?
When a firstborn of any age asks you, “What time are we leaving?” you don’t answer, “Oh, sometime around nine-ish.” He wants you to be specific. “We need to leave at 9:32 on the dot, since it’s a half-hour drive and we need to be there at 10:15. That will allow us 13 minutes extra in case traffic is bad.” Now that’s a response a firstborn likes.
Firstborns are perfectionists, planners, organizers, list makers, achievers, managers who get the job done, and natural leaders. They tend to be confident, self-assured, logical, and scholarly (books are their best friends).
Firstborns fly high. Consider this: of the first 23 astronauts in our space program, 21 were firstborn children. The other two were onlyborn children. Not a middleborn or baby of the family in sight!
Here are some other famous firstborns: Harrison Ford, Oprah, Brad Pitt, Hillary Clinton, and Jennifer Aniston.
But the personality skills that make firstborns good accountants, architects, and financial advisors can also work against them in their relationships with those they love most.
On the plus side, firstborns:
On the minus side, firstborns:
Fact is, your firstborn has almost everything going for him—life is his oyster and he’s even got the pearl inside—until one pivotal moment.
It’s the first time your little Buford hears a new word: pregnancy. He finds out that Mommy is going to go away to a place called a hospital and that she’ll bring him home a special present. A thing he’ll soon find out he’d rather have done without.
In time, the thing comes home from the hospital with Mommy. Then the grandparents arrive in droves with smiles. They sweep right past little Buford in the foyer and right on to hug the thing. They bring the thing a gift. And every other person who visits fusses over the thing and brings it gifts too.
Before long, Buford has a shocking realization: I think they’re going to keep it.
That, parents, is when sibling rivalry starts. It grows worse when the little bundle of trouble begins invading the firstborn’s territory and playing with his toys. On top of that, both kids are now in competition for their parents’ attention.
The firstborn, who has been the centerpiece of the home until now—the sole focus of your parenting experiment—is displaced from that singular role. The wise parent will reinforce that firstborn’s role by saying things like, “Look at the baby. Can she walk?”
“No,” little Buford will say.
“But you can walk. And how many naps do you take a day?”
“One,” Buford says.
“Well, think about how many naps the new baby has to take—eight. You’re the big brother now, and you’re going to get to help your little sister grow up. Maybe you can teach her how to do some of the things you do, like tie your shoes. Your sister can’t do anything for herself right now. She needs your help, and I need your help too. Would you get that bottle of baby powder over there and bring it to me?”
Enlisting your firstborn’s help and solidifying his position in the family will go a long way toward curbing sibling rivalry even before it can kick off.
The firstborn’s natural response is to feel that his siblings have it easier in life than he does. And he’s right—usually each time parents add a child to their family, they relax rules and expectations a bit more.
Middleborns
What’s the first thing parents think when they look into the newborn face of that second child? Hey, this baby doesn’t look at all like the first one.
Well, should she? Every person has their own unique DNA, but with siblings, parents seem to expect a replica of the first child. When teachers check roll on the first day of school and see the last name of a kid they had before, they’re either elated or terrified to think that the same mold has surfaced a second time.
As soon as the second child starts to crawl, she lands in the middle of big brother’s territory. She’s the rough-and-tumble competitor who realizes that when she wants certain intriguing toys to play with, snatching them away from big brother seems the best option. Especially when Mom and Dad back her up by saying to big brother, “Now, Buford, she’s just a baby. She doesn’t know any better. Let her have it for a minute, then you can have it back.” Problem is, that second child will use those toys in a way that never occurred to, and may often horrify, the perfectionistic older brother who doesn’t want nicks and dings in his toys that are usually lined up in a precise row.
That’s because middle children tend to march to the beat of a different drummer. In the business world, presidents and CEOs are usually firstborns. But statistics show that middleborns have a tendency toward becoming entrepreneurs. Some of today’s most successful business innovators are middle children, such as Bill Gates, a college dropout who has done pretty well for himself; Donald Trump, one of America’s most recognizable tycoon businessmen; Steve Forbes, publishing executive and business mogul; and Jennifer Lopez, actress, recording artist, and fashion designer.
Middleborns are the hardest of all the birth orders to pin down for this simple reason: when children want to see how to respond to life, they are influenced most by what’s directly above them in birth order. The firstborn is in the unique position to look up and see only adults. The middleborn looks up and sees the firstborn sibling. That second child isn’t dumb. She sees that capable, shining-star firstborn and thinks, Huh, that role is filled. Can’t compete with that. So I’m going a different direction.
And she does. The one rule with middleborns is that they will go in an entirely opposite direction from the firstborn. Take a look at almost any family and you’ll see the reality of that truth.
Then comes that pivotal moment for the secondborn child—when the parents announce, “Guess what? We’re going to have a baby!”
Suddenly that second child, who has already decided she’s not going to compete with the firstborn because she’ll never win, is now going to be the middle child. And the baby of the family—Little Schnooky, as I like to call her—is going to grab a huge piece of parental attention that the secondborn has already been struggling to get from her parents. The middle child isn’t the star firstborn, and she’s not the cute, helpless baby. So where does she fit in the family? she wonders. She’s now squeezed between that pressured firstborn and the baby of the family, who will get away with too much.
That’s why middleborns are the most secretive of the birth orders. They will likely talk to their family members less and tend to go outside the family for friendships. Friendships are huge. Middleborns are loyal. They’re great at mediating and negotiating because they are stuck in the middle at home and have to negotiate for everything they get in life. And they’re used to not getting their way, so they aren’t offended. They like the highways of life to be smooth and work hard to ensure they stay that way.
Here’s something middle children never hear growing up: “Honey, what do you think?” They’re always eclipsed by their more outspoken siblings on either side, so it’s no wonder they focus on friends.
Middle children grow up feeling squeezed and rootless. They have reasonable expectations for life and are socially at the top of their game. They’re independent thinkers, compromising, diplomatic, and secretive.
If there’s a rebel in the family, it’s usually the middleborn, walking to that beat of the different drummer.
On the plus side, middleborns:
On the minus side, middleborns:
Of all the birth orders, middleborns will tend to be the ones who come home and retreat to their room—a place where they don’t have to negotiate or play mediator between their siblings. They also don’t appreciate being grilled about their friends because, in their view, friends are more important right now than family, where the middleborn tends to be invisible.
But use the tips we’re going to talk about later in this chapter about communicating with your middleborn and engaging in her world, and you’ll be amazed what you learn about your child.
Lastborns
The baby of the family goes through life with a crooked neck from looking up at all her role models. First she sees the firstborn, the star of the show, performing impeccably in nearly every area of life, and everybody applauding. Then she sees the middleborn, going the opposite direction and gaining a network of very loyal friends. The baby has to figure out how to get attention over and above the shenanigans of her older siblings. She’s likely to be the most social of the bunch—there’s no such thing as a stranger. She’s a masterful manipulator: watch her manipulate her siblings to do her work. She’s also the most likely to jump into situations with both feet and ask questions later.
Lastborns are usually outgoing and freewheeling. They are charming, people oriented, affectionate, engaging, and tenacious. They learn their tenacity early in life by pushing parents’ and siblings’ buttons until they get what they want. They are also uncomplicated and not hard to figure out, as middleborns can be.
“Attention-seeker” is a lastborn’s middle name. Babies of the family are also great salesmen. They practice a lot on parents and siblings and learn what techniques work.
Lastborns are the comedians of the family. Some of them even become comedians in real life. Eddie Murphy, Jim Carrey, Martin Short, Chevy Chase, Jimmy Fallon, Jon Stewart, Jay Leno, Whoopi Goldberg, and Ellen DeGeneres are all babies. They’ve capitalized on their ability to entertain and make people laugh.
On the minus side, lastborns:
I ought to know, because I’m a baby of the family. I grew up in Buffalo, New York, with two working parents. The firstborn of our family, my older sister, Sally, was perfect then . . . and still is to this day. She never got a B in anything—in school or in life. She was captain of the cheerleading squad, well liked, a National Honor Society member, yada yada yada. My brother, Jack, the firstborn son and the middleborn of our family, was the quarterback of the football team and voted best-looking in his senior year of high school.
Then there was me, little Kevin Leman. I was in a reading group with the kids who ate paste. When I asked about college, my high school counselor told me he couldn’t even get me admitted to reform school because of my grades and my antics. All kinds of people wrote me off in life, and I became the best at being the worst. That’s why I poured my heart and my own life stories into The Birth Order Book and Have a New You by Friday, because I know firsthand what it feels like to be judged.
In many ways, I lived in my siblings’ shadows. I looked up at Sally and thought, Yowsa, I can never compete with her. After all, she got all the stars and stripes and recognition. Then I looked up at Jack, who excelled in his own right, since he was the closest thing to God walking this earth that I knew. I was just me—little Kevin, the pest, who was always up to something but good at nothing.
Or so I thought. It wasn’t until my senior year, when an old, gray-haired schoolteacher pulled me aside and asked, “Kevin, did you ever think that maybe you could use the skills you have for something positive?” that I realized I had skills. That was a pivotal point in my life. It didn’t mean everything after that was a cakewalk, but at least my life was starting to go somewhere.
I finally got accepted into college—on a 12-hour load.
A year later, I was thrown out for stealing the Conscience Fund.
So I moved to Arizona and got a job at the University of Arizona as a janitor. It was there that the second pivotal point happened in my life. I met my wife in the men’s room of the hospital, where she was helping an old guy go potty. Sande was the trigger God used to turn my whole life around. Before that point, I had learned to think of myself as a big loser. But with the encouragement of three women—that gray-haired teacher, my wife-to-be, and my mother, who prayed for me every day even when she had every reason to write me off—I began transforming into the person I am today.
Years after my life changed, I stumbled upon the fact that I was a good speaker. I could provide great material to capture people’s interest, help them in the practical matters of home and family, and also entertain them.
It was through learning about birth order theory that I realized we all learn lies about ourselves along the way, based on how we are treated by our family and what role we play. Looking back, you don’t need a PhD to figure me out. I was a baby of the family. I’m never going to do this or that like my big brother and sister, I thought. So why even bother trying? I saw myself as a failure. The only way I counted was when I got attention, I figured.
A long time ago (since I’m older than Methuselah), I started collecting and wearing crazy socks. The more shocking, brightly colored, or wildly patterned, the better. I wore them every time I spoke, and they got a lot of attention.
Why do you suppose I still wear crazy socks to this day? They even match my underwear—but then, that’s TMI, isn’t it?
Funny thing is, when I was taping a DVD, one of the audience members approached me afterward.
“Dr. Leman, I thought you should know that the red in your red-and-blue-striped socks doesn’t match the red in your shirt.”
Well, I ask you, can you imagine such a tragedy?
I’ll give you one guess as to the birth order of that audience member.
You’re right. She was a firstborn.
A middleborn would have asked me a relational or friendship question, since middleborns major on friendships, and would have gone out of her way to get to know me and show her appreciation for the material I shared.
A baby of the family wouldn’t even have noticed I had socks on, since she’d be too busy scanning the room for interesting people and talking to her neighbors.
Then there’s the only child, in a category all by herself, who probably would have said something like, “Based on my research and your past performances, I figured there was a 90 percent chance you’d wear red of some kind in your socks because you’re wearing a red shirt. The color palette you chose, however, has 80 percent red, 5 percent blue, and . . .” You get my drift.
Only Children
I have a question for you only children: Why are you an only child?
Is it because Mom and Dad took one look at you and said, “Well, that’s enough of those”?
In response to that question, an only child once told me, “I’ll tell you the truth, Dr. Leman. I think they reached perfection the first time.” Then he grinned.
There’s some truth to that. Only children are firstborns on steroids. Take all of the positive and negative traits of firstborns and multiply by 10, and you’ve got the only child.
They’re perfectionists and super-achievers, conscientious to the max in finishing their tasks, and pint-sized adults by the time they’re in second grade. No wonder they often feel out of step with other children of the same age, and books are some of their best friends. A delightful moment for a young only child is sneaking into the company of adults, simply listening and being a part of the group. But put them in a screaming cluster of their peers at a birthday party, and they’ll escape the noise and chaos at the earliest opportunity.
Many times when I was in private practice as a psychologist, parents would bring their child to me, wringing their hands, and say, “Dr. Leman, I’m so worried. Henry doesn’t seem to get along with other kids. He doesn’t even want to be with other kids.”
I’d ask, “What about the other kids in the family?”
“Well,” the parent would say, “there aren’t any.”
And I’d say, “Case dismissed. Take Henry home. He’s fine. That’s what only children are like.”
There are five children in the Leman family, but there was enough of a gap between our kids (more about this later, in the variable section) that our baby of the family, Lauren, functioned in the family like an only child. She spent five years with just Sande and me in our home without the constant presence of her older siblings.
One day I was driving Lauren to school, and she pulled her Latin book out of her backpack. She attended a classic school where the kids studied Latin in fourth grade. (Good thing I didn’t go to that school as a kid—I’d never have made it through Latin.)
I swiveled my head toward her. “Oh, got a test today?”
She lifted an eyebrow. “Uh, no, I just thought it would be wise to review my verbs.”
Now that’s an only child.
Like Superman, an only child is prepared to take care of business anytime, anyplace, and all on her own. She doesn’t need anyone to organize her or make plans for her since she can do it herself, thank you very much.
Some well-known only children are Dr. James Dobson, who launched Focus on the Family, and Steve Allen, the original Tonight Show host, who also wrote over 10,000 songs in his life. The forty-fourth president of the United States, Barack Obama, is a functional only child (he has a half sister who didn’t come into his life until he was 9, when his only child personality was already formed). Others are T. Boone Pickens, Tiger Woods, Robert De Niro, Tommy Lee Jones, and Elvis Presley.
To show you how much confidence I have in what only children can do, let me share a story with you.
I live in Tucson most of the year, when I’m not traveling and speaking. But I spend my summers back in western New York, where I grew up, so I can hang out with my childhood buddy, Moonhead, and his lovely bride, Wendy. During one of those summers, I had an unexpected major surgery. I surrendered my gallbladder to the forces that be.
Let’s just say I was in an area of New York that isn’t the mecca of the finest medical care when the surgery came up. I was encased in one of those uncomfortable gowns with the airy flaps and lying on a steel bed when a six-foot-six guy strode in. Seriously, he was intimidatingly tall. His badge sported the spelling of a name that looked to me like Rumpelstiltskin backwards. When he started talking about what was going to happen next, I didn’t understand a thing he was saying. He was definitely from another country, and English was not his first language. It didn’t help that I wasn’t in a good mood to begin with. Gallbladder pain does that to you . . . or at least that’s the excuse I’m going with.
I gestured for him to slow down, and finally I started to figure out what he was saying: “sleepy water.”
Now, I’m not stupid. That was my clue he was the anesthesiologist. So I said, in the most puffed-up tone I could manage as I lay half naked on the gurney, “You’re not giving me any sleepy water until I find out your birth order.”
The guy stiffened, looking even taller than his six-foot-six. “I’m not familiar with the term birth order.”
“You are the oldest child in your family, right?” I asked.
He frowned. “No,” he said, drawing himself up proudly. “I am the only son.”
And I said, “Proceed.”
Even though I still didn’t understand him, I had ultimate confidence in that only child to do his job perfectly, since only children are perfectionists. When you’re having surgery, you certainly don’t want a baby-of-the-family anesthesiologist who says, “Whoops, we’re a few ccs off.”
But the very character traits that make only children great anesthesiologists can also work against their relationships with the people they love.
Imagine that same anesthesiologist sitting down to dinner—an event his wife has worked on for several hours—and saying, “Hey, what’s with the carrots? They’re different than usual.”
I can guarantee you that anesthesiologist will be wearing those carrots shortly.
His efforts in the hospital to be detailed, accurate, and perfectionistic won’t win him kudos at home.
On the plus side and the minus side, only children are like firstborns on steroids. Check the firstborn characteristics on pages 262–64 and put the word very in front of any adjective that describes that personality. For example, a firstborn is perfectionistic, so an only child is very perfectionistic.
Variables That Affect Birth Order
As we’ve been exploring the characteristics of firstborn, middleborn, lastborn, and onlyborn birth orders, you may have been thinking, But I’m this particular birth order, and that doesn’t sound like me at all.
That’s because there are variables that affect birth order and can make someone functionally another birth order.
Twins or triplets might look identical. But just as their fingerprints are different, they will also play different birth order roles in the family, depending on the variables.
That’s why it’s so important to look not only at rank—the order in which children are born in a family—but also at the variables of birth order to determine which functional role each child plays in your home and family.
Gender of the Children
We Lemans have five children—four girls and one boy. Our kids, in order, are Holly, Krissy, Kevin II, Hannah, and Lauren. So we had two girls, and then our son. Kevin II is technically a middleborn because he was born in the middle of our children. That means he’s a great mediator and negotiator, beloved by his group of friends. However, because he is our first and only son, he also displays the traits of a firstborn child—driven to work hard toward success and do a job right.
If you have two of one gender and one of another, the one will generally display the traits of a firstborn child. He doesn’t have to be the oldest in the family to have firstborn traits.
A five-year spread between same-gender kids starts a new family. For example, we first had Holly, our firstborn-all-the-way personality. Eighteen months later, Krissy was born. She was the baby of the family for four years until Kevin II was born. Then Krissy became our middleborn. Hannah was born nine years after Kevin II, as the fourth child in our family. Then there was a gap of five years before our surprise child, Lauren, was born. That meant Lauren effectively started a new family within our family. She acted not only as the firstborn girl but also as the only child during her formative years. As the youngest in our family, Lauren functions as a firstborn who has six parents, if you follow me. Good thing she’s so strong-minded herself, with parents and four siblings who all like to “share” with her what to do.
Another example of a functional firstborn is David Letterman, the host of the Late Show. He has two older sisters, but he is a firstborn son, very perfectionistic and detail oriented.
Physical and/or Mental Differences
Let’s say your son Jarrod is the firstborn. Then, two years later, his little brother, Moose, is born. By age 8, Moose is 4½ inches taller and 31 pounds heavier than your firstborn.
Or you have two daughters. Your younger daughter, Audrey, is pretty as a picture—the kind of beauty that catches the eye of nearly everyone who sees her. And your older daughter, Samantha? Well, she . . . isn’t. Sadly, in this tinsel-like society we live in, the girl who is prettier will gain more than her fair share of attention.
So Moose will overtake his brother in the firstborn role, and Audrey will overtake her sister in the firstborn role.
When a younger child is physically bigger and taller or more beautiful, the older child often submits to the younger child’s leadership rather than try to lead him or her. But who pays for this role reversal?
The firstborn, every time. That firstborn has been groomed from the beginning to win. When he can’t succeed, he may feel like a failure and form his worldview for life accordingly.
If the firstborn of a family is mentally or physically challenged, the second child—no matter the sex—will leapfrog over the first child and become the functional firstborn.
The Critical-Eyed Parent
This, by far, is the most important birth order variable—especially for the firstborn child.
What’s a critical-eyed parent? The parent who can spot a flaw at 50 paces and can’t let it go. The parent who is always “shoulding” on others: “You should do that . . . you should do this.” The critical-eyed parent is the controller, the manipulator, who tends to find something wrong with everything a child does.
Let’s say your 6-year-old surprises you by making her bed and then happily leads you into the room to show you. What do you tend to notice first? Her effort in making the bed and her joy in doing so? Or the fact that the bed isn’t made the way you’d have made it? In fact, the squares on the quilt are a little cock-eyed, and you can still see the toe of a shoe and her stuffed bunny peeking out from under the bed.
Do you say, “Oh, honey, that’s fabulous. That must feel good, being able to make your own bed”?
Or do you say, “Wow, you did a great job. But let’s fix this little corner here . . .” and proceed to redo your child’s efforts?
See the difference?
Parents who pick at the flaws and mistakes of their children may wind up with children who are unreliable, unconscientious, or slobs who never get anything done, much less done right. This is particularly true for the firstborn child, who is already driven toward perfectionism. He thinks, I worked really hard on that, and it still wasn’t good enough. So why bother? Critical-eyed parents produce children who tend not to do anything because they’re afraid they’ll be criticized.
Is there a critical-eyed parent in your home? Here are some clues. Is your kid a procrastinator who starts projects but doesn’t finish them? Is he surrounded daily by piles? A messy desk and a littered bedroom floor are both signs of inner rebellion against structure, authority, or perfectionism—often imposed by the parent with the critical eye.
While you’re looking at your kid, look at yourself too. Did you grow up with a critical-eyed parent? Did you suffer from your mom’s or dad’s acid tongue, feeling like you could never do enough, be enough, to make your parents happy? If so, that has a huge influence on you even today, because if you grew up with a critical-eyed parent, what are you going to do? Become a critical-eyed parent yourself. If you don’t believe me, think of it this way. Did you ever vehemently say to yourself, “I will never say that to my son” (referring to what your mom or dad said to you)? Then not only do you say it, but you also say it with the same tone or inflection your mom or dad used with you? Old patterns die hard.
But this is one you have to get right, because the costs are too great for getting it wrong. Critical-eyed parents produce defeated children who would rather not finish projects and hand them in, because they fear the evaluation and criticism more than not completing the project.
If you’re all about rules and doing things right or perfectly, and if you’re always “shoulding” on your kids, you’re shutting them down and setting them up for all kinds of defeat in life.
If you’re still not convinced of the influence of the critical-eyed parent, let me share one more thing with you. When I was in private practice, back in the days before the advent of email, the post office used to bring my mail to my office in mini dumpster-type bins. You know what the biggest subject people asked me about was? Check out these letters as an example:
I heard you talking about the critical-eyed parent, and that kids who have those kinds of parents will end up feeling defeated and unable to accomplish anything. Wow, that’s me. I’m always going to get the job I want, but then I never have the guts to pursue it because I’m afraid I’ll fail.
Don, Wisconsin
You hit me square between the eyes. I grew up in a critical-eyed home but didn’t realize it until now. Worse, I’m doing the same thing with my kids. The other day, I nearly cut my son to shreds with my words. I’ll never forget the look on his face. Things have got to change in my house. I have to change. But I don’t know how.
Merilee, Ohio
The old adage “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me” is flat-out wrong. Words can make a forever impact on a child, especially critical words.
Why do they hurt firstborns the most? Remember what I said about how each child looks up to the position in the family above him? The firstborns look up and see their parents. Firstborns are the ice cutters in the lake of life. They pay the price for any criticisms of their parents. They’re the ones who have damage on their hulls as they break through that ice for their younger siblings. Even more, because they’re schooled for perfection—by you!—not feeling like they’re up to snuff can be a real killer. It’s even worse for onlies, who have no other siblings to measure their accomplishments against.
Every child forms a worldview as he is growing up—a perspective that’s based on the way he is treated in the family. This worldview is built on the lies that we learn in childhood and carry into our adult lives, often without realizing it.
The lies go something like this:
I only count in life when . . .
And the list goes on.
But these are the truths:
The goal of parenting isn’t to raise a perfect kid. It’s to raise a child who is a pursuer of excellence rather than a pursuer of perfection.
A perfectionist sets up standards in which he is bound to fail, because there’s no human being who is perfect. When he does inevitably fail and is criticized, the perfectionist simply shuts down, feeling frustrated and disappointed in himself.
The pursuer of excellence sets up high standards and tries hard to reach them. Sometimes he makes it; sometimes he doesn’t. But along the way he’s open to suggestions, isn’t threatened by criticism, and, by weighing options, feels better equipped to reach his goals.
The more we understand the theory of birth order, the more we can hone our strengths and weaknesses, identify and fine-tune our individual gifts, and grow healthy relationships. All of us are unique, and there’s a place in this world for every birth order. You don’t have to be like your sister or brother. You can be yourself, at your best.