With the Turkey, a Side of Birth Order

As we gather with family this Thanksgiving weekend — and reacquaint ourselves with old family dynamics, good and bad — here’s an intriguing thought to ponder. Research suggests that the order in which we were born shapes our personalities throughout life.

Birth order isn’t a new topic, but NPR’s Allison Aubrey revisited it earlier this week and pointed out some striking findings that I’d not heard before. It turns out the popular image of firstborn children as responsible, overachieving and bossy is not just a stereotype.

Back in 1972 Psychologist Richard Zweigenhaft of Guilford College looked at a sample of 121 U.S. Senators and congresspeople and determined their birth order, Aubrey reported. He found that 51 of them — or 42 percent — were firstborns, a significantly higher proportion than in the general population. Subsequent studies have shown that oldest siblings are overrepresented in a number of so-called “high achieving” professions, such as corporate CEOs, college professors, U.S. presidents and Supreme Court justices.

It so happens that I, being a psychology nerd and an oldest sibling myself, got interested in this and did my own little study in college. I wondered if there were a disproportionate number of oldests at my highly-competitive New England college, Williams. For a project in my statistics class, I did the research and found out. The answer: yes. There were more firstborns among Williams students than there should have been, statistically speaking — too many for it to be random.

This was nice for my oldest-sibling ego, of course. Sure, we have to look after our whiny little brothers and sisters, tolerate tedious children’s music on family road trips, and fall under the heavy hands of rookie parents. But at least we get ambition and success in the bargain!

As a kid, I instinctively took on the duties of the eldest. Parts of that, like reading stories to my siblings and becoming a friend and guide they could look up to, were delightful. Parts were not. Without even thinking about it, I subsumed my needs to the greater cause of family harmony. Whatever I wanted — to listen to a particular song, to eat a favorite dish — was less important than keeping two squirrelly siblings and two stressed parents calm and happy. Sometimes, enacting a real-life metaphor, I physically placed myself between my brother and sister to prevent them from fighting.

Monica Hanson, an oldest child interviewed by NPR’s Aubrey, said of her parents, “I don’t think they did it on purpose — but I was expected to do a lot of things, to be unselfish, to get it done.” Aubrey added that “to this day, Hanson is still seen by family and friends as the doer — the boss, the person who can hold everybody together.” That sounds familiar.

Naturally, the effects of birth order are far more nuanced than all this would make them appear. The theory goes that, besides the responsibilities foisted upon them, firstborns also benefit from their parents’ undivided attention before the second child is born — attention that could accelerate their cognitive development.

But these are theories and generalizations; there are plenty of oldest-child dreamers and youngest-child overachievers out there. As Zweigenhaft emphasized to NPR, birth order is just one in a kaleidoscope of influences that shape who we become.

And while I’m being an unselfish eldest child (wink), I also wonder this. If we looked at other professions — creative ones that require just as much talent as lawmaking or business managing, talent of a different sort — would we find that a disproportionate number of middle and youngest children become artists, musicians, or teachers? With the older sibling already hogging the role of overachiever, maybe the drive to forge their own, unique identity gives younger children the freedom to explore.