Does Birth Order Matter?

By John McDonnell

I never believed that birth order plays a role in a person's life, until I became a parent. As much as parents try to deny it, we do treat each child differently. Sometimes that’s because they have different personalities, but it also has something to do with birth order.

Parents change over time, and that’s the main reason birth order is important. You just don’t raise your youngest child the way you did your oldest, especially if there’s a big gap between them. I’m not saying that the oldest children get the best parenting, or that the youngest do. It’s just different, and here’s why.

. The first time is a charm. The first time you experience anything as a parent is always a small miracle. Hearing your baby cry for the first time. Watching them take their first steps, say their first words. It doesn't matter how inane or stupid, the first time your kid does something it’s the most amazing event in the universe. This is not to say that it's less amazing when your other children have the same experiences. A miracle is still a miracle the second time, but it just doesn’t have that same slap-in-the-face freshness to it.

. You take more pictures in the beginning. There is no clearer way to analyze the birth order question than to add up how many pictures and videos parents have of each of their kids. In most families, the number of images is inversely proportional to the birth order. When my mother cleaned out her house before moving into a retirement home, she presented each of her children with envelopes full of childhood photographs. For me, the oldest of six, there were several manila envelopes bulging with photos, some that were glossy studio portraits. My youngest sibling got one letter-size envelope with a handful of Polaroids in it, and no studio shots.

. You start out with more energy. I used to wonder why my Dad only played catch in the backyard with me as a little boy, and didn't do it with any of my brothers. Now I know. When my oldest daughter and son were young I'd often play basketball with them in the driveway. Now, I look at the basketball net wistfully, and remember the days before back pain. If I ever went out in the driveway and challenged my youngest daughter to a game of hoops she'd probably tell me to put the ball down before I gave myself a heart attack.

. You relax your grip over time. Here is where things get better for the baby of the family. With your first child you are involved in every aspect of their life. This makes for some ugly scenes during the teen years. With each additional child you relax your grip a little until with the last one you basically give them the car keys when they're 16 and tell them just to stay out of jail.

. You stop trying to be a puppet master. With their first child parents often mistake themselves for God Almighty. They feel they can mold the child like clay, starting when the child is still a toddler. "Look at the way he throws his peas from that high chair," you say. "He's got a great arm. That's a future baseball star there." You have a template you want them to follow, and you fully expect that they'll become an all-star athlete, a millionaire before they're 30, and President of the United States (making sure to tell the whole world in their inauguration speech that you’re the real reason behind their success).

With time comes disappointment, however, and the scaling back of your grand plans. By the time the youngest child comes along you just want them to stay off welfare and not do anything to embarrass the family. A humble job and the ability to meet their mortgage payments are quite enough.

Children are the greatest timepieces ever invented. They grow up so fast that parents find themselves butting up against the reality of Time’s rapid pace. The other day my youngest child, who is now a teenager, found our wedding album in a closet. "Dad, you were actually handsome," she said. "And you had hair."

I looked at the photos from so long ago and once again asked myself where the time has gone. I realized that the father she has is not the same one that her oldest sibling had, in so many ways. But where there's a lack of hair and energy, I think there's a lot more wisdom, so that even though I don't play basketball in the driveway with her, I also don't make the same stupid mistakes I made with my older kids.

She's growing up with a saner, wiser Dad, one who hopefully will guide her through the next few years with enough grace and dignity to make up for a few less basketball games. 

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