I have always been keenly aware of middle child status. The running joke was that I didn’t look like anyone else in the family, so I must have been adopted or dropped off at our front step. For the record, this was probably just as likely as my other theory— that I was conceived by the Holy Spirit. I mean, that’s what Indian parents have been doing for centuries and, with a population of over 1 billion, it seems to be an efficient strategy.
I remember driving home from school a few years back with my mom, older brother and younger sister, when we passed our mailman. My mom waved at him, and soon after my little sister asked, “Mom, how do you know the mailman?”
She quickly replied, “Well, where did you think Dillon came from?”
My brother then nicknamed me “FedEx,” after middle child Mark Baker from the movie “Cheaper by the Dozen.” Luckily, that nickname never really caught on.
It did, however, get me thinking about just how much birth order can affect us. I was recently in a trendy New York City bookstore and skimmed through a book on the science of birth order. I was excited to learn about the traits that bind us eternally neglected middle children.
The book, entitled “The Sibling Effect” by Jeffery Klugner, started off with the oldest in the family. According to the book, twenty-one of the first twenty-three U.S. NASA astronauts were either firstborns or only children. It also said how oldest children tend to be more responsible, hold tighter to family traditions and achieve greater academic success. Conversely, last-born children tend to have experienced a more relaxed style of parenting than their older siblings, and thus are charming, entertaining and more likely to follow an atypical career path. Finally, we get to middle children.
After pages on firstborn and last-born children, here’s what the book had to stay on middle children: “And middle children? Well, they can be a puzzle—to families, scientists, and themselves, for that matter.” These two lines definitely didn’t help in my twenty-year pursuit to defy middle child syndrome.
For those unfamiliar with the term, “middle child syndrome” describes the constant struggles that middle children often face. The most common middle child syndrome symptom is a struggle for parental attention. In essence, middle children are depicted as the forgotten ones, prone to longing for attention and low self-esteem.
I’ve never really been a fan of the term “middle child syndrome,” as it classifies birth order like a disease. While we may not get all the cuddling and attention throughout childhood, the term entirely omits the positive personality traits you learn from growing up stuck in the middle.
First of all, middle children are great negotiators. Firstborns and lastborns are automatically entitled to various things. For instance, my older brother has eternal shotgun privileges while my little sister always gets the last piece of cake or first “dibs” on everything. Middle children are forced to navigate through others’ needs before finding a way to get what they want. Interestingly enough, according to the U.K.’s Daily Mail, 52 percent of US presidents are middle children.
Furthermore, middle children are trailblazers. Our lack of more direct parental oversight combined with a rebellious sprit allows us to think creatively and make calculated risks. Middle children learn early on to be independent and form close bonds to their “chosen families,” a combination of certain family members and friends. Thus, middle children such as Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, and Mark Zuckerberg are innovators and learn to think differently in their pursuits of success.
Finally, middle children tend to be justice seekers. They often fight for the underdog, for the person who is not the focus of all the attention and privilege. Martin Luther King Jr., Princess Diana, and Susan B. Anthony were all middle children. As middle children, at some point in our lives, we sometimes feel like we are constantly at civil war with all of our siblings, who have allied against us.
Eventually, we learn to be diplomatic and flexible. Dr. Catherine Salmon, a birth order researcher, showed that 80 percent of middle children in her study said they never strayed in a long-term romantic relationship, compared to 65 percent of firstborns, and 53 percent of last-borns.
There are definitely many other variables that affect how birth order influences us. For instance, according to Salmon, the effect tends to be significantly less prominent when a middle child is the only child of a certain gender or if the age gap between any two children is greater than five years.
Our family environment has a profound effect on the people that we become, but each child often faces a distinctly different family environment. In the end, my birth order, among other things, created a set of circumstances that helped form who I am. My birth order doesn't define me, but it has taught me many important life lessons that have guided my life choices and the paths that I have chosen to take. I have learned that self-esteem is best when earned, calculated risks lead to the most satisfaction and internal validation is essential to being happy with your life choices.
Dillon Patel is a Trinity sophomore. His column runs every other Monday. Send Dillon a message on Twitter @thecasualdevil.
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