Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You from house Supports
Speaker 1: dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen
Speaker 1: and I'm Caroline, and today we're talking about middle children
Speaker 1: because this podcast is coming out around Middle Children Day,
Speaker 1: because in the twenty one century, every everything has a day,
Speaker 1: and middle children, I think really deserve a day because
Speaker 1: they're stereotyped as just such, well, middle children. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: this is coming from an only child and a youngest child,
Speaker 1: And I wouldn't say that I'm biased against middle children.
Speaker 1: Actually have lots of sympathy for middle children simply because
Speaker 1: there are so many assumptions that they have all sorts
Speaker 1: of personality ticks, shall we call it. Yeah, And what's
Speaker 1: interesting out these assumptions is the negative stuff, and in particular,
Speaker 1: it hasn't always been that way for a long time,
Speaker 1: like the earliest research was saying that the middle children
Speaker 1: were probably going to be the most successful. And even
Speaker 1: within the personality traits that researchers tend to ascribe to
Speaker 1: middle children, there are positive ones, but it seems like
Speaker 1: in our culture we really only hear about the negative.
Speaker 1: So for the seventy million middle children in the United States,
Speaker 1: this podcast is for you. Yeah, we're no longer ignoring you. No,
Speaker 1: we're not ignoring you. Yeah. Sorry, sorry that this birth
Speaker 1: order podcast came so so far after the other ones. Yeah,
Speaker 1: coming from a youngest child, I'm not trying to steal
Speaker 1: the spotlight. This one's all for you, and I'm i
Speaker 1: as an only child, I am making an effort to share.
Speaker 1: So let's look a little bit at the history of
Speaker 1: birth order research, because we've talked about birth order before
Speaker 1: on the podcast. And I don't know about you, Caroline,
Speaker 1: but I find it endlessly fascinating. Yeah, I mean I
Speaker 1: find it interesting that researchers find it so interesting too,
Speaker 1: Like you said, ascribe so much meaning to where your
Speaker 1: place falls in the family. And so one of those
Speaker 1: earliest researchers looking into birth order was Francis Galton, who
Speaker 1: was actually Darwin's half cousin. So that family has a
Speaker 1: lot going on. But scholarly interest in this whole arena
Speaker 1: can be traced back to a Mr. Galton in eighteen
Speaker 1: seventy four when he published English Men of Science Their
Speaker 1: Nature and Nurture. And we hear the term the phrase
Speaker 1: nature versus nurture a lot, especially in kind of social
Speaker 1: stuff social research. Well, this Galton guy is actually the
Speaker 1: one who coined the phrase. Yeah, And it's kind of
Speaker 1: funny that in this book Englishman of Science, he essentially
Speaker 1: comes to a conclusion that being a first born male
Speaker 1: and he didn't the male part wasn't in there for
Speaker 1: reasons we'll get into, being a firstborn was the best
Speaker 1: because out of the one eighty men that he chronicled
Speaker 1: across all sorts of scientific fields, he found that ninety
Speaker 1: nine of them were firstborn. So he was like, well, clearly,
Speaker 1: being the firstborn simply, you know, sets you up for
Speaker 1: being a super brilliant guy in science. And that's awesome,
Speaker 1: Which is funny because Francis was the youngest child. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But so the whole thing about his birth order research though,
Speaker 1: and we will talk more about this a little bit later,
Speaker 1: is that Galton didn't count sisters. So yes, a man
Speaker 1: might be the firstborn son, but that doesn't mean he's
Speaker 1: the firstborn. And so that, among too many other aspects
Speaker 1: of early research, is important to keep in mind. But
Speaker 1: moving from Galton on to Alfred Adler, he's also a
Speaker 1: big name in this early research. He's the founder of
Speaker 1: individual psychology and to bit was the second of seven children.
Speaker 1: He was born in eighteen seventy to give you a
Speaker 1: little time context, and Adler is the one who really
Speaker 1: blew the lid off the significance of birth order because
Speaker 1: he linked it to all sorts of things, including psychiatric disorders, intelligence, creativity,
Speaker 1: and even sexual orientation. Right. And his view, which granted
Speaker 1: was mostly anecdotal, was that firstborns do benefit from being
Speaker 1: the sole focus until they are dethroned by the second child.
Speaker 1: So if you're looking at a hypothetical three child family,
Speaker 1: he said that the oldest you guys, you oldest children
Speaker 1: out there not gonna like this. He says the oldest
Speaker 1: are the most likely to suffer from neuroticism and substance
Speaker 1: abuse as they attempt to compensate for excessive responsibility and
Speaker 1: loss of position because they were dethroned. Then he looked
Speaker 1: at the youngest Kristen, hello here muffs. He says that
Speaker 1: the youngest are were indulged, which leads to poor social empathy,
Speaker 1: which listeners, I assure you is not true of miss Conger.
Speaker 1: I'm just stuffing my face with pizza and ice cream
Speaker 1: right now. And then he gets to the middle and
Speaker 1: you know, he was one of his own family's middle children,
Speaker 1: and he points out that he believes middle children would
Speaker 1: be the most successful because they wouldn't suffer from either
Speaker 1: the oldest dethronement or the youngest over indulgence. Yeah. If
Speaker 1: you just plot siblings out on the spectrum, you have
Speaker 1: the middle kids who are just right there in the comfortable,
Speaker 1: cushy position in Adler's view. And that's so fascinating because
Speaker 1: we start out with middle children being perhaps the most
Speaker 1: set up for a more balanced life. Yeah. But, like
Speaker 1: I mentioned a second ago, pretty much everything we know
Speaker 1: from the research from Adler and Galton is somewhat inaccurate
Speaker 1: because they left out so much stuff that's that is
Speaker 1: important to keep in mind in this kind of psychological research.
Speaker 1: And by important stuff do you mean women. Yeah, Like,
Speaker 1: it's stuff like women. Yeah, I mean, because one thing
Speaker 1: that's important to keep in mind with birth order, especially
Speaker 1: when we're looking at this earliest research, is that we
Speaker 1: are not so far away from the days of prima jenitor,
Speaker 1: when automatically someone's you know, family's wealth and property would
Speaker 1: be passed along to the firstborn son, and that son
Speaker 1: could have seven plus older sisters, but he would still
Speaker 1: get everything because that's the way things flow down. And
Speaker 1: so when you add girls, daughters, sisters back into the equation,
Speaker 1: and that's something that could trend. Shulman talks about in
Speaker 1: her book that she co wrote, The Secret Power of
Speaker 1: Middle Children, for instance, that when they went back in
Speaker 1: and added the sisters of US presidents, which a lot
Speaker 1: of times we hear, oh, well, most US presidents were
Speaker 1: the first born. Actually of US presidents are middle borns,
Speaker 1: because for so long they're older sisters weren't counted. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that doesn't even my brain parts cannot even comprehend this.
Speaker 1: But they were like, oh, well, there are these lady
Speaker 1: people who are also in the house. We're not sure
Speaker 1: who they are, but they certainly don't count. Well, they
Speaker 1: kind of didn't count because they once they were simply
Speaker 1: married off and had no rights of their own under
Speaker 1: coverture laws for a really long time. Well. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: in terms of talking about the support that children receive,
Speaker 1: even if there are a bunch of older sisters, it's
Speaker 1: not like they're going to be afforded the same educational
Speaker 1: opportunities financial support that they're younger brothers will. So in
Speaker 1: that regard, it is almost like these male siblings, even
Speaker 1: if they are younger than their sisters, are sort of
Speaker 1: firstborn if we're talking about the degree of support they get. UM,
Speaker 1: So a younger brother might be set up for life,
Speaker 1: whereas his older sisters are just expected to marry into
Speaker 1: money and find support themselves. Exactly. And in addition to
Speaker 1: leaving the girls out of the equation, a lot of
Speaker 1: those older studies didn't take family size into account either,
Speaker 1: because obviously, being the second of two children versus being
Speaker 1: the second of seven children is going to play out
Speaker 1: differently in terms of family dynamics, right, and what's available
Speaker 1: in terms of resources and attention from parents. Um. One
Speaker 1: interesting example that was brought up and stuff we read
Speaker 1: was just talking about family position and how that can
Speaker 1: shift based on family events like death, birth, et cetera.
Speaker 1: Why that's important is because social position, rather than just
Speaker 1: your ordinal birth order, actually tends to predict i Q.
Speaker 1: Researchers have found the oldest children in a family tend
Speaker 1: to have higher i q s, but if an older
Speaker 1: child dies, the younger one who is now the oldest
Speaker 1: is then seem to have an IQ that's higher than
Speaker 1: average for his birth order position. What is up With that,
Speaker 1: researchers say that when children are very young, the the
Speaker 1: you know, quote unquote verbal attention that they get from
Speaker 1: their parents, their parents being excited about them and excited
Speaker 1: for their kids to learn language is very key. So
Speaker 1: when you're when you have that firstborn and you're sterilizing
Speaker 1: everything and you're trying to say fancy, big words in
Speaker 1: front of them so that they learned to speak, that
Speaker 1: maybe part of the middle child curse is that attention
Speaker 1: sort of drops off, and so it's that whole early
Speaker 1: attention to language that helps boost the I Q see.
Speaker 1: I think that this is an anecdotal aside, but with
Speaker 1: the language factor, I feel like, as the youngest of
Speaker 1: five children, I was just just showered in language because
Speaker 1: I had all these siblings and my parents talking to me.
Speaker 1: I wonder if just the research maybe is more general.
Speaker 1: I don't I don't know. Maybe they just assumed that, like,
Speaker 1: if you're a middle or a youngest, you're just going
Speaker 1: to be like forgotten about in a side room somewhere. Well.
Speaker 1: The thing about these kinds of studies is that there
Speaker 1: are so many different variables that will play into how
Speaker 1: you grow up and how your personality develops right exactly. Um,
Speaker 1: I mean, listen, people might simply just relate differently to
Speaker 1: one another in a family based on whether they're the parent,
Speaker 1: or whether they're one of the siblings, whether they're male
Speaker 1: or female, and whether as a parent. I mean, you
Speaker 1: might if you were a middle child yourself, you might
Speaker 1: identify more with your child who's a middle or older
Speaker 1: and older only and only that kind of thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: my dad was the youngest of or is the youngest
Speaker 1: of two, and I know for a fact that he
Speaker 1: especially noted on me as the youngest child. Well yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think you know that could have a lot
Speaker 1: to do with you know, parents or families in general
Speaker 1: projecting things, whether your dad was the youngest and so
Speaker 1: he wanted to protect you from any negative feelings that
Speaker 1: he experienced as a youngest, or whether good things happen
Speaker 1: to him as the youngest, and he wanted to make
Speaker 1: sure you experience these good things too. So a lot
Speaker 1: of times parents can sort of create a self fulfilling
Speaker 1: prophecy situation where maybe they have stereotypes in their own
Speaker 1: brains about how certain children behave in certain different ways,
Speaker 1: and they either accidentally end up bringing it out or
Speaker 1: they try their hardest to counteract it, and I can
Speaker 1: only like imagine now some parents unfortunately being like Tim
Speaker 1: is such a middle child. My goodness. Um. But when
Speaker 1: you look though at just the history of the research
Speaker 1: on birth order, there has been an interesting tug of
Speaker 1: war over time because you have Adler, and then you
Speaker 1: know a lot of people from there up until the
Speaker 1: eighties saying, oh, yeah, birth order, we can correlate it
Speaker 1: to all sorts of things and it means everything. And
Speaker 1: then the eighties there was this big meta analysis of
Speaker 1: all these old studies which said, actually, birth order no
Speaker 1: big deal. But then this researcher named soul Away came
Speaker 1: around and he controlled for variables like class and the
Speaker 1: number of siblings, and he came back around and sort
Speaker 1: of pushed it back out into the realm of oh,
Speaker 1: birth order super important. So I think still, if you
Speaker 1: get a bunch of psychologists in a room, it would
Speaker 1: be hard to draw one clear consensus among all of
Speaker 1: them about how important birth order is. Well, just tell
Speaker 1: me when that's gonna happen, And I'm just gonna not
Speaker 1: come into work that day because I don't want to
Speaker 1: be judged by the room full of yes that does
Speaker 1: sound stressful. But the thing is, there have been so
Speaker 1: many studies and there's still so many studies looking into
Speaker 1: these birth order dynamics, and the research particularly on middle
Speaker 1: children is especially pelling because they're kind of head scratchers
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways. And so let's dig more
Speaker 1: into the science of the middle child, shall we. And
Speaker 1: we'll talk more about that when we come right back
Speaker 1: from a quick break. So all of this research, this
Speaker 1: back and forth on birth order in general and middle
Speaker 1: children specifically, like Kristen said, it's had its ups and downs.
Speaker 1: People have thought it was gospel, people have thought it
Speaker 1: was nothing, but like the same type of bunk that
Speaker 1: astrology is that people just want to read about themselves
Speaker 1: and and and whatnot. But we have to mention out
Speaker 1: of all of this the stereotypes that people hold of
Speaker 1: middle children. And I feel like before we do this,
Speaker 1: we should just apologize to the middle children listening, who
Speaker 1: probably are very familiar with the stereotypes. Opt Middle children
Speaker 1: are cast as being confused, underachieving, overshadowed by their older
Speaker 1: and younger siblings, and overlooked by parents. Right. But um,
Speaker 1: some positive things have come out of being a middle child.
Speaker 1: According to researchers Stereotypically and and very generally, children who
Speaker 1: were born in the middle have a tendency to roll
Speaker 1: with things pretty easily. They're more easy going, they're flexible
Speaker 1: to handle disappointments better. And the big thing you always
Speaker 1: read is that middle children are negotiators. They're good at
Speaker 1: seeing both sides of an argument, and they just want
Speaker 1: peace and quiet in the family. Yeah, and another big
Speaker 1: thing you also hear about is that they are super
Speaker 1: social and almost like friendship specialists. Because the thinking goes,
Speaker 1: they receive less parental attention and have to look elsewhere
Speaker 1: for connections. And there was a two thousand three study
Speaker 1: looking at middle children and relationships and it did in
Speaker 1: fact support the idea that middle children tend to value
Speaker 1: friends over family and are usually less helpful in families,
Speaker 1: probably because they're like, well, nobody's helping me. Oh, but
Speaker 1: then now I'm just guilty just then of middle child stereotyping, uh,
Speaker 1: youngest whatever. Well, So, what plays into all of these
Speaker 1: personality traits, whether they're simply stereotypes or whether they are
Speaker 1: true for you in your life, has a lot to
Speaker 1: do with family dynamics, and so psychologist Katherine Salmon, who
Speaker 1: along with Shuman, was the co author of the Secret
Speaker 1: Power of Middle Children, talks about that whole sort of
Speaker 1: being ignored an independent thing which leads to being good
Speaker 1: at negotiating, talking about how middle kids are often marching
Speaker 1: to the beat of their own drums, setting themselves apart
Speaker 1: from their older and younger siblings, and she says that
Speaker 1: without the parental support that the youngest enjoys. Because the
Speaker 1: youngest in a fight has a tendency to circumvent the
Speaker 1: oldest and appeal straight to the parents never and they
Speaker 1: also don't enjoy the authority that the oldest child has.
Speaker 1: They have to get very good at that negotiating, figuring
Speaker 1: out what the other person wants and needs, and then
Speaker 1: managing to get them what they want in addition to
Speaker 1: what they themselves want. Yeah, and another thing that Human
Speaker 1: and Salmon talk about in the book is I mean,
Speaker 1: because as you can imagine from the title The Secret
Speaker 1: Power of Middle Children, they're very pro middle children. They
Speaker 1: kind of take the lemons and make lemonade. So, for instance,
Speaker 1: they say that actually receiving less parental attention, as middle
Speaker 1: children often do, they you can use that to their
Speaker 1: advantage to have a sense of independence because with the firstborn,
Speaker 1: obviously the parents are like, oh my god, we have
Speaker 1: to do everything to make sure we don't somehow break
Speaker 1: this baby and blah blah blah. And then by the
Speaker 1: time you get to the second child, you've done it already,
Speaker 1: so like, oh, well, you know, and let him eat dirt.
Speaker 1: You can cook your own dinner, Sam, baby, I know
Speaker 1: you can't reach the stove, but give it a shot. Um.
Speaker 1: So perhaps this allows them to just be better at
Speaker 1: fending for themselves and thinking outside of the box a
Speaker 1: little bit more. So maybe it's a good thing. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And of course gender matters too. I mean, obviously it
Speaker 1: matters if we look back at Galton and Adler's research
Speaker 1: and how Galton just totally freaking discounted women and so
Speaker 1: did society. While Galton was also eugenicist, so a perfect
Speaker 1: man he was not. That's true. But I think it's
Speaker 1: interesting to point out that if the middle child is
Speaker 1: a different gender than the older and younger siblings, the
Speaker 1: quote unquote middle child syndrome does not typically affect him
Speaker 1: or her. And so that's why I'm interested to watch
Speaker 1: my baby cousins grow up, because the oldest sibling and
Speaker 1: the youngest sibling are both adorable boys, and the middle
Speaker 1: sibling is an adorable little girl with I just she's
Speaker 1: just such a firecracker. I love her so much. But
Speaker 1: be interested to see how they grow up, because so
Speaker 1: far it really does seem like they're following a very
Speaker 1: stereotypical pattern. Oh, of her being very much a middle child,
Speaker 1: of her being very like independent and freewheeling. The oldest
Speaker 1: is like very good at school, he is very responsible,
Speaker 1: you know, police sports, he's towing the line. He's, you know,
Speaker 1: good kid. And then the youngest is just wacky. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The idea of how gender plays whether you are the
Speaker 1: firstborn of your gender in a family makes total sense
Speaker 1: to looking at my sister's family. For instance, she had
Speaker 1: three boys, and by the time her last pregnancy came around,
Speaker 1: she and my brother in law really wanted a girl.
Speaker 1: Not that they don't love their sons two bits, but
Speaker 1: they really want a girl. And so she's not only
Speaker 1: the youngest but also the first girl. So in a way,
Speaker 1: she's getting the double typical overindulgence of the youngest child, right,
Speaker 1: Because if you do have an old this boy, for instance,
Speaker 1: and then you are maybe a couple of boys and
Speaker 1: then a girl, like like with your sister, you know,
Speaker 1: her first are like the first you know, her first
Speaker 1: dance recital, her first like you know, pair of cute
Speaker 1: pink shoes like these are all firsts that are celebrated
Speaker 1: the way that they would be for a first child.
Speaker 1: It's just that it's a different gender and so things
Speaker 1: are new well. And that speaks to how the dynamic
Speaker 1: of family size can also play into this, because I
Speaker 1: would imagine that for smaller families probably doesn't make as
Speaker 1: much of a difference, but if you have a larger
Speaker 1: brood than you know wanting, like if you've had a
Speaker 1: lot of sons or you've had a lot of daughters,
Speaker 1: that firstborn, you know, of whichever one you're really hoping for,
Speaker 1: is an even bigger deal and might play or might
Speaker 1: make that birth order even more significant, right, And I
Speaker 1: mean talking about siblings specif quickly, and not just parents. Um.
Speaker 1: There was study using data from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study
Speaker 1: that measured the five main personality characteristics which include like
Speaker 1: neuroticism and an independence and stuff like that, and they
Speaker 1: actually found that brothers and sisters, regardless of birth order,
Speaker 1: are moderately similar in personality to one another. So yes,
Speaker 1: while birth order and parental attention and things like that
Speaker 1: are important, so is temperament, and so is the way
Speaker 1: that your siblings are. If you so desperately want to
Speaker 1: be like another of your siblings, then you will probably
Speaker 1: try to act that way to or get that same
Speaker 1: type of attention. Well, and I think it also makes
Speaker 1: a difference who is next in line above you, whether
Speaker 1: it is you know, in my case, the next oldest
Speaker 1: is a sister, and I think that our dynamic would
Speaker 1: have played out much differently if it had been a brother,
Speaker 1: because as two sisters or two brothers, a lot of
Speaker 1: competition can happen um. And again, this is when it
Speaker 1: gets into the realm of so many correlations that you
Speaker 1: can start to draw as you just switch up all
Speaker 1: the different possible family dynamics. But moving out of the
Speaker 1: family and looking at how birth order effects potentially romantic
Speaker 1: relationships is also fascinating because I would say with this one,
Speaker 1: it seems like a lot of the studies that we
Speaker 1: looked at were pretty clear cut in how they related
Speaker 1: middle children and their dating style, which is not entirely positive, right,
Speaker 1: I mean Kristen, you said the word competition if we
Speaker 1: look at jealousy. This is a study, by the way,
Speaker 1: from the North American Journal of Psychology from back in
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight, and they found that firstborn's firstborn
Speaker 1: children in romantic relationships tested out as the least jealous
Speaker 1: in relationships, whereas middle children were the most jealous. Now
Speaker 1: what is it with that? They found that this is
Speaker 1: because the middle child is stereotypically in the house, always
Speaker 1: the child who is in the most competition for attention,
Speaker 1: and they can end up feeling slighted or out of place,
Speaker 1: and so they're jealousy issues the researchers say, might not
Speaker 1: be fully resolved and possibly might carry over into adult relationships.
Speaker 1: And apparently this is a very auldarian view of how
Speaker 1: the birth order can affect your personality. So this is
Speaker 1: kind of the the old school birth order psychology at
Speaker 1: work here. But there have been other studies on top
Speaker 1: of this finding that middle children have the highest percentage
Speaker 1: of what's called insecure attachment. Um we've talked about before
Speaker 1: in the podcast about how people tend to have different
Speaker 1: sorts of relationship attachment styles. So usually the most positive
Speaker 1: would be considered secure attachment, wherehere you're like, hey, you're
Speaker 1: maboo and I love you and this is school and
Speaker 1: I'm secure in your love for me. I bet you
Speaker 1: read the best Valentine. Yeah, my my boyfriend feels romanced always,
Speaker 1: I can tell you. But then with insecure attachment, this
Speaker 1: is I mean, it is what it sounds like. There's
Speaker 1: usually a lot of anxiety at work within relationships. These
Speaker 1: are the people who tend to text more often, for instance,
Speaker 1: texts there, they're paramorees more often, UM, tend to be
Speaker 1: more jealous, etcetera. Right, Well, yeah, because jealousy is tied
Speaker 1: really closely to that insecure attachment. And so middle children
Speaker 1: I don't know, but I wonder though if that plays
Speaker 1: into another study we found which shows that people of
Speaker 1: the same birth order tend to pair up. So middle
Speaker 1: children are likelier to date middle children. My my boyfriend
Speaker 1: also a youngest child. I don't know. Interesting, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: would almost feel like two if if we're going just
Speaker 1: off of stereotypes here people, all right, let's do it,
Speaker 1: I would think that two middle children would be totally
Speaker 1: combustible and not a great match. If we're talking about
Speaker 1: two really jealous people, like they might be stuck at
Speaker 1: the hip to each other, but only because they don't
Speaker 1: trust each other. They're just texting each other, but standing
Speaker 1: like back to back, What are you doing? Who are
Speaker 1: you looking at? We're speaking ingest and very stereotypically right now,
Speaker 1: let me let me say that again. But anyway, when
Speaker 1: we look at attitudes toward love, whether they are more
Speaker 1: on the pragmatic side or more on the googly mushy side,
Speaker 1: the oldest child was found to be the most realistic
Speaker 1: of the group, followed by the middle and then the
Speaker 1: only and then the youngest. Okay, sure, but you also
Speaker 1: have to keep in mind that in general, researchers say,
Speaker 1: as you age, you your your outlook on love, your
Speaker 1: attitude about love becomes more realistic, more pragmat probably just
Speaker 1: because you've been there, done that scene it, you know,
Speaker 1: heard it, all of that stuff, so that that kind
Speaker 1: of makes sense. Yeah, you also found some compelling research
Speaker 1: on love styles and how that relates to birth order.
Speaker 1: And I've never heard of this before, the lettuce love style. Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: there are a bunch of different types of love styles.
Speaker 1: They include arrows, which is erotic love, a goat, which
Speaker 1: is more of the love for all mankind, the giving,
Speaker 1: unselfish type of love a lot of people associated with
Speaker 1: like Christian love. Um, But so the middle child was
Speaker 1: associated with this Lettuce style of love, which is interesting.
Speaker 1: And here's why. So the middle child has the highest
Speaker 1: mean for jealousy. Right, we already talked about that. In
Speaker 1: the Lettuce type of love is a game playing type
Speaker 1: of lover. So in this style of love, people enjoy love,
Speaker 1: they like it, but they never allow it to become necessary.
Speaker 1: Let us, lovers tend to approach love more casually, so
Speaker 1: they wouldn't likely be jealous. What if I don't know
Speaker 1: what's going on with that. Conflicting research probably evidence that
Speaker 1: a lot of this should be taken with a grain
Speaker 1: of salt. It sounds like, right, I really feel like
Speaker 1: you and I could sit here and discuss how both
Speaker 1: of those is right. How a middle child could be
Speaker 1: more jealous of the attention that his or her siblings received,
Speaker 1: you know, or could be this Lettuce style lover because
Speaker 1: oh well, I wasn't given attention, so I don't want
Speaker 1: to attach to anyone. Or they could be super casual
Speaker 1: and laid back about it because they are so social
Speaker 1: and are so good with interpersonal relationships anyway, because they
Speaker 1: tend to prefer friends over family. Apparently that they would
Speaker 1: make super great you know, they'd be great at dating
Speaker 1: because they could just meet people in form relationships, but
Speaker 1: are kind of like chill about it. So I don't
Speaker 1: know what we we need to ask our listeners for sure,
Speaker 1: to tell us about their their live styles. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: one thing in all of the studies conducted on birth
Speaker 1: order and specifically on middle children, that I couldn't find
Speaker 1: it was driving me bonkers, was the cultural history of
Speaker 1: this so called middle child syndrome. Because, like we mentioned,
Speaker 1: when it starts out with Adler, being a middle child
Speaker 1: doesn't seem to be a bad thing. They're positive personality
Speaker 1: traits associated with being middle children. We don't really hear
Speaker 1: about them that much. When did we culturally recast middle
Speaker 1: children as these just awkward kids? I don't know. Well,
Speaker 1: I have one theory for you. It was the one
Speaker 1: theory that I could find, and I bought it to
Speaker 1: do an extent because when I think of the stereotypical
Speaker 1: addle child in pop culture, it's Jan Brady. Because there
Speaker 1: is a famous episode of The Brady Bunch where she
Speaker 1: says Marcia Marsha Marcia because she's freaking out about the
Speaker 1: fact that her older and prettier and more popular sister
Speaker 1: Marcia gets all the attention. And Jan just wants to
Speaker 1: be Jan. She does. She wants to be her own
Speaker 1: woman and appreciated for who he is. She is not
Speaker 1: just Marcia Brady's little sister. And so there was an
Speaker 1: essay I was reading by this guy, Matthew c Henry
Speaker 1: called Generation Jan, and he said that he thinks that
Speaker 1: with Generation X, uh, you know, they're growing up in
Speaker 1: the nineties seventies. This is when all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: you have TVs in every home and probably even multiple TVs,
Speaker 1: and you also have kids plopping down in front of
Speaker 1: those TVs. And what comes on in the seventies the
Speaker 1: Brady Bunch, and then what goes into syndication for the
Speaker 1: rest of time the Brady Bunch. And so one thing
Speaker 1: that the Brady Bunch did, like essentially their bread and butter,
Speaker 1: was just focusing in on sort of family stereotypes and
Speaker 1: Jan was the middle child. And so he thinks that
Speaker 1: planted a seed in our cultural brain that the middle
Speaker 1: child is Jan Brady putting on a black wig to
Speaker 1: try to make herself stand out and looking ridiculous and
Speaker 1: always being like, oh Jan pitied in a way. I
Speaker 1: guess I should have watched The Brady Bunch. I am
Speaker 1: so surprised to learn that you did not watch The
Speaker 1: Brady Bunch. I watched so much Brady Bunch when I
Speaker 1: was a kid. I didn't. I guess I was just
Speaker 1: watching Garfield and and Peanuts. Yeah. I think my parents
Speaker 1: were just really cool with me watching The Brady Bunch
Speaker 1: all the time because it was such a clean show. Yeah,
Speaker 1: whereas my parents were just like I'm sure my parents
Speaker 1: were the ones who were like, cook your own dinner, baby.
Speaker 1: So there not to say that Garfield was like the
Speaker 1: of some satanic show. Yes, So I'll be curious to
Speaker 1: hear from listeners whether they have any theories to add
Speaker 1: to this as to when this middle child syndrome became
Speaker 1: a thing, because you google a middle child syndrome and
Speaker 1: there are a million articles and new segments on it,
Speaker 1: but no one talks about where it came from. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and I think it's also you know, important to
Speaker 1: keep in mind, Like I definitely want to hear if
Speaker 1: you feel like you totally fit the middle child stereotype
Speaker 1: and your family dynamics were totally along those lines or not,
Speaker 1: because I think a lot of this A lot of
Speaker 1: the researchers who said, you know, there's a lot more
Speaker 1: aspects to a personality than than where you fall in
Speaker 1: the family, your temperament, your parents, temperament, your gender, so
Speaker 1: economic status, perfect jinks. But yeah, and so it is
Speaker 1: almost like an astrology argument, like, yes, I tend to
Speaker 1: fit a lot of the said terious aspects. But it's
Speaker 1: also I found out in therapy I have a lot
Speaker 1: of my personality from my parents. So you know, what
Speaker 1: I think it is is simply the fact that we
Speaker 1: as humans really are just fascinated with ourselves. We want
Speaker 1: to know why we work the way they the way
Speaker 1: we do. So I think it's the same reason why
Speaker 1: you know, people are interested in, say their astrological sign,
Speaker 1: or in their birth order, in what their name means,
Speaker 1: and all of these different things, just so that we
Speaker 1: can diagnose ourselves with something we all just want to
Speaker 1: know if for a normal Yeah, it's just I mean,
Speaker 1: it's the reason why the web MD symptom checker is
Speaker 1: so popular. I've I've almost broken my addiction to that now.
Speaker 1: I just now, I just ask other friends questions about
Speaker 1: their issues, and then I immediately am like, wait, that
Speaker 1: sounds familiar, I think, but after this podcast, are you
Speaker 1: worried you're a middle child? No, I'm definitely an only child.
Speaker 1: That's good. That's good. It I guess steps from the
Speaker 1: right direction. Well, now we want to hear from the
Speaker 1: middle children listening. Like Caroline said, do you feel like
Speaker 1: you fit the mold of the stereotypical middle child? And
Speaker 1: can anyone tell us where the whole middle child syndrome
Speaker 1: came from? Let us know all of your middle children thoughts.
Speaker 1: Mom Stuff at how stuff works dot com is our
Speaker 1: email address. You can also messages on Facebook or tweet
Speaker 1: us at mom Stuff podcast. And we've got a couple
Speaker 1: of messages to share with you right now. So I've
Speaker 1: got to let her hear from Carrie. In response to
Speaker 1: our series on women explorers, she writes, I wanted to
Speaker 1: mention my experience as a solo female traveler in South America.
Speaker 1: I graduated from university with degrees and political science and
Speaker 1: global studies, and I was turned down for a job
Speaker 1: that I very much wanted and naively expected to get.
Speaker 1: Like many recent grads, I decided to travel until the
Speaker 1: job market looked more promising, and I bought a one
Speaker 1: way ticket to Ecuador. I spent two years saving and
Speaker 1: did my research about cultural norms and safety, and my
Speaker 1: immediate family was very supportive, but responses from others were varied,
Speaker 1: most commonly, alone, aren't you afraid? Why would you do that?
Speaker 1: Or well, you have to do it now because once
Speaker 1: you have kids it will be a lot harder to travel.
Speaker 1: And finally, well, you have to travel now because once
Speaker 1: you're married, your husband won't let you go alone. While
Speaker 1: I'm not discovering anything new, the idea of being a
Speaker 1: female solo traveler seems to elicit the same kinds of
Speaker 1: criticisms that female explorers have always faced. I have to
Speaker 1: suspect that men in the same position I'm in would
Speaker 1: be considered fun adventurers, as opposed to reckless and irresponsible
Speaker 1: for postponing their career and shockingly having children. Since I've
Speaker 1: moved here after traveling for a while, I co founded
Speaker 1: an organic chocolate shop in Cafe with a Peruvian family
Speaker 1: and im permanently moved here to run the business. Hey,
Speaker 1: that's so cool. I meet women every day from all
Speaker 1: over the world who are traveling alone and who have
Speaker 1: come under criticism from family and friends for going it
Speaker 1: on their own. While life here is culturally quite different
Speaker 1: for women, No, I don't spend every day worrying about
Speaker 1: being raped and kidnapped, and I don't have any regrets
Speaker 1: about not being married and having children. So thanks for
Speaker 1: writing and Carrie, and best of luck in Ecuador. Well,
Speaker 1: I have a letter here from Holly and she says
Speaker 1: it's great to see and hear about the women thus
Speaker 1: far in history who have essentially thrown up their arms
Speaker 1: and did whatever they wanted. So what if someone says
Speaker 1: you can't or that people don't do that, et cetera.
Speaker 1: Why not? That's the only question that needs to be answered.
Speaker 1: While listening to your episode, I couldn't help but think
Speaker 1: about Mary Anderson, a much more recent and fairly unknown explorer.
Speaker 1: She and her husband started the company ari I, which
Speaker 1: stands for Recreational Equipment, Inc. In which I now proudly
Speaker 1: work for. But she started as an avid mountaineer who,
Speaker 1: along with her husband, wanted to get more people out
Speaker 1: exploring and help them get nected to gear and knowledge
Speaker 1: to assist them. This also included her stitching tints by
Speaker 1: hand in their home while their co op was continuing
Speaker 1: to grow. I've tried to do more research on her
Speaker 1: in their explorations, but haven't been able to find much. No,
Speaker 1: she didn't have any major discoveries under her belt, but
Speaker 1: she's a big staple in my mind of a woman
Speaker 1: who is now over one years old and still has
Speaker 1: a great handshake from what I hear, who stands for
Speaker 1: what she believes in and pushes forward to expand her
Speaker 1: knowledge with others and nature in mind. So thank you
Speaker 1: for the awesome story about this woman, Holly, and that's
Speaker 1: Mary Anderson for those of you who want to google her,
Speaker 1: And thanks to everybody who's written into us. Mom stuff
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com is our email address,
Speaker 1: and if you want to hit us up on social media,
Speaker 1: you can find links to all of those different places,
Speaker 1: including links to all of our blogs, videos, and podcasts
Speaker 1: with all of our source citations. So you need to
Speaker 1: head on over to stuff mom Never Told You dot
Speaker 1: com and more on this and thousands of other topics.
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