Adding this to my list of fireside reads.
I have heard some crushing statements from Jeffrey's
studies that I would like to learn more about... (er...maybe)
According to Jeffrey, parents favor the first born child
more. I am a second born. This is bad news for me.
I am going to get to the bottom of this. Paige if you are
reading this... the gauntlet has been thrown...
(haha... :) kidding.)
According to Jeffery's article in TIME Magazine
The first born has a higher IQ, probably due to mentoring
the children underneath them. They are also usually
the tallest and largest. But here is something those
born later have going for us according to Jeffery's
article in TIME:
"But there are low-power strategies too, and one of the most
effective ones is humor. It's awfully hard to resist the charms
of someone who can make you laugh, and families abound
with stories of last-borns who are the clowns of the brood, able
to get their way simply by being funny or outrageous. Birth-order
scholars often observe that some of history's great satirists—
Voltaire, Jonathan Swift, Mark Twain—were among the youngest
members of large families, a pattern that continues today.
Faux bloviator Stephen Colbert—who yields to no one in his
ability to get a laugh—often points out that he's the last of 11
children.
Such examples might be little more than anecdotal, but personality
tests show that while firstborns score especially well on the
dimension of temperament known as conscientiousness—a
sense of general responsibility and follow-through—later-borns
score higher on what's known as agreeableness, or the simple
ability to get along in the world. "Kids recognize a good low-power
strategy," says Sulloway. "It's the way any sensible