Personal Interest
I am the middle of three children. Having a sister seventeen months older, and a brother four years younger put me in many confusing and frustrating predicaments while growing up. Oftentimes I found myself torn between whom I’d most wanted to relate to, but ended up spreading myself equally between the two options—finding best friends on both ends.
Both of my siblings were good students and found their own ways of expressing their individualism and creativity. My sister chose writing and awed her family and teachers constantly with her work. Becoming a ‘teen correspondent’ for a prominent youth fashion magazine, she was able to showcase her style both on the pages and in her wardrobe. Meanwhile my brother chose athletics and music. Having taught himself to play the guitar he spent his teen years learning the chord progressions to his favorite Beatles songs after baseball practice.
Sandwiched in-between two of the most impressive people I had the pleasure of knowing didn’t find me yearning for a niche of my own, but rather wondering who had a bigger influence on my life. I was always grateful for the barriers my sister “broke down” for me during our teen years as well as the camaraderie we shared walking the halls of school together. After all she was the one to negotiate a later curfew and suggest that we hide our report cards, though her “horrendous” grades were far better than mine. We teased my brother for being the “Golden Child” though neither of us believed in such a position in our family’s close ranks. He succeeded in all that he attempted with what appeared to be relative ease, but he was always so nice to everyone and ended up voted “Best to Take Home to the Parents” in his senior yearbook—a moral compass for us all.
I have often wondered if our relative levels of rebelliousness, work ethic and ambition have anything to do with the order in which we were born. Did my sister, the eldest of three, settle down to have a family first because she had been fielding a mothering urge toward her siblings? Did my brother move to the “big city” after college because he needed to create his own identity after being the little brother (eternally eight years old) for so long? And did I, the middle child, return to grad school to redeem myself from years of poor grades and being the more anti-social child with two seemingly perfect siblings?
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Conclusion: Personal Reflection
I think that I had something different in mind when I embarked upon this assignment. In my head it was going to be an epic study on the different articles about specific occurrences of development, filled with examples and studies. The more I read, however, the more I found that the myths of birth order and the development of children were more intertwined than I realized. It was hard to find sources that didn't include one with the other.
Most of the authors didn't appreciate the myths and resolved to de-bunk them, but concluded that it was hard to separate what children were from what they thought they should be based on said myths, instead choosing to leave it at that. It was hard to find articles that spoke on the benefits of a sibling as a caregiver within the realm of development, without touching on specific examples of what influences that elder sibling had on their younger charges, for example.
Then again, maybe this was my misconception going into this topic. I was under the impression that there were separate entities, but have been proved entirely wrong. It's all a part in the much bigger picture, and I was too busy trying to keep things independent of each other to notice.
I am the middle of three children. Having a sister seventeen months older, and a brother four years younger put me in many confusing and frustrating predicaments while growing up. Oftentimes I found myself torn between whom I’d most wanted to relate to, but ended up spreading myself equally between the two options—finding best friends on both ends.
Both of my siblings were good students and found their own ways of expressing their individualism and creativity. My sister chose writing and awed her family and teachers constantly with her work. Becoming a ‘teen correspondent’ for a prominent youth fashion magazine, she was able to showcase her style both on the pages and in her wardrobe. Meanwhile my brother chose athletics and music. Having taught himself to play the guitar he spent his teen years learning the chord progressions to his favorite Beatles songs after baseball practice.
Sandwiched in-between two of the most impressive people I had the pleasure of knowing didn’t find me yearning for a niche of my own, but rather wondering who had a bigger influence on my life. I was always grateful for the barriers my sister “broke down” for me during our teen years as well as the camaraderie we shared walking the halls of school together. After all she was the one to negotiate a later curfew and suggest that we hide our report cards, though her “horrendous” grades were far better than mine. We teased my brother for being the “Golden Child” though neither of us believed in such a position in our family’s close ranks. He succeeded in all that he attempted with what appeared to be relative ease, but he was always so nice to everyone and ended up voted “Best to Take Home to the Parents” in his senior yearbook—a moral compass for us all.
I have often wondered if our relative levels of rebelliousness, work ethic and ambition have anything to do with the order in which we were born. Did my sister, the eldest of three, settle down to have a family first because she had been fielding a mothering urge toward her siblings? Did my brother move to the “big city” after college because he needed to create his own identity after being the little brother (eternally eight years old) for so long? And did I, the middle child, return to grad school to redeem myself from years of poor grades and being the more anti-social child with two seemingly perfect siblings?
***
Conclusion: Personal Reflection
I think that I had something different in mind when I embarked upon this assignment. In my head it was going to be an epic study on the different articles about specific occurrences of development, filled with examples and studies. The more I read, however, the more I found that the myths of birth order and the development of children were more intertwined than I realized. It was hard to find sources that didn't include one with the other.
Most of the authors didn't appreciate the myths and resolved to de-bunk them, but concluded that it was hard to separate what children were from what they thought they should be based on said myths, instead choosing to leave it at that. It was hard to find articles that spoke on the benefits of a sibling as a caregiver within the realm of development, without touching on specific examples of what influences that elder sibling had on their younger charges, for example.
Then again, maybe this was my misconception going into this topic. I was under the impression that there were separate entities, but have been proved entirely wrong. It's all a part in the much bigger picture, and I was too busy trying to keep things independent of each other to notice.
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