Nanci Kuykendall

>I think a lot of this has to do with birth order,
>too.
>Crystal

I am always in trigued by the issue of birth orders,
although I cannot confess to know all that much about
what are the suppossed traits of various birth orders.
Can someone fill me in? When I was in counseling,
therapists always expressed shock and disbelief when
they finally found out my birth order. I usually
don't advertise it because it causes people to make
certain assumptions about me based on my birth order,
which in my case are totally inaccurate. Hence the
shock of therapists.

Nanci K.

gehrkes

Okay drawing from my rusty memory... Oldest.. Hero child, Focus of
all the unfulfilled dreams of the parent.. Middle... THe lost child..
really quite invisable.. Fits in but not really noticed.. Baby is the
family clown..Center of attention.. Provides comedy relief..
There are assumptions about people only having 3 children here.. I
have eight.. Also when a hero child is a disappointmen, the Lost
child can take the hero's place.. And there can be a rebel child..
WHere all of the families worries and worry energy goes.. Diverting
the family from dealing with real issues within it. They are very
interesting theories and in my fam of origin they do not clearly fit..
Kathleen










--- In [email protected], Nanci Kuykendall
<aisliin@y...> wrote:
> >I think a lot of this has to do with birth order,
> >too.
> >Crystal
>
> I am always in trigued by the issue of birth orders,
> although I cannot confess to know all that much about
> what are the suppossed traits of various birth orders.
> Can someone fill me in? When I was in counseling,
> therapists always expressed shock and disbelief when
> they finally found out my birth order. I usually
> don't advertise it because it causes people to make
> certain assumptions about me based on my birth order,
> which in my case are totally inaccurate. Hence the
> shock of therapists.
>
> Nanci K.

[email protected]

In a message dated 9/19/03 6:46:01 AM, aisliin@... writes:

<<
I am always in trigued by the issue of birth orders,
although I cannot confess to know all that much about
what are the suppossed traits of various birth orders. >>

Even without the traits of birth order though, they're dealing with a
different mother, sometimes a different physical or financial situation, sometimes
the mood has changed in their families in such a way that it has a huge impact.

People at www.unschooling.com are talking about living through a conversion
to fundamentalist Christianity as children, replete with bonfires for burning
all their parents' records and other Satanic influences. That would make a
difference, if a child was pre- or post-conversion.

We read lots about families switching from conservative, spanking, structured
life and school or school-at-home to near-sudden change to unschooling,
peace, mindfulness. That would make a difference in the children's experience with
their moms. It wold be like the younger kids had an entirely different life
and a different set of parents.

My half brother, 19 years younger, DID have a different dad, but same mom.
But not the same mom. When I was little she was young, and home. When he was
little, she was in her 40's, at the bar every day from opening to close (he
was there too most of the time), etc.

Birth order studies I've read rarely address physical changes in the mom and
family situation. They seem to be statistical comparisons of traits of
studies of large groups of people. As though there were no other factors, what do
first-borns have in common? That's interesting as far as it goes, but within
any one actual family, I think other factors are greater than just birth
order.

With only three, we see some definite firstborn stuff with Kirby, some
unquestionable mid-kid with Marty and Holly KNOWS she inherits the world (if all
goes well, she'll be the last remaining child with her pick of the bedrooms,
probably a decent car to drive, unlike Kirby's driver's license experience which
is he can share my ten year old mini-van, etc.).

Plus you get the gender factors. A fourth child who's the same gender as the
others won't get the special perks of one who's the first boy or girl after
three of the other kind.

Sandra

Crystal

In Google, just type in Birth Order and a lot of interesting pages
will come up. I read about this subject a long time ago and I don't
remember a lot of it except that the order that you were born in can
have an effect on your personality traits. First borns are usually
more responsible, last borns are the baby longer--something like
that.

This is something I copied off of one of those pages:
http://www.encouragingleadership.com/Birth_Order.htm

Oldest child:
Highest achievers; Highest IQ; Greatest educational success and
fewest academic problems; Highest motivation and need for
achievement; Overrepresented among college students, graduate
students, college faculty, and other learned groups; Most affiliative
under stress; Least conventional sexuality; Most affiliative.

Middle child:
Fewest "acting out" problems; Sociable; Greatest feeling of not
belonging; Successful in team sports; Relates well to older and
younger people; Competes in areas not attempted by oldest; Lowest
need for intellectual achievement.

Youngest child:
Greatest over-representation of psychiatric disorders; Most likely to
be an alcoholic (increases with family size); Empathetic;
Characteristics of Oldest in anxiety and fear if five years younger
than next oldest; Highest representation among writers (especially
autobiographers and family historians); Over-represented in
activities involving social interplay; Most popular.

Single child:
High need for achievement; Highest achievers (except for Oldest
Child); Most likely to go to college; Most behavior problems; Lowest
need for affiliation; Most need for affiliation under stress; Loners
and lonely; Under-represented among psychiatric clients; Most likely
to be referred for clinical; Act as Single children if 7 year
difference.

Crystal


--- In [email protected], Nanci Kuykendall
<aisliin@y...> wrote:
> >I think a lot of this has to do with birth order,
> >too.
> >Crystal
>
> I am always in trigued by the issue of birth orders,
> although I cannot confess to know all that much about
> what are the suppossed traits of various birth orders.
> Can someone fill me in? When I was in counseling,
> therapists always expressed shock and disbelief when
> they finally found out my birth order. I usually
> don't advertise it because it causes people to make
> certain assumptions about me based on my birth order,
> which in my case are totally inaccurate. Hence the
> shock of therapists.
>
> Nanci K.

crystal.pina

-=Even without the traits of birth order though, they're dealing with a different mother, sometimes a different physical or financial situation, sometimes the mood has changed in their families in such a way that it has a huge impact.=-

This is so true. I was born when my mother still lived at home. I think of my aunt and my mother as my sisters and my grandfather as my father. One day we were discussing my grandfather's things (he's gone now) and I told them, "he was my father, too". My siblings never had that relationship like I did. My next two, the ones who are into drugs and alcohol, were born after my mother and I moved out on our own. They have my father, but my mother didn't live with him. She stayed a single mother until my stepfather, who was the father of the youngest two. So, yes, we all did have a different mother. I see that with my own kids. It's like I had two families, the oldest three, and the youngest two, although the middle one makes her way into either group at will. My oldest two and youngest two definately had a different mother.

Crystal



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

gehrkes

-
My eight all saw a different mother.. and father. They were each
different people looking through their own lenses.. And I started
parenting at 17.. I am 39 now.. I have gone through just a couple of
changes in that time... Even the kids who all live here.. See a
different parent as they look at me.. ;]kathleen















-- In [email protected], "crystal.pina"
<crystal.pina@v...> wrote:
> -=Even without the traits of birth order though, they're dealing
with a different mother, sometimes a different physical or financial
situation, sometimes the mood has changed in their families in such
a way that it has a huge impact.=-
>
> This is so true. I was born when my mother still lived at home.
I think of my aunt and my mother as my sisters and my grandfather as
my father. One day we were discussing my grandfather's things (he's
gone now) and I told them, "he was my father, too". My siblings
never had that relationship like I did. My next two, the ones who
are into drugs and alcohol, were born after my mother and I moved
out on our own. They have my father, but my mother didn't live with
him. She stayed a single mother until my stepfather, who was the
father of the youngest two. So, yes, we all did have a different
mother. I see that with my own kids. It's like I had two families,
the oldest three, and the youngest two, although the middle one
makes her way into either group at will. My oldest two and youngest
two definately had a different mother.
>
> Crystal
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[email protected]

my family would confuse any studies.
oldest is oldest any way it goes as in oldest of the four however .....
my only birth child was a only child for me till she was 14 and with her
father she was only till she was 10. she remaines my only birth child and
this for some reason is important to her.
my 3rd was, her bio mothers and my husbands youngest and the diffrence
between her and her bothers was like 7 years.( there is another son in there
that was hubbys step son)
our youngest was the oldest from both her bio's and they had her till she was
8 or 9 she is the youngest here except we have my grand child alot and says
sometimes she feels more like a anoying lil sister than a niece.
I wonder when they do there studies do they take in account the blended
familys and so forth.
I am sure the order has a lot to do with things and the growth of the parents
must impact things and like i have read here the fince of the family.
I personaly wonder if things where better for my oldest daughter as I was
young and very very poor and spent more time being inventive and less time
making money and buying things. I must confess oldest can rember home made
bread and so can few of others but barely youngest says you use to bake all
the bread in the house and it didnt come from a freezer?
we have recently sold (sale pending) our home and geting a moblie home and a
camper to take the 3 of us(hubby,youngest, and me) on the road some where
along the path to my own growing I seemed to just mouth what was important to
me things like playing and hiking and just cuddle time.
Here comes another mommy growth spurt. wonder if I rember how to bake bread?
Dee
> >I think a lot of this has to do with birth order,
> >too.
> >Crystal
>
> I am always in trigued by the issue of birth orders,
> although I cannot confess to know all that much about
> what are the suppossed traits of various birth orders.
> Can someone fill me in? When I was in counseling,
> therapists always expressed shock and disbelief when
> they finally found out my birth order. I usually
> don't advertise it because it causes people to make
> certain assumptions about me based on my birth order,
> which in my case are totally inaccurate. Hence the
> shock of therapists.
>
> Nanci K.
>
>
> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
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>
>
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>
>

Tia Leschke

> our youngest was the oldest from both her bio's and they had her till she
was
> 8 or 9 she is the youngest here except we have my grand child alot and
says
> sometimes she feels more like a anoying lil sister than a niece.

We've had that here. Our older kids (his and hers) were 8, 9, and 12 when
Lars was born. He was an uncle when he was 6, but he and my granddaughter
have often seemed more like bickering sibs than uncle and niece.
Tia
leschke@...

"Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where
there is no path and leave a trail."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Nanci K.

>aisliin@y... writes:
>>I am always intrigued by the issue of birth orders,

>Sandra Wrote: ....sometimes a different physical or financial
>situation, sometimes the mood has changed in their families in such
>a way that it has a huge impact.
> Birth order studies I've read rarely address physical changes in
>the mom and family situation.
> Sandra

Right. I agree. There are a lot of other factors involved in
shaping a person's childhood experience at home than just their
physical place in the family birth order. The trouble is, a lot of
people put a fair amount of store, conscious or otherwise, into
birth orders, so that there are presumtions and assumptions made
about a person based on their birth order. It is particularly
annoying to those of us for whom those presumptions are decidedly
off base due to the circumstances of our childhoods.

What it means is that, barring being dishonest, I am reticent about
telling people my birth order until they know me some and can take
it in stride. For a lot of folks, that is the first thing that they
ask: "How many kids in your family?" or "How many brothers and
sisters did you have?" followed closely by "Where were you in that?"
or some variation of that question. Of course they ask because they
are forming some general ideas about who you are, or what kind of
person you are, or what to expect from you. Why do people put so
much weight behind the flawed and incomplete notions in the birth
order theory? Is it popular culture, like a Brady Bunch thing, or
what?

Nanci K.

[email protected]

In a message dated 9/21/2003 1:36:00 PM Central Daylight Time,
aisliin@... writes:

> What it means is that, barring being dishonest, I am reticent about
> telling people my birth order until they know me some and can take
> it in stride. For a lot of folks, that is the first thing that they
> ask: "How many kids in your family?" or "How many brothers and
> sisters did you have?" followed closely by "Where were you in that?"
> or some variation of that question. Of course they ask because they
> are forming some general ideas about who you are, or what kind of
> person you are, or what to expect from you. Why do people put so
> much weight behind the flawed and incomplete notions in the birth
> order theory? Is it popular culture, like a Brady Bunch thing, or
> what?
>

That's funny, because that hardly ever happens to me until way, way into a
relationship. By then they know me pretty well.

Tuck


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[email protected]

In a message dated 9/21/03 12:36:00 PM, aisliin@... writes:

<< It is particularly

annoying to those of us for whom those presumptions are decidedly

off base due to the circumstances of our childhoods. >>

I'm a first-born and a Leo.
Nobody has ever assumed otherwise. <g>

Sandra