Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #1110 - Is Birth Order Legit, or a Sham?

Transcript

#1110 - Is Birth Order Legit, or a Sham? · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

0:04
Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families Podcast.
0:07
Speaker 2: It's the podcast for the time poor parent who just
0:10
Speaker 2: wants answers.
0:11
Speaker 1: Now, Hello, and welcome to the Happy Families Podcast. It's
0:15
Speaker 1: so good to have you along, Money and stops, Justin
0:17
Speaker 1: Corson and who with my wife and mum to our
0:19
Speaker 1: six kids, Kylie and miss Happy Families. Kylie. Is something
0:22
Speaker 1: a little bit different today? You said that you wanted
0:24
Speaker 1: to run the podcast. I'm not sure if I'm understanding
0:28
Speaker 1: you correctly. You wanted to run the podcast. You said
0:29
Speaker 1: you want the rains to kick things off, and all
0:32
Speaker 1: I know is that you want quiz me on some stuff.
0:34
Speaker 2: Well, I'm not even sure if we're going to get
0:36
Speaker 2: through this. In the last thirty seconds, we've had three
0:38
Speaker 2: different children come to the doors. So hard, How hard
0:42
Speaker 2: is it?
0:42
Speaker 1: It's so so a few minutes of peace, please. I
0:45
Speaker 1: think this is why people like major organizations have started
0:48
Speaker 1: to say that work from home is not a thing
0:50
Speaker 1: and it can't keep going. So many interruptions, My goodness. Anyway,
0:54
Speaker 1: what do you want to talk about today?
0:55
Speaker 2: Birth order ideas are everywhere at the moment in my
0:58
Speaker 2: social feeds, right right, So I wanted to talk to
1:01
Speaker 2: you about whether or not there is actually any scientific
1:05
Speaker 2: proof to birth orders.
1:07
Speaker 1: Well, before we talk about birth order generally, let me
1:09
Speaker 1: just quickly suggest that you can safely disregard I'd say
1:13
Speaker 1: ninety percent, maybe ninety five, maybe ninety nine percent of
1:16
Speaker 1: what shows up your social feeds. It's credibility, reliability. The
1:21
Speaker 1: quality of information that you get on social media is
1:23
Speaker 1: generally low. I know that there's more and more people
1:25
Speaker 1: taking relationship and parenting advice on TikTok and Instagram. It
1:29
Speaker 1: is true that there are some really smart people doing
1:31
Speaker 1: some really good things there, so I want to be
1:34
Speaker 1: supportive of that. But you kind of have to have
1:38
Speaker 1: a PhD in the thing that you're interested in, so
1:41
Speaker 1: that you know which of the one hundred percent is
1:43
Speaker 1: the ninety pcent you should ignore and which of one
1:44
Speaker 1: hundred percent is the tempercent that you should take on that.
1:48
Speaker 1: Does that make sense?
1:49
Speaker 2: Just lost me.
1:50
Speaker 1: What I'm saying is most of it is rubbish, and
1:51
Speaker 1: you've got to be really smart to know what's good
1:52
Speaker 1: and what's not. That's what I'm saying.
1:54
Speaker 2: But the challenge is for the average person. I'm looking
1:57
Speaker 2: at the fact that there's been a bajillion view is
2:00
Speaker 2: right on something it's tracting, which.
2:02
Speaker 1: Gives it credibility exactly. So you see something's had three
2:06
Speaker 1: million views and you think, well, this must be really good,
2:08
Speaker 1: And it might be really good, but it doesn't mean
2:10
Speaker 1: it's right. It might just be really funny or really
2:13
Speaker 1: clever or whatever, but not necessarily right.
2:15
Speaker 2: Well, the general gist of birth order stereotypes the eldest.
2:20
Speaker 1: Hang on a second before you go on, Is this
2:21
Speaker 1: your general gist from what you've picked up on your
2:23
Speaker 1: social media?
2:25
Speaker 2: No, not so much from social media. I think across
2:27
Speaker 2: the board over the years, with its kind of an environment. Yeah,
2:30
Speaker 2: over and over again. Eldest children they're the responsible, reliable ones. Yeah,
2:34
Speaker 2: middle children. We call it middle children's syndrome for a reason.
2:37
Speaker 2: They feel hard done by because they're kind of left
2:40
Speaker 2: out in the in the middle of no man's lands.
2:43
Speaker 1: Are often spoken of as being very competitive, though I
2:47
Speaker 1: was about to.
2:47
Speaker 2: Say there is a different element to that as well.
2:49
Speaker 1: You've got to clamor for attention because the oldest and
2:52
Speaker 1: the youngest always take.
2:53
Speaker 2: It, and then the third born or last born is
2:55
Speaker 2: fun loving, attention seeking and one responsibility. They're the one
3:01
Speaker 2: that gets away with everything becausemum and dad are so
3:04
Speaker 2: tired by that point. They don't have rules like they
3:06
Speaker 2: had for baby number one.
3:08
Speaker 1: And the otherest one off and also gets all of
3:10
Speaker 1: the treats and all the goodies because Mum and Dad
3:11
Speaker 1: have gotten themselves into a financial position that the oldest
3:15
Speaker 1: kids never had. Right Like, the longer you live life, ideally,
3:19
Speaker 1: the more established you become and there for the more
3:21
Speaker 1: you can afford. I remember watching my youngest siblings go
3:23
Speaker 1: on the best holidays ever.
3:25
Speaker 2: Ahhuh.
3:26
Speaker 1: And I'm not going to complain and say I never
3:28
Speaker 1: got to go on holidays with my family, but nothing
3:30
Speaker 1: compared to what my my younger sibling's got. And even
3:33
Speaker 1: in our family, I'm seeing that happen as well. Our
3:35
Speaker 1: eldest daughter mid twenties, is watching what the youngest kids
3:38
Speaker 1: are getting and going. They're doing pretty well, aren't they?
3:41
Speaker 2: And she makes sure everybody knows that's right. And I
3:45
Speaker 2: think the only other thing that comes out is often
3:47
Speaker 2: the youngest children have very little photographic evidence.
3:52
Speaker 1: Well again in our family, so so fishing. Now, our
3:54
Speaker 1: eldest you did all this beautiful art and put together
3:57
Speaker 1: this incredible photo album that you did a cross stitch
3:59
Speaker 1: for wall with her birth date on it and a
4:01
Speaker 1: picture of a baby sleeping and under a blanket ian.
4:04
Speaker 1: It was just gorgeous. And you started a cross stitch
4:06
Speaker 1: for Abby, our second born, three years later, which was
4:09
Speaker 1: never completed. And I don't think any of our kids
4:12
Speaker 1: have got photo albums other than Chanelle.
4:14
Speaker 2: Hey, hey, hey, I'm throwing shade. Let's just be real. Chanelle,
4:21
Speaker 2: our eldest, she got chill. She was too. It's not
4:24
Speaker 2: like I did a grand job of her existence. And
4:28
Speaker 2: I am doing my very best to catch up on
4:31
Speaker 2: the other five children in the process.
4:34
Speaker 1: And so there's a whole lot of people who are
4:35
Speaker 1: out there who are writing books about birth order and
4:38
Speaker 1: getting paid big money to give birth order talks and
4:40
Speaker 1: all that sort of stuff.
4:42
Speaker 2: It's a big deal and there's a huge market for it.
4:44
Speaker 1: There's a really big market, and people are a super responsive.
4:48
Speaker 1: People really seem to I don't get caught up in it.
4:51
Speaker 1: People really love the whole birth order thing.
4:54
Speaker 2: I think I know what you're going to say. What
4:56
Speaker 2: your answer is based on your reactions already.
4:59
Speaker 1: By birth to say, based on the fact that we've
5:01
Speaker 1: been married for twenty seven years.
5:03
Speaker 2: But is there actually any truth to birth order?
5:06
Speaker 1: Oh? So, Kinlie. The tricky thing here is that so
5:09
Speaker 1: much of it feels right if.
5:11
Speaker 2: You were to ask me whether or not I fitted
5:13
Speaker 2: the eldest child bracket.
5:18
Speaker 1: And there's a lot of stuff on social media at
5:19
Speaker 1: the moment about eldest daughter syndrome, specifically because the eldest
5:22
Speaker 1: daughter is the one from in terms of a distribution
5:24
Speaker 1: of labor and expectation and being the responsive one because
5:27
Speaker 1: they're the oldest. There's heaps of stuff that's been booming
5:30
Speaker 1: for a few months now about the eldest daughter having
5:34
Speaker 1: to carry the weight of the family.
5:36
Speaker 2: Well, growing up, my mum specifically rode me really really
5:41
Speaker 2: hard in learning how to take care of a home.
5:43
Speaker 1: I remember you're saying that you were making beds with
5:45
Speaker 1: nice hospital tucks on the corners from like five or
5:47
Speaker 1: six years of age.
5:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, easily easily. My little sisters did not. When I
5:51
Speaker 2: got married and left home, they literally would call me
5:56
Speaker 2: almost in tears because they had no idea how much
5:59
Speaker 2: of the low I had carried for all those years or.
6:02
Speaker 1: True eldest daughter syndrome. It must be a thing.
6:05
Speaker 2: So I'm just saying, so here's.
6:08
Speaker 1: What we know from a research point of view. It
6:10
Speaker 1: feels right, but it's not really right. There are some
6:13
Speaker 1: things that you're going to tick the boxes and go yeah, yeah, yeah, okay.
6:16
Speaker 1: Birth order is a thing. This all came about from
6:18
Speaker 1: the nineteen twenty is a guy called Alfred Adler, and
6:21
Speaker 1: this is what we would call Adlerian psychology, and he
6:24
Speaker 1: came up with this whole birth order thing, and really
6:28
Speaker 1: it's just vexed. The evidence doesn't support it. I'll tell
6:31
Speaker 1: you why. You've got issues around gender and gender roles.
6:34
Speaker 1: So eldest daughters and eldest sons have different experiences. And
6:38
Speaker 1: when you have boy girl boy or boy boy boy
6:40
Speaker 1: or girl girl girl or whatever, that plays havoc with it.
6:44
Speaker 1: The size of the gap between the kids has a
6:47
Speaker 1: huge impact on whether or not these stereotypes fit. And
6:51
Speaker 1: there's so much more. Like you have blended families. You
6:53
Speaker 1: have families whether it's twins. You have families where there's
6:57
Speaker 1: the tragedy of a death of a sibling. Let's say
7:00
Speaker 1: the eldest child passes away. Does the second child now
7:04
Speaker 1: become the eldest child and take on those attributes and characteristics?
7:08
Speaker 1: I mean none, none of this really works. And then
7:09
Speaker 1: you've got families like ours where you've got six kids.
7:11
Speaker 1: So what happens when you get to number four and
7:13
Speaker 1: number five? Which one is the middle child? When you've
7:15
Speaker 1: got six children.
7:16
Speaker 2: Well it's two, three, four and five.
7:18
Speaker 1: They're all competitive. That makes so much sense. Yeah, right
7:23
Speaker 1: now in Australia as well, there's real concern that there
7:26
Speaker 1: are no more middle children at all, because the average
7:28
Speaker 1: Australian woman is presently having one point five children.
7:32
Speaker 2: I don't understand that mass, but anyway.
7:34
Speaker 1: Well, on average, I mean, nobody's really having one five
7:37
Speaker 1: children obviously, but when you have fewer children, that means
7:43
Speaker 1: most families today are only having one child or two children.
7:47
Speaker 1: And it's amazing, especially when I'm doing talks in inner
7:49
Speaker 1: city schools and in corporations for people who are working
7:53
Speaker 1: in their sort of more high powered jobs.
7:55
Speaker 2: Well, it's one way to get rid of sibling rather,
7:57
Speaker 2: or isn't it.
7:58
Speaker 1: Just don't have siblings. But increasingly I'm meeting people who
8:02
Speaker 1: are stressed out and worried and hot housing their one child.
8:05
Speaker 1: And maybe some of you right now are listening to
8:08
Speaker 1: the podcast and thinking, oh my goodness, that's me. He's
8:09
Speaker 1: talking about me. He's throwing shade at me. Maybe because
8:13
Speaker 1: we're investing so much in our one or in our two,
8:16
Speaker 1: but middle children are literally in some suburbs of Australia
8:21
Speaker 1: are literally becoming a thing of the past, which I
8:24
Speaker 1: think is really astonishing. So the whole Adlerian birth order
8:28
Speaker 1: conversation is potentially becoming less relevant than ever. Kylie, my
8:32
Speaker 1: impolite version of this is that while some families might
8:35
Speaker 1: experience some of this with birth order, it's basically a
8:37
Speaker 1: lot of rubbish. The evidence is really shaky at best,
8:40
Speaker 1: and so I get really concerned when people are out
8:44
Speaker 1: there trumpeting this stuff and making money off it, because
8:47
Speaker 1: it's just just rubbish. Like so that sounds really harsh,
8:50
Speaker 1: But the evidence isn't there to support it. The evidence
8:53
Speaker 1: just isn't there to support it. Some of it rings true,
8:56
Speaker 1: but the evidence isn't there.
9:04
Speaker 2: I want to say, really really, because it's just so accepted.
9:08
Speaker 2: But when I look at the experiences that we're having
9:10
Speaker 2: within our family just alone, let alone our friends' families,
9:14
Speaker 2: I don't see the evidence. I remember a long time
9:18
Speaker 2: ago you telling me that I could read my star
9:21
Speaker 2: signs and I would find correlation in my life on
9:25
Speaker 2: a daily basis. There would be some truth in there
9:27
Speaker 2: that would marry. And I think that we see that.
9:29
Speaker 2: I look at our eldest daughter, and she is ridiculously responsible.
9:34
Speaker 2: She's the first one to jump in.
9:36
Speaker 1: But she's also in her mid twenties, and all of
9:39
Speaker 1: her sisters are they're in their teeth. Well, there's a
9:41
Speaker 1: couple in their early twenties, but they're still living at home.
9:43
Speaker 1: She's married, like, she's at a totally different point in
9:45
Speaker 1: her life, which is much more likely to explain what's
9:48
Speaker 1: going on.
9:48
Speaker 2: And that's what I was going to say. It is
9:50
Speaker 2: a maturity thing. And you think about any other relationship
9:54
Speaker 2: where you're dealing with somebody who's ten years older than
9:56
Speaker 2: you or whatever. You often will deflect to them because
10:00
Speaker 2: of senior already an age. Often not always the case.
10:04
Speaker 2: But I just think as our children, as we've watched
10:07
Speaker 2: subsequent children age and grow and mature, they're taking on
10:11
Speaker 2: responsibilities that they wouldn't have done five years ago because
10:14
Speaker 2: they're matured.
10:16
Speaker 1: And that's the thing. So Chanella aged out of the system,
10:18
Speaker 1: and Abby became the big sister, and then Abby aged out,
10:22
Speaker 1: and Ella did, and now Annie has and we're watching
10:24
Speaker 1: Lily mature into that as well as Annie's getting close
10:27
Speaker 1: to finishing her schooling and moving on with her life.
10:29
Speaker 1: So I would argue that much of this is about
10:32
Speaker 1: maturity and losery correlations, Kylie. There are some studies that
10:38
Speaker 1: do indicate that birth order has an impact on some
10:41
Speaker 1: things like higher IQ. I just want to put this
10:44
Speaker 1: out there in bright, flashing lves because I want to
10:47
Speaker 1: emphasize I am an eldest child. I don't know what
10:49
Speaker 1: happened to me there, and you are also. When it
10:51
Speaker 1: as child and eldest kids do have a slightly higher
10:54
Speaker 1: IQ compared to their siblings, they are known as being
10:57
Speaker 1: more intelligent.
10:58
Speaker 2: Again, I can only go on the experiences we've had,
11:01
Speaker 2: But when I think about parenting our eldest child.
11:04
Speaker 1: I'm not actually kidding. The research does show that.
11:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know. And when I think about that, I
11:09
Speaker 2: think about how much more uninterrupted time she had with me.
11:14
Speaker 2: It's not that she got more time with me. She
11:17
Speaker 2: got uninterrupted time with me. She didn't have to share
11:20
Speaker 2: me with anybody else.
11:21
Speaker 1: It comes down to parental investment. I'm convinced of that.
11:23
Speaker 1: It's all about parental investment. They're more likely eldest children
11:26
Speaker 1: are more likely to stay at school longer. As well,
11:28
Speaker 1: although the research around that is not particularly strong, but
11:31
Speaker 1: it's sort of strong ishue.
11:32
Speaker 2: But do you think again, when you look at that
11:34
Speaker 2: uninterrupted childhood experience, when we understand and know that the
11:39
Speaker 2: first seven years of a child's life is foundational to
11:42
Speaker 2: their growing they've been invested with so much because they're
11:46
Speaker 2: not more competent, Yeah, that's got to play a part.
11:50
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Also in terms of research, from a personality
11:54
Speaker 1: point of view, there's no relationship between personality and birth order.
11:58
Speaker 1: Like if you meet some body at a parent meet
12:02
Speaker 1: and greet or at a picnic and you bumping into
12:04
Speaker 1: somebody for the first time saying hi, I'm justin you're Kylie,
12:06
Speaker 1: nice to meet you. You can't look at that person
12:08
Speaker 1: and say, you know, I've been observing you for the
12:10
Speaker 1: last four minutes and I'm pretty sure you're a middle child,
12:12
Speaker 1: aren't you, or you're you're definitely a youngest, Like you
12:14
Speaker 1: can't tell when you're working with somebody, You've got no
12:16
Speaker 1: idea where they.
12:16
Speaker 2: You have had plenty of people tell me I'm an
12:18
Speaker 2: eldest child.
12:19
Speaker 1: Must be that eldest eles daughter syndrome thing coming out
12:22
Speaker 1: again anyway.
12:24
Speaker 2: So why do the ideas persist. Then, I mean, like
12:26
Speaker 2: I said, this is going around like crazy at the moment.
12:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, A couple of things. First off, I think that
12:32
Speaker 1: there's just that illusory correlation thing going on, and it's
12:37
Speaker 1: in the water, it's in the ether, it's in the environment.
12:40
Speaker 1: We've been talking about it for so many decades. It's
12:42
Speaker 1: just one of those conversational topics that comes up. So
12:44
Speaker 1: I would say that that's what's going on. Ultimately, what
12:46
Speaker 1: we're not what we're talking about here is not a
12:48
Speaker 1: birth order reality. I think it's just that family patterns
12:51
Speaker 1: change and people mature. To me, that's the that's the
12:54
Speaker 1: whole thing.
12:55
Speaker 2: Earlier you talked about this whole idea of oldest daughter syndrome.
13:00
Speaker 2: I actually haven't heard the words before.
13:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's huge on social media, but I can relate. Yes, Yes,
13:06
Speaker 1: as you have suggested, here's the thing. A bulk of
13:11
Speaker 1: the caregiving, care taking, kin keeping. I don't know what
13:13
Speaker 1: word you want to use, the work of keeping a
13:15
Speaker 1: family together falls to women. That's the way that it
13:18
Speaker 1: has been in most societies, across the generations, across time,
13:23
Speaker 1: across cultures, rightly or wrongly, that's the way that it
13:25
Speaker 1: has been It's.
13:26
Speaker 2: Interesting you say that because from I guess a historical
13:30
Speaker 2: point of view, with that patriarchal society, yea, I would
13:37
Speaker 2: have thought that the eldest son would have played a
13:41
Speaker 2: much bigger.
13:42
Speaker 1: Role provide and protect as opposed to doing the social
13:45
Speaker 1: work provide and protect. So you read a book like
13:48
Speaker 1: The Weirdest People in the World, you read something like guns,
13:50
Speaker 1: germs and stilled basically any.
13:52
Speaker 2: Really, no, no one's reading books.
13:53
Speaker 1: These are incredible books. Any any book that does major
13:57
Speaker 1: work on the anthropological history of our culture and our species.
14:01
Speaker 1: They all point in the same direction, like this is
14:03
Speaker 1: not a politically loaded thing. It's simply the history of
14:06
Speaker 1: the world in an unfiltered fashion. But if you look
14:09
Speaker 1: at it, if an oldest daughter happens to have a
14:11
Speaker 1: younger brother, research shows that the split of gendered expectations
14:16
Speaker 1: is even stronger. We see older daughters take on more
14:19
Speaker 1: housework than the little brothers. Even younger sisters will do
14:22
Speaker 1: more housework than their older brothers. That's the world that
14:25
Speaker 1: we live in, which is a really big concern here.
14:27
Speaker 1: I think. I mean, we talk about I'm writing this
14:29
Speaker 1: book about raising boys right now, and I'm really taken
14:33
Speaker 1: by the idea that Richard Reeves highlights about how you
14:36
Speaker 1: go from being a boy to or a man when
14:38
Speaker 1: you start to contribute more than you take, and we
14:42
Speaker 1: see boys as they're growing up. There's just a completely
14:46
Speaker 1: gendered split when it comes to the division of labor
14:48
Speaker 1: in the household, especially when it comes to kids and
14:51
Speaker 1: their chores. It's absolutely fascinating. But again, this is less
14:54
Speaker 1: about birth order and more about gender division of labor.
14:57
Speaker 1: Now we're sort of stepping into a different area as well.
15:00
Speaker 1: I guess the other reason that these ideas persist, Kyle,
15:02
Speaker 1: is there's confirmation bias at play. So if you've been
15:06
Speaker 1: consistently told that you're the responsible one, or the athletic one,
15:09
Speaker 1: or the helpless one, or the musical one or the
15:11
Speaker 1: funny one, it starts to become part of your identity.
15:14
Speaker 1: But a second child or a later born child might
15:17
Speaker 1: be more artistic or more funny or moor whatever, because
15:19
Speaker 1: they've been exposed to more opportunities. Because, as we said,
15:20
Speaker 1: parents have more financial stability as they have more kids
15:23
Speaker 1: and as life goes on. So my app shot of
15:25
Speaker 1: this is that birth order isn't destiny, and to make
15:28
Speaker 1: sure of it, to make sure of it. As a parent.
15:30
Speaker 1: What we need to spread the love around and spread
15:32
Speaker 1: the responsibility around as well. And if someone tries to
15:35
Speaker 1: sell your book about birth order, hold one of your
15:38
Speaker 1: money and run. I'm really glad you took control of
15:42
Speaker 1: the podcast today, Honey. That was fun.
15:43
Speaker 2: I love your sense of control.
15:46
Speaker 1: I like it. I like it when you're in control.
15:48
Speaker 1: We should stop there. The Happy Family Podcast is back tomorrow.
15:51
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for Justin Rulan from Bridge Media. He's
15:54
Speaker 1: our producer and he makes the podcast sound great. If
15:55
Speaker 1: you'd like more information about making your family happy, please
15:58
Speaker 1: visit us at happy families dot com dot au. Oh
16:02
Speaker 1: tomorrow tomorrow on the pod, Can't wait for this one
16:05
Speaker 1: talking with Brett Campbell, the CEO of YUCA, the homeschooling
16:10
Speaker 1: company that provides curricula to families who are trying to
16:13
Speaker 1: pull their kids out of school and do it all
16:15
Speaker 1: at home. Can't wait for that one.