Latest / The Parenting Podcast / Birth Order Matters: Unraveling Your Family Dynamics | Ep. 99

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Birth Order Matters: Unraveling Your Family Dynamics | Ep. 99 · The Parenting Podcast

• 0:06
  Firstborns, middleborns, lastborns.
• 0:12
  Oh, we all have our unique quirks, don't we?
• 0:16
  But, have you ever wondered how your place in the sibling lineup shapes your parenting style?
• 0:25
  Hi, I'm Cheryl Lang, your host on the Parenting Podcast.
• 0:29
  And today we're about to embark on an interesting journey through the world of birth order and its influence on our approach to parenting.
• 0:40
  So do firstborns truly have it all?
• 0:45
  Or is there something really special about being the baby of the family?
• 0:52
  Whether you're a seasoned parent or just setting out on your parenting adventure, understanding the impact of birth order can provide you with fresh and valuable insights into your parenting style.
• 1:05
  Join us now in this episode as we explore various factors and thought provoking ideas surrounding birth order, revealing its compelling effects on your family dynamics and parenting approach.
• 1:27
  Cheryl: Okay, y'all, I have a question that someone sent us, so listen to this.
• 1:34
  Cheryl: And it's a mom, and she said, I have a question that's not one of the top issues that I struggle with.
• 1:42
  Cheryl: But I hear people talk about it, and I just wondered, now that I have several children, is birth order really a thing?
• 1:50
  Cheryl: Or is it more kind of like horoscopes, whether you believe them or not, because I don't want to miss out how to use it if it's important in my parenting.
• 2:01
  Cheryl: So let's talk about birth order, because there is a lot of, uh, information out there.
• 2:07
  Cheryl: And I will tell you a lot of views that it's hocus pocus or it really matters.
• 2:12
  Cheryl: Okay.
• 2:12
  Cheryl: So what about y'all?
• 2:13
  Cheryl: Where are y'all in birth order?
• 2:15
  Cheryl: In your birth families.
• 2:16
  Cheryl: So I'm first born.
• 2:17
  Cheryl: Mm hmm.
• 2:18
  Cheryl: I'm first born.
• 2:19
  Cheryl: Okay, and I was second born.
• 2:21
  Cheryl: Okay, and which we know is the very best order.
• 2:25
  Cheryl: I'm just saying so, as we get going on this, there's a lot of like, Adler and Soloway were born Big scientists, they did research and they wrote the books and so they're sort of the ones that, uh, got it up on the map because nobody paid attention to it.
• 2:44
  Ellen: Except for Dr.
• 2:44
  Ellen: Kevin Liebman, who wrote the Birth Order book, which is still out there.
• 2:49
  Ellen: It's a very good book.
• 2:50
  Ellen: I read it when my kids were
• 2:51
  Cheryl: young.
• 2:51
  Cheryl: Yeah, and that's the one I knew.
• 2:53
  Cheryl: I didn't know these.
• 2:54
  Cheryl: But he used this information.
• 2:56
  Cheryl: So this is one of those that it's kind of toss up, but I thought it'd be fun.
• 3:00
  Cheryl: And let's look at how we can equip families with what we've got.
• 3:04
  Cheryl: Yeah.
• 3:05
  Cheryl: Okay.
• 3:05
  Cheryl: So in a nutshell, sort of what everybody, Dr.
• 3:10
  Cheryl: Lehman and these other experts say is It tends to look like that the older child is, well, describe what you would say firstborn is like.
• 3:22
  Cheryl: What were some words?
• 3:24
  Christie: Well, typically, firstborns are seen to be kind of rural followers, impressive in achievements, uh, leaders.
• 3:32
  Christie: Controlling.
• 3:33
  Christie: Controlling.
• 3:34
  Christie: Okay, I was being polite.
• 3:37
  Cheryl: Sorry, y'all, you guys.
• 3:38
  Cheryl: Okay, so that's what that tends to be.
• 3:40
  Cheryl: Uh huh.
• 3:41
  Cheryl: Man.
• 3:42
  Cheryl: The second born, and this depends on how spread out your children are, there's a lot of factors, but in general,
• 3:48
  and
• 3:49
  Ellen: I think, yeah, the big factor is if there's five years, they kind of, that's been sort of reset, right?
• 3:55
  Ellen: So if you're a first born girl, and then there's five years, and there's another girl born, that other girl becomes first born.
• 4:02
  Ellen: Okay.
• 4:02
  Cheryl: But it tends middle children, are the compromisers, okay?
• 4:06
  Cheryl: Because they got to get along with the olders and the youngers.
• 4:08
  Cheryl: Yeah.
• 4:09
  Cheryl: So they tend to be people pleasers.
• 4:10
  Cheryl: What else do you think about them?
• 4:13
  Christie: They, they sometimes get overshadowed by the, the firstborn.
• 4:18
  Christie: Because the firstborn is kind of first to do everything.
• 4:20
  Christie: So, middle children are kind of, sometimes feel ignored.
• 4:24
  Cheryl: Yeah, but they sometimes know how to work it out.
• 4:27
  Cheryl: They'll keep the peace, but they also tend to be more social.
• 4:30
  Cheryl: I was going to say, I think they're peacekeepers.
• 4:33
  Cheryl: And they reach out to friends, and they tend to be more other oriented because the other person's blazing the trail for them.
• 4:41
  Cheryl: And they were born to share.
• 4:42
  Cheryl: Yeah.
• 4:43
  Cheryl: They never knew a time they didn't share.
• 4:45
  Cheryl: Yeah.
• 4:45
  Cheryl: Okay, and what do we know about the youngest, the babies?
• 4:48
  Cheryl: What are their...
• 4:49
  Cheryl: General description.
• 4:50
  Cheryl: Well,
• 4:50
  Christie: the stereotype is that they kind of get whatever they want and have everyone wrapped around their finger.
• 4:56
  Christie: Yes.
• 4:57
  Christie: Irresponsible maybe Or that they
• 5:01
  Cheryl: are just fun.
• 5:02
  Cheryl: That they're the clown.
• 5:04
  Cheryl: They're a lot of fun, but they tend to be a little Like you say, not as responsible.
• 5:10
  Cheryl: Right.
• 5:10
  Ellen: Well, usually by the time you get to your baby, depending on the size of your family, you usually are more mature, you have a little more money.
• 5:17
  Ellen: Uh huh.
• 5:18
  Ellen: You
• 5:18
  Cheryl: have the little...
• 5:19
  Cheryl: So, this is what they found kind of through studies.
• 5:22
  Cheryl: And what we sort of all agree we see in life.
• 5:24
  Cheryl: Why do you think that happens?
• 5:26
  Cheryl: So what are the dynamics that work into making the firstborn that way?
• 5:31
  Ellen: Well, I think we first have to say, figure out where it's your birth order is.
• 5:36
  Ellen: Because you're going to parent out of
• 5:39
  Christie: your birth order.
• 5:39
  Christie: That's true.
• 5:40
  Christie: That's true.
• 5:41
  Christie: That's true.
• 5:42
  Christie: Yeah, I, like I said, I'm a firstborn.
• 5:44
  Christie: My husband's actually also a firstborn.
• 5:46
  Christie: Uh huh.
• 5:48
  Christie: I think one dynamic that the firstborns experience is a lot of pressure from parents because they're, you know, sad to say, but that first baby you're expecting to just make you feel great about yourself as a parent and to rise to all your expectations.
• 6:06
  Christie: So there's expectations.
• 6:07
  Christie: Yes, they're under a lot of a lot of pressure to perform and especially if they're the first grandchild on.
• 6:13
  Christie: Oh my goodness.
• 6:14
  Christie: Then there's a lot of pressure.
• 6:15
  Christie: Yes.
• 6:16
  Christie: Eyes on this child to, you know, show up and do well.
• 6:20
  Christie: And it's a baby!
• 6:22
  Cheryl: So no wonder they're having to blaze that trail and a lot of weight those firstborns get put on.
• 6:30
  Cheryl: your
• 6:30
  world.
• 6:31
  Ellen: It sure is.
• 6:31
  Ellen: At least for a while till the next one comes.
• 6:33
  Ellen: And so you're, whether you realize it or not, you tend to gauge, Am I doing this right based on how your firstborn's
• 6:40
  Christie: doing?
• 6:41
  Cheryl: That's, yes.
• 6:42
  Christie: They're also the guinea pig.
• 6:44
  Christie: Yes.
• 6:44
  Christie: When you're trying to figure things out and you do something, you're like, ooh, that is not the right way to handle that.
• 6:50
  Christie: They get the, they're the recipient of all of that.
• 6:52
  Christie: Yes.
• 6:54
  Cheryl: And then so why, what about the babies or as you go down the birth order, what, now I will tell you, experts say the younger ones don't achieve as much because the parents don't care as much.
• 7:09
  Cheryl: Well, let's say they say they're more laissez faire and they're not focused on them.
• 7:13
  Cheryl: So they're a little bit herd animals.
• 7:15
  Cheryl: They're just running around.
• 7:17
  Cheryl: Um, what do y'all think?
• 7:19
  Cheryl: Do you agree with what the experts say?
• 7:23
  Christie: I feel like there's a lot of differences in my kids with birth order.
• 7:28
  Christie: When it comes, because of personality.
• 7:30
  Christie: So, I mean, there's just layers and layers of factors here.
• 7:34
  Christie: Um, but overall, yeah, I can see that, um, being the case with the baby at our house.
• 7:40
  Cheryl: What about Charlotte?
• 7:41
  Cheryl: What I personally think is not necessarily that.
• 7:44
  Cheryl: Because I was a wiser parent.
• 7:47
  Cheryl: I mean, I learned.
• 7:49
  Cheryl: My children weren't just the ones learning.
• 7:51
  Cheryl: I really got better in my parenting as we went on.
• 7:55
  Cheryl: So I was a better parent, and you were talking about grandparenting earlier.
• 8:01
  Cheryl: I was more of a grandparent as we went down the birth order in our five, um, that I kind of did a better job of majoring on the majors.
• 8:10
  Cheryl: And if it's minor, just it doesn't matter.
• 8:12
  Christie: So maybe the baby's more relaxed because we're more
• 8:16
  Cheryl: relaxed.
• 8:16
  Cheryl: It just could very well be.
• 8:18
  Cheryl: I think
• 8:18
  Ellen: that's totally it, is that we realize, oh, they didn't do this perfectly.
• 8:23
  Ellen: But it doesn't matter, it'll be fine.
• 8:25
  Ellen: You know, it was your first one, it's like, Oh, no, that's not how you do it, you have to do this.
• 8:29
  Ellen: I remember we had, with our firstborn, we had a friend that was, I might have shared this a while back, who was a psychologist, and our firstborn tied his shoe, he was probably older, whatever that age would be, four, three or four, did a complete shoe tie.
• 8:46
  Ellen: Mike didn't like how it was tied because he knew it was going to come untied.
• 8:49
  Ellen: So he went over and retied it and the psychologist took us aside and he said, that's really negative to do.
• 8:55
  Ellen: We're like, what?
• 8:57
  Ellen: Because you corrected, you basically said to your child, you didn't do this right.
• 9:01
  Ellen: You
• 9:01
  Cheryl: offered your best effort and you failed.
• 9:05
  Ellen: And of course it was a practice.
• 9:05
  Ellen: We were thinking, no, you're going to trip, you know, in five minutes because it's going to come undone.
• 9:10
  Ellen: You know, didn't think that through.
• 9:12
  Christie: Note to self, never make friends with a psychologist.
• 9:16
  Christie: Or
• 9:16
  Ellen: be married to one.
• 9:19
  Cheryl: You know, but everything we do.
• 9:23
  Cheryl: And each individual thing, we don't want to put that burden on parents, that it really matters that you do this and that's, I think, what was beneficial as I grew in my parenting.
• 9:36
  Cheryl: That poor weight, you know, your first ones have to be the fastest talker and the best walker and they have to do this and you really, really care what everybody thinks.
• 9:46
  Cheryl: Right.
• 9:46
  Cheryl: And again, I feel A lot of compassion for parents nowadays because of social media and all that's out there.
• 9:55
  Cheryl: So easy to compare.
• 9:57
  Cheryl: I mean, we just compared with our little world, but now you compare with everybody.
• 10:03
  Cheryl: Instagram
• 10:04
  Ellen: has ruined parenting.
• 10:05
  Ellen: I mean, because you get these adorable pictures, but.
• 10:08
  Ellen: Right.
• 10:08
  Ellen: And it doesn't line up with reality.
• 10:10
  Christie: Right.
• 10:10
  Christie: Yeah.
• 10:11
  Christie: So I think the other extreme is possible too.
• 10:13
  Christie: It kind of depends on how many kids are between the first and the youngest.
• 10:16
  Christie: Because, you know, we're, we're graduating our fourth of this year, and I'm kind of tired.
• 10:24
  Christie: And so some things might matter more than I really want them to matter.
• 10:28
  Christie: And I may be a little permissive out of, you know, just being kind of weary.
• 10:32
  Christie: And, and I think that's probably been the case.
• 10:34
  Christie: It's through all the seasons, not just these teen years, but, um, yeah, if you, if you have first, second, third, maybe you're still a little tentative, but fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, you might start getting a little tired and that's a whole new topic,
• 10:49
  Ellen: parental weariness,
• 10:52
  Cheryl: you know, because, because it's a legitimate thing.
• 10:55
  Cheryl: I will say kind of being weary helped me to go, that doesn't matter, so it helped me prioritize, you know, so what are other ways we would encourage parents dealing with all the mixtures, because it's true if you have a real determined, strong will.
• 11:13
  Cheryl: Even if they come second in birth order, they're not going to go, Oh, wait, just a minute.
• 11:17
  Cheryl: My birth order is, I'm a middle child.
• 11:20
  Cheryl: I should fall in line.
• 11:22
  Cheryl: All of it, but in this whole area, how would we equip parents?
• 11:26
  Cheryl: What would we say?
• 11:27
  Cheryl: Well,
• 11:28
  Christie: I, I think.
• 11:30
  Christie: The way we should look at birth order is it is A factor, but it's not the factor.
• 11:34
  Christie: Absolutely.
• 11:34
  Christie: That's good.
• 11:34
  Christie: That's very good.
• 11:34
  Christie: I mean, there's personality.
• 11:36
  Christie: Like we said, there's family size.
• 11:38
  Christie: There's your season of life, what's going on in your life at that time for that child.
• 11:43
  Christie: Right.
• 11:44
  Christie: So there's so many things, but it is something to consider.
• 11:47
  Christie: I know in our house, not everyone fits.
• 11:51
  Christie: The stereotype of their birth order, you know, some personalities that are meant to be, um, more dominating and leaders and aren't in their birth order or, you know, some that are said to be more responsible.
• 12:08
  Christie: And so, you know, there can be some competition there or sibling rivalry if you put too much weight on, well, you're the oldest, you're supposed to be like, you're the baby, you're supposed to be like this,
• 12:19
  Cheryl: or...
• 12:19
  Cheryl: So you're suggesting that we should be individual with each of the individuals and not worry about...
• 12:27
  Cheryl: All the other factors that we should love each one for who they are.
• 12:31
  Cheryl: Yes, and encourage them.
• 12:32
  Christie: Hard middle ground.
• 12:34
  Christie: It sure is.
• 12:35
  Christie: Looking at them as individuals.
• 12:36
  Christie: Yeah.
• 12:37
  Christie: It sure is.
• 12:37
  Cheryl: there's also a trade off because that first child, all they get is adults talking to them.
• 12:43
  Cheryl: Right.
• 12:43
  Cheryl: So first children tend to be more verbal or they, they tend to grow in that area in their cognitive awareness because you're doing all the colors and all the stuff and all they hear are adult conversation, right?
• 12:57
  Cheryl: But they're also in a situation where they're the center of the world and they can become very self centered and me focus because the parents are going, Oh, wait, they don't like green beans.
• 13:08
  Cheryl: We won't eat green beans.
• 13:09
  Cheryl: Right.
• 13:10
  Cheryl: And so it's not very balanced.
• 13:13
  Cheryl: Okay, and then come along the siblings and they have to learn to share.
• 13:18
  Cheryl: It disrupts their world when the siblings come along.
• 13:20
  Cheryl: And the others never remember not having to share.
• 13:25
  Cheryl: Right,
• 13:25
  Christie: right.
• 13:26
  Christie: I remember, you know, when you get a two pack of something in kids, there's like a red and a blue or pink and a blue.
• 13:33
  Christie: And my second daughter's favorite color was and still is unless she's What's to tell me otherwise?
• 13:38
  Christie: Blue.
• 13:39
  Christie: And I remember thinking...
• 13:41
  Christie: Is it really?
• 13:42
  Christie: Or is it because my oldest always got the pink and now she's left the blue?
• 13:48
  Christie: You know, so there's things like that, nature versus nurture type things that you do wonder is how much of this is, is birth order.
• 13:56
  Christie: one thing I've noticed about my middle kids, they got the most of our family.
• 14:02
  Christie: Like, they've got the most time of all the siblings being in one place where, you know, the oldest has time without the younger siblings, the youngest has time without the older siblings.
• 14:14
  Christie: So I thought that was an interesting dynamic I didn't think of.
• 14:17
  Christie: And I noticed
• 14:18
  Ellen: for...
• 14:19
  Ellen: My, my youngest daughter, it was really hard as everybody was growing up, because even though she got a lot of my attention, her fam the kids were going off to college, getting married, leaving the home, and pretty soon it just was she and
• 14:35
  Cheryl: I.
• 14:35
  Cheryl: Right.
• 14:36
  Cheryl: So what I wish I had gotten from this teaching when I had my whole family, is the sensitivity of To realize the challenges and the benefits for all of them.
• 14:48
  Cheryl: I mean, I was so Totally wrapped up in our first daughter and then of course back in the day, Christy We didn't know whether it was boys or girls.
• 14:58
  Cheryl: And so I didn't know I had Alex and so I can being pregnant with Alex And crying, I was lying in bed, rubbing my big belly and saying, I will love you, but I can never love you like I do, Rebecca.
• 15:13
  Cheryl: But I will try to never show it.
• 15:15
  Cheryl: But I, I will try to love you, but there's no way because what she did to our world, I had no idea what it was like to be a parent.
• 15:25
  Cheryl: And Of course, the second he was born but that moment, I went, Oh, my heart's big enough for all of them.
• 15:35
  Cheryl: And I didn't realize that your heart just multiplies and expands and, and that you can love all of them.
• 15:42
  Cheryl: But I wish I had understood I wasn't aware to think about the responsibilities and the burdens that each one, and I would have thought more about not telling the older ones, Oh, you need to watch your siblings all the time, and not expecting that.
• 15:58
  Cheryl: I wasn't sensitive enough.
• 16:00
  Cheryl: And then what y'all are talking about.
• 16:04
  Cheryl: The, just each one, I would have used this information in a better, more balanced way, I guess.
• 16:10
  Cheryl: Yeah.
• 16:10
  Cheryl: And,
• 16:11
  Christie: and being sensitive to their experience for whatever birth order they are in.
• 16:16
  Christie: I know my youngest is the youngest and we all have, we have all one gender at our house.
• 16:22
  Christie: So that's another layer.
• 16:23
  Christie: See, that's
• 16:23
  Cheryl: another thing that it
• 16:24
  Christie: impacts.
• 16:25
  Christie: But a lot, oddly enough, almost all of her peers are firstborns.
• 16:31
  Christie: Wow.
• 16:32
  Christie: Wow.
• 16:33
  Christie: in her in her circle, it makes for a very interesting dynamic.
• 16:37
  Christie: She has a much different parent than a lot of her peers do.
• 16:41
  Christie: I am a little more lax on what time she gets home and what she does.
• 16:45
  Christie: And then I would have been with my first and then these moms are with their first.
• 16:50
  Christie: And so I have to, you know, kind of be mindful of what her experiences are in that.
• 16:56
  Christie: And same like you said, with the first putting so much responsibility to help with siblings.
• 17:00
  Christie: And yes, you know, my oldest would not it.
• 17:02
  Christie: get to do as many things because I needed her help at home.
• 17:05
  Christie: And
• 17:06
  Cheryl: that's one of the things wish I had been aware again, that shift of responsibility.
• 17:13
  Cheryl: You may be realized intentionally, you have to teach the younger ones how to share, right?
• 17:21
  Cheryl: I've got to learn.
• 17:22
  Cheryl: So you have to look for ways to help them give because they're known for being a little self centered and selfish because the whole world.
• 17:30
  Cheryl: There isn't a younger.
• 17:31
  Cheryl: When they're two, they don't have to share their toy with anybody.
• 17:34
  Cheryl: Right.
• 17:35
  Cheryl: And so using this information to help them be more balanced.
• 17:39
  Cheryl: And it was interesting with Jonathan, he was our fifth, but I was so much older and most of his friends were firstborns.
• 17:48
  Cheryl: So, you know, I could have given birth to most of his friends parents.
• 17:53
  Cheryl: So there's just, again, so many layers of dynamics.
• 17:56
  Cheryl: And being
• 17:56
  Christie: intentional with that.
• 17:58
  Christie: Like you said, with the younger kids, to give them more responsibility, it, it, it leads to intentionality of freeing the older ones up.
• 18:06
  Christie: You know, they, they need to be able to be 15 when they're 15.
• 18:10
  Ellen: Yeah, that's good.
• 18:12
  Ellen: Well, and also, you know.
• 18:14
  Ellen: Sticking it for the youngest too, you know, it was always nice for me as a parent, finally just had one child at home and it was a daughter, so we got to do things together that the other kids didn't get to do.
• 18:26
  Ellen: And she's very, very good at relationships, you know, I think because of that, you know, just worked out that way.
• 18:33
  Ellen: There
• 18:33
  Christie: really are pros and cons to everything, it's hard to convince them.
• 18:37
  Christie: It's the kids of that because they only want to, you know, sometimes don't want to focus on the cons of, well, she was the baby, so she got this or the older.
• 18:45
  Christie: But
• 18:45
  Ellen: it's true.
• 18:45
  Ellen: And then we just acknowledge it's true because I think I might've shared this before My son, my oldest son said to me one time, we were doing something with.
• 18:52
  Ellen: with getting ice cream.
• 18:53
  Ellen: And he said, Oh, yeah, when I was a kid, I had to share my ice cream cone with three other people.
• 18:59
  Ellen: And she gets a whole cone, you know, that she gets a whole carton, you know, and you just kind of have to laugh.
• 19:05
  Ellen: And now he's a parent, he knows that
• 19:07
  Cheryl: well, and kind of related to that, And if y'all been long term listeners, we talked about birthday boxes and about how you can intentionally give freedoms and privileges and responsibilities at different ages.
• 19:20
  Cheryl: And, um, one of the things in the dynamics of a family is everyone always wants the privileges of the others and not the responsibilities.
• 19:29
  Cheryl: Right.
• 19:30
  Cheryl: Right.
• 19:31
  Cheryl: And, um, I would have more carefully thought out when we give responsibilities, when we get privileges.
• 19:38
  Cheryl: So they don't go, well, you let them.
• 19:40
  Cheryl: So, and like you've talked about social media, your six year old got what your 12 year old got because you didn't know.
• 19:47
  Cheryl: And to be conscious and aware that just individualized to everybody.
• 19:55
  Cheryl: No.
• 19:56
  Cheryl: They are 14.
• 19:57
  Cheryl: This is a privilege that we're giving them.
• 20:00
  Cheryl: And maybe when you're 14, you'll get the same.
• 20:03
  Cheryl: To honor the older ones, but also with the younger ones, not to cave into the pressure.
• 20:08
  Cheryl: Well, we didn't get to do that.
• 20:10
  Ellen: You make landmarks?
• 20:12
  Ellen: Yes.
• 20:12
  Ellen: Along the way of childhood and going into teen years.
• 20:15
  Ellen: So this, you know that at 14 you're going to get to do this and 16 you get to do this.
• 20:19
  Ellen: And everybody, you don't get it earlier, you don't get it later unless there's extenuating circumstances.
• 20:24
  Ellen: Right.
• 20:25
  Ellen: So that no one feels.
• 20:26
  Christie: Cheated.
• 20:27
  Christie: Yeah, I wish I would have been more intentional on those things to moving us all together as a group forward into certain things when I'm
• 20:35
  Cheryl: like the cohesiveness of the family that we're not just Oh, you want to be on tick tock?
• 20:40
  Cheryl: Sure.
• 20:41
  Cheryl: Yeah.
• 20:41
  Cheryl: Oh, no, you can't be on tick tock.
• 20:43
  Cheryl: And now I know about it.
• 20:44
  Cheryl: Instead of giving into all of that.
• 20:46
  Cheryl: All of this we're saying, parent your children Individually.
• 20:50
  Cheryl: Individually.
• 20:50
  Cheryl: And be flexible and bring in grace.
• 20:53
  Cheryl: I guess it's just the same old thing.
• 20:55
  Cheryl: And give yourself,
• 20:56
  Ellen: as a parent, some time to think.
• 20:58
  Ellen: Yeah.
• 20:59
  Ellen: Because I think that's the hardest thing.
• 21:00
  Ellen: We just, in parenting, we're just always reacting.
• 21:02
  Ellen: Yes.
• 21:03
  Ellen: And we haven't thought through something.
• 21:04
  Ellen: Impulsive.
• 21:05
  Christie: Out of convenience.
• 21:06
  Christie: Yeah.
• 21:07
  Ellen: This is easy.
• 21:08
  Ellen: Just go do, go eat that.
• 21:09
  Ellen: I don't
• 21:09
  Cheryl: care.
• 21:09
  Cheryl: Right.
• 21:10
  Cheryl: Yes.
• 21:10
  Cheryl: Okay.
• 21:10
  Cheryl: Man.
• 21:12
  Cheryl: So in closing, have you seen and I don't know whether it's Instagram or where it is, but the videos about they'll say firstborn eating yogurt.
• 21:21
  Cheryl: Oh, yeah, And so of course, they're sitting and it's tidy.
• 21:25
  Cheryl: They have the little cup and she's just sitting straight in a chair and perfect.
• 21:29
  Cheryl: And then to go, you know, second born and he spilled it on the front steps of the house and he's down licking it up, you know, so we live and learn and grow.
• 21:42
  Cheryl: And give everybody grace,
• 21:44
  Christie: Absolutely
• 21:45
  Cheryl: Yeah.
• 21:46
  Cheryl: So thank you so much.
• 21:48
  Cheryl: You know, so birth orders like everything else, parents, it's another opportunity to be aware, to love your children and to remember to hang in there.
• 22:00
  Cheryl: Keep loving them, keep giving grace, because it's worth it.
• 22:11
  As we conclude our interesting discussion on birth order's role in shaping our parenting journey, I hope you've found insights for your unique family.
• 22:23
  Remember, birth order is just one piece of the puzzle, and your individualized love and support are crucial in nurturing your children.
• 22:35
  Now, here's a thought to ponder.
• 22:38
  How can you embrace and celebrate your child's unique position in the birth order while fostering a harmonious family environment?
• 22:50
  Take a moment to reflect on this question and consider how it fits into your parenting strategy.
• 22:56
  We encourage you to connect with us, share your thoughts, questions, and experiences through our website, social media, or by sending us a text at contact at theparentingpodcast.
• 23:09
  com.
• 23:11
  Okay! Be sure to join us for our upcoming episode.
• 23:17
  Spoiler alert! It's a very special episode for TPP.
• 23:24
  The team opens up quite transparently about our own lives as parents.
• 23:29
  And discuss the transformative power of parenthood, reminding all of us that the triumphs and the struggles of raising children make it a journey well worth taking.
• 23:43
  I really look forward to being with you then on the Parenting Podcast.