Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / How Birth Order Affects Your Future

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How Birth Order Affects Your Future · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: This is The Happy Family Podcast. Firstborns earn more money
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: than later born kids, they study longer, they have better
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: mental health than their younger siblings, and the lady you're
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: born sorry, the worse it gets. For decades, nobody could
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: explain why. Now, new research following one point two million
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Danish children has just cracked the birth order code and
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  Speaker 1: the answer is not what anyone expected. It's not favoritism,
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: it's not personality. Half of it is germs today, why
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: birth order leaves a mark and the very fixable things
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: that parents can do about it. This is The Happy
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: Family's podcast, Real Parenting Solutions every Day, Australia's most downloaded
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: parenting podcast. Kylie, it's a doctor's desk episode that is
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: fascinating to me about birth order.
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: Okay, so I'm just gonna stop you right there, because
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  Speaker 2: you have been very, very vocal over the years about
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  Speaker 2: your absolute disbelief that birth order has any impact on
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: our children.
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  Speaker 1: So I've never said it has no impact. I've said
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  Speaker 1: that the impacts are overstated. And all of those books
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  Speaker 1: are out there about how firstborns are the leaders and
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  Speaker 1: the youngest of the coddled ones, and the middle children
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  Speaker 1: get lost there's really not much, if any evidence to
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  Speaker 1: support any of that sort of stuff, But there is
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  Speaker 1: pretty good evidence on a range of other things, like
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  Speaker 1: who's most likely to earn more money, who's more likely
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  Speaker 1: to live longer, that kind of stuff.
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  Speaker 2: Well, maybe my brain got muddled up because I clearly
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  Speaker 2: am not earning enough money.
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  Speaker 1: You are the firstborn. Do you have a job other
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: than doing this podcast with me?
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  Speaker 2: No?
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  Speaker 1: Okay, my point podcaster is not a Well, there are
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: a few people in the world that are making a
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: lot of money from podcasting. We do it because we
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  Speaker 1: love and we know it's helpful. Is it not payment
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  Speaker 1: enough for you?
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  Speaker 2: No? Definitely not if this research is suggesting that I
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: should be earning way more. All right, let's get serious.
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: What is the research telling us? Now?
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  Speaker 1: Okay, so here's the overview. There was a big study
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  Speaker 1: in two thousand and five, and what it found is
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  Speaker 1: that younger siblings do worse than firstborns on lifetime earnings,
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  Speaker 1: on education, and on mental health. Now, I'm not going
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  Speaker 1: to get you to say this out loud. Well, I
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  Speaker 1: was just thinking, but do the checklist against you and
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: any siblings that you have, and I'm doing it the
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  Speaker 1: same for me. In terms of lifetime earnings, in terms
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: of who's the most educated. Can we combine and mental health?
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: I want to tread really carefully here, but there is
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: research that points in that direction. You can make your
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  Speaker 1: own self assessment based on what's happening in your family. Oh, incidentally,
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  Speaker 1: this isn't a guarantee. It's not saying every firstborn child's
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  Speaker 1: going to do better than their siblings, clearly because I'm
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  Speaker 1: the firstborn as well. So if you're listening to this
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  Speaker 1: and you're a later born child and you're like, I
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  Speaker 1: smashed my big brother, that's fine on you. Look, you
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: beat the odds. That's what I'm okay. And for women,
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  Speaker 1: the research shows as well. Younger siblings do worse when
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: it comes to teen pregnancy rates, and every step down
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  Speaker 1: the birth order the outcomes slide.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, So I am ridiculously curious because you've articulated very
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: clearly that it has nothing to do with favoritism. It's
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: not because mum and dad spent more time with the
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  Speaker 2: firstborn and gave them more quality education opportunities. Right, So
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  Speaker 2: what is it you said?
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  Speaker 1: One of the biggest theories has always been around parental
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: investment in the child.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I know just from personal experience with number one,
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  Speaker 2: I didn't have anyone else to worry about, y, so
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  Speaker 2: I got to give her all of my time. And
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  Speaker 2: then once the next two and three came along, because
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  Speaker 2: they happened pretty fast, I ate.
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  Speaker 1: A lotless investment. I'm to worry about children five and
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  Speaker 1: six in our family. I'm just going to say.
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  Speaker 2: It wasn't because I didn't want to though.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: No, no, no, it was just lack of your pastor Yeah, yeah, totally. So.
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  Speaker 1: There's an economist by the name of Joe Price two
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  Speaker 1: thousand and eight did a big study on firstborn's found
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  Speaker 1: that they get twenty to thirty minutes more per day
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  Speaker 1: of quality time than second born children at the same age.
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  Speaker 2: Well, I first probably steals that every day as well. Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: so that even now she's twenty seven.
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  Speaker 1: You do the maths on that, though, That compounds to
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  Speaker 1: three thousand extra hours of reading and playing and talking
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  Speaker 1: by the time that child is just thirteen. So that's
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  Speaker 1: like a year of full time parenting that the younger
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  Speaker 1: child never receives.
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  Speaker 2: But you're saying that actually doesn't have anything to do
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  Speaker 2: with this.
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  Speaker 1: Well, no, I'm not saying it doesn't have anything to
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  Speaker 1: do with it. I think that it's a really strong
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  Speaker 1: hypothesis and it's worthy of exploration, and that's what scientists
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  Speaker 1: been doing.
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  Speaker 2: It's interesting you say that, and I'm thinking about how
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  Speaker 2: so often parents actually have a better relationship with the
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  Speaker 2: eldest child. Do they communication wise, they talk more, they
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  Speaker 2: we spend more time together. Maybe that's joual like as
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  Speaker 2: they get older.
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  Speaker 1: I haven't seen any data on that, because researching favorites
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  Speaker 1: is no.
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  Speaker 2: But I don't think it's a favorite thing, like I honestly,
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  Speaker 2: I don't think it's a favoritism.
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  Speaker 1: Thing, just identifying the better relationship.
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  Speaker 2: No, I think it's a direct result of spending more
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  Speaker 2: time with that person.
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  Speaker 1: So here's the second explanation, and this is what today's
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  Speaker 1: doctor's desk is really all about. Brand new study in
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  Speaker 1: American Economic Review tracked one point two million Danish kids
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  Speaker 1: that were born since nineteen eighty. So this is a
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  Speaker 1: big study, massive using government records, so we're.
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  Speaker 2: Looking at so they haven't made anything up.
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  Speaker 1: No, this is objective data. This isn't me saying, hey,
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: how do you feel subjectively? This is objective data. And
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  Speaker 1: here's what they found. Respiratory infections in the first year
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  Speaker 1: of life, so we talking about RSV. We actually had
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  Speaker 1: some advertising from the government about RSV on the podcast
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  Speaker 1: a little while ago, and we got bagged for it.
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  Speaker 1: But the research on this is actually really really solid.
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  Speaker 1: RSV and flu, mostly brought home by older siblings, predicted
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  Speaker 1: lower earnings, less education, and worse mental health decades later.
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  Speaker 1: So younger siblings were two to three times more likely
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  Speaker 1: to be hospitalized with respiratory illnesses in year one. The
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  Speaker 1: gap vanishes once both kids are in some kind of
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  Speaker 1: drop care or daycare or early learning setting. So it
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  Speaker 1: seems like the older sibling is the delivery system for illness,
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  Speaker 1: and these researchers are suggesting that the birth order differences.
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  Speaker 2: But the older child's still sick because they're carrying.
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  Speaker 1: Right, But the older child has a much less compromised
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  Speaker 1: immune system because they're older, they're stronger, they're more developed,
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  Speaker 1: they're more capable, and so therefore they're less likely to
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  Speaker 1: be negatively impacted by it. Let me go through a
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: couple of other things here. Early disease exposure explains half
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  Speaker 1: or more of the entire birth order gap, maybe up
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: to seventy percent of the income gap, and then the
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: time with parents hypothesis probably explains the rest.
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  Speaker 2: But if you're sick all the time, you would expect
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  Speaker 2: you'd spend more time with moneth.
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  Speaker 1: Well, yes, but and this is really important, but one
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  Speaker 1: of the researchers identified that about eighty five percent of
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  Speaker 1: a young infant's calories go to building the brain, and
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  Speaker 1: if you have a serious infection, it's going to divert
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  Speaker 1: those resources to fighting illnesses at exactly the moment when
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  Speaker 1: those resources are supposed to be going to building the brain.
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  Speaker 1: The first six months of life are specifically the most
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  Speaker 1: critical window. Any significant exposure illness then is going to
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  Speaker 1: do between two and three times the damage of exposure
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  Speaker 1: in the second half of that child's first year. So
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  Speaker 1: probably the last thing before we take a break and
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  Speaker 1: then talk about what this means, and the question is
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  Speaker 1: that it answers. I just want to reframe this briefly.
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  Speaker 1: Small numbers, like maybe a one percent income dip, they're
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  Speaker 1: going to hide a distribution where most kids are completely recovering,
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  Speaker 1: and we're talking about population averages, So you get small
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  Speaker 1: numbers and it's like, oh my goodness, what's happening here.
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  Speaker 1: We're not saying that if you got sick in the
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  Speaker 1: first year of life, that this is your destiny. What
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  Speaker 1: we're highlighting is that the gaps that are appearing, it
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  Speaker 1: seems like there's a credible hypothesis from this research that
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: it may actually be German illness related much more than
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: it's related to anything else that's going on in the house. Personality, temperament,
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  Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff. So after the break, let's
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: answer some peak questions about the destiny associated with birth order.
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  Speaker 1: Why do firstborn's win? We need to talk about that
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  Speaker 1: and what we can do to protect our baby that
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  Speaker 1: in a sect, say with back, it's the Happy Family's
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: podcast talking about birth order today.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, so I'm just putting it out there. You make
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  Speaker 2: me feel really bad as the firstborn. You're saying that
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  Speaker 2: my siblings issues are a direct result of me bringing
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  Speaker 2: germs home into the house as a young kid.
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  Speaker 1: No, I'm not saying that at all.
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  Speaker 2: I'm sure somebody's thinking it.
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  Speaker 1: Well, maybe I'm saying it a little bit. So remember,
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  Speaker 1: fifty to seventy percent is related to potentially that and
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  Speaker 1: the other the rest of it is your parents' investment
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  Speaker 1: in younger siblings.
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  Speaker 2: We have one granddaughter, and she has made all of
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  Speaker 2: us sick multiple times.
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  Speaker 1: Here's what I want you to know. Birth order is
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  Speaker 1: not the destiny, not like where you're born in the family,
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  Speaker 1: that that's the headline, but the two main drivers.
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  Speaker 2: So just don't have a firstborn that man.
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  Speaker 1: Just have later born.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, let's get a bit serious. I know I'm hijacking
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  Speaker 2: your whole your whole podcast here. What can we do
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  Speaker 2: about this when it would seem that our younger children
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  Speaker 2: are actually at a disadvantage, but you are suggesting that
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  Speaker 2: maybe not.
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  Speaker 1: Well, I think younger children technically have the advantage older parents,
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  Speaker 1: more economic resources, all that sort of stuff. But firstborns
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  Speaker 1: are consistently winning. So then the firstbornes, even though parents
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  Speaker 1: are usually less wealthy, less experienced, less likely to really
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  Speaker 1: be there. The data says none of it out weighs
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  Speaker 1: three thousand lost hours and a first year immune system
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  Speaker 1: that's under siege. I think that that's really what we're
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  Speaker 1: getting at here, all of those extra hours that the
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  Speaker 1: kids are not getting with their parents, three thousand hours
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  Speaker 1: of reading and playing, and that's huge, and that first
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  Speaker 1: year immune system situation, that's that's the thing.
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  Speaker 2: So we bubble our firstborn children up until our second
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  Speaker 2: and subsequent babies are a year old.
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  Speaker 1: Is that what we're That's kind of what it sounds like.
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  Speaker 2: I have to I have to wrap my head around this.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's kind of what it sounds like.
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: So the idea, So I have noticed with this generation
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: of parents that mums are very reluctant to hand over
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  Speaker 2: brand new babies. They don't like other people kissing them
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: or wrapping them up and you know, giving them big
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  Speaker 2: cuddles and things. And this research would actually support that. Yeah.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: The researchers make for suggestions number one immunizations on schedule
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: that includes RSV flu hooping, CoV vaccinations, and pregnancy because
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: that is going to give you protection for your newborn
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: breastfeeding if you can. I know that there's a lot
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  Speaker 1: of questions around this. Not everyone can do all these things,
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  Speaker 1: but breastfeeding is massively, massively protective. In the Danish study,
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: it was so powerful. They said that sustained breastfeeding eliminated
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: the excess hospitalization risk for high exposure younger siblings entirely.
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  Speaker 1: And they also recommend this one's going to sound so boring, hello,
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  Speaker 1: COVID boring old hygiene wash hands, especially when the kids
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: come home daycare clothes off. Six siblings have to be
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  Speaker 1: kept away from the newborn, especially in those first six
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  Speaker 1: months of life. That's kind of it.
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  Speaker 2: Well, I guess the great news is that all of
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  Speaker 2: those things are completely doable. Any parent can tackle those
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  Speaker 2: three things. But I am curious about the time difference
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: deficit between the elders getting so many more hours investment
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: from a parent compared to younger children.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: I said four things, and I said three because they
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: were related to health. The fourth thing is trying to
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: be fair in terms of your allocation of time. The
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: more time you can give you young kids, the better.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: But I think we've got to recognize the constraints around that,
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  Speaker 1: so being fair across time. Like our youngest now, she's
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: one of only a couple of kids at home requiring
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: time of so she's getting probably more time than any
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: of the other kids I've ever had, But she didn't
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: get nearly as much time when she was younger. So
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: we're trying to trying to pull it all together. You
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: know what, family life life could be really really tricky.
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: I think if you sit there with a scorebook and
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  Speaker 2: you try and make sure that you're allocating equal time
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  Speaker 2: and resources to each child, You're going to drive yourself
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  Speaker 2: insane and it's going to be less productive. I think
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: the most important thing is just trying to be available
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  Speaker 2: for your children when they need you and allocating special
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: one on one time.
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  Speaker 1: That's about it. Your youngest child is not doomed, your
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  Speaker 1: eldest is not blessed, but the invisible defaults of family
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  Speaker 1: life are probably going to tilt the table towards your
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  Speaker 1: eldest and the resource that they can get access to. Really,
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: what this evidence says is vaccinate, breastfeed, if you can
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: wash the big kids hands and read to your youngest
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  Speaker 1: as if she's your eldest is if she's your first one.
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: It seems like the birth order effect is real, but
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: we have a lot of it in control. Like Kylie said,
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: we're back tomorrow with older, but it tomorrow. Thanks so
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: much for joining us for this conversation. Love to know
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: what you think. Jump onto our social and tell us
• 14:01
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• 14:08
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• 14:09
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