Reflections on Birth Order

Recently I've read a number of newspaper and magazine articles reporting studies on the importance of birth order. As I could have predicted, these studies show that first-born children are superior to their siblings in IQ, education, earning power, sense of responsibility, good looks, sense of humor,and so forth. Supposedly, first-born children gain their advantage because parents lavish so much more time and attention on them as opposed to the siblings who come later. Being a first-born myself, I felt both vindicated and humbled by my position.

Then I started thinking about the possible effects of birth order in my own family. Big mistake. Now everything's all complicated and confusing.

[Political Aside: Thus, we can see why the Bush Administration considers thinking to be counterproductive to their policies.]

For example, I'm the oldest in my family, with two younger sisters, Tracey and Mary Ann. Tracey, however, is not the middle child. Because Mary Ann was born when I was 17, Tracey spent 14 years as the youngest child, being spoiled by her parents and her older brother. Then, by the time Mary Ann was 2, I had been off to BYU and then off on a mission to France and Belgium, so Tracey had become the oldest child in the family by the time she was 15 or so. Mary Ann, of course, has always been the youngest child, but she shows no negative signs of having been spoiled by everyone. Also, I'm not ashamed to say that my sisters are both smarter than I am. My mom always gets after me when I say this, but it's true: I'm the dumb one in my family.

Kate, the oldest of my children, takes after me quite a bit, but she doesn't think she's superior(just bossier as the "game master" in the sibling hierarchy) to her younger brothers. Travis, the middle child, takes after his mother, another middle child, but he, again like her, has an emotional and empathetic IQ that's off the charts with a drive that won't quit. Jack, the youngest, came along 9 years after Travis, so he got the undivided attention of four people. For example, he crawled and walked late because he could always get someone to carry him around. Now he's the family expert on classical and early British literature.

In short, when it comes to my family, all these birth-order studies get turned on their heads and their privileging of the first born gets undercut.

And don't get me started on scriptural precedents and how many times the oldest son forfeited the birthright to a younger, more deserving brother. In fact, for the past ten years I've been rotating the birthright yearly with my sisters, thinking that it's better to have it every third year than to lose it altogether because of unrighteousness or incompetence.

Now, with Clarkwell on the horizon, I'm starting to worry that he won't get the same attention that Luke received. However, I'm encouraged by two things: 1) Luke's relationship with "Baby Hamilton," as he calls him, is warm and attentive and quiet and gentle, so I assume it'll be the same way with his little brother, even though there may be a little jealousy. 2) Heidi says that Clarkwell is even more active in utero than Luke was, so I'm thinking he'll hold his own once he's born.

Nevertheless, I'm planning on spoiling him not one whit less than I've spoiled Luke, birth order theory be darned. (Sorry, but I didn't want to write "damned" in case Hamilton reads this post).