The Birth Order Book (19 page)

W
e’ve been spending a lot of time on firstborns and only children and their nemesis, perfectionism. But if you’re laterborn and fall somewhere in that nebulous “middle child” category, you might be a little upset by now (but not surprised) with the lack of attention. You might even be saying, “He’s likely to get to me
last
. What else is new? That’s the story of my whole life!”

It’s quite normal for middle children to feel left out, ignored, and even insulted. After the first edition of
The Birth Order Book
came out, I received several letters of mild complaint from middleborns. Here’s a sample:

Dear Dr. Leman,

I counted the number of pages in
The Birth Order Book
, and fewer are devoted to middle children than any other birth order! What gives?

Feeling ignored,

Middle Child Reader

Going along with what I always thought was a middle child attempt to poke a little fun, I would respond to these complaints by writing back a bit tongue in cheek:

Dear Middle Child:

So what? What’s the big deal? Besides, you’re used to it! Get a life!

Happy family photo albums,

Dr. Leman

A Bit Mysterious

But kidding aside, the middle child does get fewer pages in this book than the other birth orders.
1
One reason for this little oversight is that we psychologists don’t know that much about middle children. They are, in fact, a bit mysterious.

Although I counsel fewer middle children than lastborns or babies, I have talked to enough of them over the years to see a classic pattern emerging: the official definition of a middle child is a person born somewhere between the first, or oldest, in the family and the last, the actual baby of the family. This results in the middle children feeling they were born
too late
to get the privileges and special treatment the firstborn seemed to inherit by right. And they were born
too soon
to strike the bonanza that many lastborns enjoy—having the parents lighten up on discipline.

I’m not alone in saying that middle children are a mystery. Many articles and books have been written about them, one of the best being
First Child, Second Child
by Bradford Wilson and George Edington. These authors admit that of all birth order positions, “‘middleness’ is the most difficult to define, let alone describe or generalize about in any meaningful way.”
2

One reason for all the fogginess is that the term
middle
can mean many things. The typical middle child can be the second of three, or the third of four, or the fourth of five, and so on. Some authors go into great detail on categorizing different middleborn children. In my own counseling, however, I have discovered that middleborn children and
secondborns
have a great deal in common and are often one and the same because many families stop at three. For the purposes of this chapter, we’ll group the secondborn and middle child together and refer to them as “middle children.” In chapter 14 we will discuss the secondborn of two children in a more thorough way when we talk about parenting the two-child family.

Each child looks
above
, sizes up the older sibling, and patterns his life according to what he sees.

The Branching-Off Effect

When talking about the middle child, the most critical factor is the branching-off effect that is always at work in the family. This principle says the secondborn will be most directly influenced by the firstborn, the thirdborn will be most directly influenced by the secondborn, and so on. By “influenced,” I simply mean that each child looks
above
, sizes up the older sibling, and patterns his life according to what he sees.

The secondborn has the firstborn for his role model, and as he watches the firstborn in action, the secondborn develops a style of life of his own. Because the older brother or sister is usually stronger, smarter, and obviously bigger, the secondborn typically shoots off in another direction. If, however, he senses he can compete with his older sibling, he may do so. If he competes successfully enough, you can have a role reversal, something we discussed earlier in the variables of birth order.

The secondborn can, for all intents and purposes, take over the firstborn’s prestige, privileges, and responsibilities. That’s what happened with Richard Nixon, secondborn of five boys. Because his older brother by four years was sickly, the mantle of responsibility often fell on Richard’s shoulders. But in another sense, Nixon retained several “middle child” qualities that stood him in good stead later in life.
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Any time a secondborn child enters the family, his lifestyle is determined by his perception of his older sibling.

Any time a secondborn child enters the family, his lifestyle is determined by his perception of his older sibling. The secondborn may be a pleaser or an antagonizer. He may become a victim or a martyr. He may become a manipulator or a controller. Any number of lifestyles can appear, but
they all play off the firstborn
. The general conclusion of all research studies done on birth order is that secondborns will probably be somewhat the opposite of firstborns.

Think “Contradictions”

Because laterborn children play off the ones directly above them, there is no surefire way to predict which way they may go or how their personality will develop. I’ve looked at many charts listing characteristics of middleborn children and found them to be an exercise in paradox. An example of one of these charts appears below, containing two columns with words and phrases that can all be very typical of the middle child. The left- and right-hand columns have been arranged to illustrate some of the direct contradictions you can find in this birth order.

The Middleborn: Inconsistent Paradox

Qualities of a Middle Child

Mediator, compromising, diplomatic, avoids conflict, independent, loyal to peers, many friends, a maverick, secretive, unspoiled

The bottom line is that the middle child is “iffy”—the product of many pressures coming from different directions. More than any other birth order, you must look at the entire family to understand a particular middle child. How he or she finally turns out is about as predictable as a Chicago weather report. In many ways, the middle child remains a mystery.

Middles Know How Rodney Feels

One thing, however, that’s not such a mystery about middle children: they usually feel the squeeze from above and below. You may have noted that the title of this chapter paraphrases comedian Rodney Dangerfield’s famous line: “I don’t get no respect!” Many middle children would say they understand.

A number of middleborns have told me they did not feel that special growing up. “My older brothers got all the glory, and my little sister got all the attention, and then there was me” is a very familiar assessment.

Somehow there just doesn’t seem to be a great deal of parental awareness of the middle child’s need for a spot in the pecking order. The following scene comes from a work of fiction, but it is all too true for many middleborns:

When Mama introduced Sylvie . . . she always said, “This is Sylvie, my oldest child.” . . .

When Mama introduced Rufus . . . she said, “This is Rufus, the baby in the family.”

And when Mama introduced Joey to people, she would say, “This is Joey, my oldest son.” . . .

But when Mama introduced Jane, she just said, “This is Jane.” Because Mama had not figured out that Jane was the middle Moffat. Nobody had figured that out but Jane.
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If I want to get a rise out of middleborn children, all I have to say is “family photo album.” They laugh, but it’s usually sardonic laughter. The family photo album often contains solid proof that Mom and Dad relegate the middle child to the background. There will be two thousand pictures of the firstborn and thirteen of the middle child. Secondborn children in particular seem to fall victim to this strange phenomenon. It’s almost as if Mom and Dad had their first child and snapped pictures left and right. Then, when the secondborn came along, either they went on welfare and couldn’t buy film, or the camera got broken and wasn’t fixed until “baby princess” arrived.

If I want to get a rise out of middleborn children, all I have to say is “family photo album.”

Picture the scene (no pun intended). Thirteen-year-old girl falls in puppy love for the first time and wants to give her boyfriend her picture. She goes to her mother and says, “Hey, Mom, are there any pictures of me without
her
?” Mom looks a little chagrined and has to shake her head no. So the new boyfriend gets the photo—carefully trimmed so older sister’s armpit barely shows!

The Importance of Friends

Middleborn children often hang out more with their peer group than does any other child in the family. That’s really no surprise because middles often feel like fifth wheels who are out of place and misunderstood at home, or like some kind of leftovers that always get bypassed and upstaged by the younger or older siblings.

No wonder, then, that friends become very important to the middle child, because friends make him or her feel special. At home the firstborn is special because he or she is first. The lastborn is special because he or she means the end of the line. The middle child? He’s “good old John” or “just plain Mary.”

There is a psychological theory that says human beings operate according to three natural motivations:

1. to obtain rewards and recognition

2. to avoid pain and danger

3. to get even
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Every birth order has these three motivations operating in life, but it’s especially interesting to trace their effect on the behavior of the typical middleborn.

To obtain rewards and recognition
, the squeezed-out middleborn goes outside the family to create another kind of “family” where he or she can feel special. Firstborns typically have fewer friends. Middle children often have many.

How sad, you may say, that the middleborn child has to go outside the family to get recognition and feelings of acceptance. But weep not for our social butterfly. All these relationships will pay off later, as I’ll explain in a moment.

Firstborns typically have fewer friends. Middle children often have many.

To avoid the pain and danger
of being an outsider in his family, the middle child leaves home the quickest. I don’t mean she runs away or volunteers for boarding school, but she makes friends more quickly at school and in the neighborhood. Tired of being told “You’re too young” when she seeks the same privileges as the oldest, and weary of hearing “You’re too old” when she whines for a little TLC like that given the youngest, the middle child goes where she is “just the right age”—to her peer group.

To get even
, at least a little bit for those feelings of rootlessness, the middle child becomes a bit of a free spirit. She gives herself the right to reject the family’s dos and don’ts, at least in part, by choosing some other group’s values for a measuring stick. It may be a team (middle children are great team players), a club, or a gang of kids who hang out together. The important thing is that the middle child experiences the group as
hers
, something her family can’t control or squeeze in any way.

Because of this early search for friends and recognition outside the home while growing up, the middle child may be the one who moves away from the family as an adult. This was graphically illustrated during one of my guest appearances on
Oprah
. Three sisters were also on the show as an example of how birth order plays out among them. When I happened to make the point that the middle child is most likely to move away from the family, the oldest and youngest sisters howled with delight. They had always lived in New Jersey, close to their parents and the rest of the family. The middle daughter, who had many friends, had taken off to make a life for herself in California.

They’re Often Good Mediators

Of course, some middle children choose other ways to meet their needs for obtaining recognition, avoiding pain, and getting even. They may prefer becoming mediators and even at times are manipulative. Because they couldn’t have Mom and Dad all to themselves and get their way, they learned to negotiate and compromise. And these obviously aren’t such bad skills to have for getting along later in life. (If you are getting the message that middle children just may turn out to be the best-adjusted adults in the family, you’re right, but more on that later.)

But if the middle child is very compliant and not at all interested in confrontation or conflict, the propensities to negotiate and compromise can backfire. I’ve had more than one middle child super mom and super wife come to me for counseling with the same problem: the husband is having another affair (with a younger, more attractive woman, of course), but secondborn wife is sticking it out—again.