Birth order - An Integral Personality Shaper?

Did your parents ever tell you that they don’t care how everyone else scored on their paper, they only care about your grade and then ironically proceed to compare you to sharma ji ka beta? Or assuring you that you’ll get a brand new bike or a new iphone IF ONLY you score 90% above in your 12th board exams? You tend to forget after a point if giving the NEET exam and becoming a doctor was YOUR dream or you’ve been conditioned to choose that career path since your parents said so. ‘Arts mei scope nahi hai’. 

Before I begin to tell you how your mom shouting at you in third grade to get the spelling of ‘helicopter’ right, has now led you to be a perfectionist in your workspace ; let’s talk about what personality really is and whether it really does bend around depending on how your parents wanted you to be ‘responsible’ since 6th grade.

Personality as all of us know is the combination of characteristics or qualities that form an individual's distinctive character. Personality refers to the enduring characteristics and behavior that comprise a person's unique adjustment to life, including major traits, interests, drives, values, self-concept, abilities, and emotional patterns (APA Dictionary of Psychology). According to Alfred Adler's Theories of Individual Psychology, all infants have a feeling of inferiority and inadequacy immediately as they begin to experience the world. Early experiences, such as the need to gain their parents’ attention, shape the child’s unconscious, fictive goals. They give the child a need to strive towards rectifying that inferiority — a need to compensate for weakness by developing other strengths. However, sometimes, the process of compensation goes awry. One way in which this happens is that the feelings of inferiority become too intense. They will strive very strenuously for compensation, to the point that compensation is no longer satisfactory. This culminates in a state of overcompensation, where the child’s focus on meeting their goal is exaggerated and becomes pathological. Overcompensation can lead to the development of an inferiority complex. This is a lack of self-esteem where the person is unable to rectify their feelings of inferiority. Talking about never feeling ‘good enough’, self-esteem issues and inferiority complex with reference to brown parents sounds just ‘bout right.

I believe that if you are the firstborn of an Indian household, you deserve free therapy. Being the oldest child in a family has its perks, and also its decided disadvantages. That child is the “lab rat”-of the pack, upon which the parents have to test all of their methods and parenting techniques they have learned through zero past experience and probably through the internet. Simply by being a first child, the oldest sibling will naturally be raised with a mixture of instinct and trial-and-error. This often causes parents to become by-the-book caregivers who are extremely attentive, stringent with rules, and overly neurotic about the little things. In addition, because parents give firstborns a lot of responsibility at home—whether it's helping with chores or watching over younger siblings—they can be quick to take charge (and can be bossy when they do). That burden can lead to excess stress for a child who already feels pressure to be perfect. This parenting style, in turn, may cause the child to become a perfectionist, always striving to please their parents. A study found that a form of socialization called ‘parental conditional regard’ contributes towards child perfectionism. This is where parents grant love and affection when their child has met their expectations but withdraw love and affection when they do not.

The researchers argue that this form of socialization teaches children that self-esteem and belonging are easily lost, intermittently acquired and conditional on the approval of others (Dr Tom Curran, Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science at LSE). As a result, children learn to set themselves impossible standards and become preoccupied with the avoidance of mistakes because doing so helps evade feelings of guilt and shame. Firstborns tend to be type A personalities who never cut themselves any slack. The phrase "Type A" refers to a pattern of behavior and personality associated with high achievement, competitiveness, and impatience, among other characteristics (APA Dictionary of Psychology). They often have an intense fear of failure, so nothing they accomplish ever feels good enough. Does this sense of authority make the child feel the need to be perfect for everyone to appreciate their efforts even after they are not under their parent's umbrella? It has been observed that children tend to grow up as people-pleasers, ‘a pushover’ or gains a superiority complex solely because of the ‘parent's emotional reward system’ or lack thereof. First born children have scientifically proven to be great leaders and nurturing even in the later years of their life since they had always been treated like ‘mini adults’ by their parents. As for the Second-born children or ‘the middle child’, they are constantly in the shadow of their older siblings. They are incessantly “striving for superiority under pressure,” driven by the existence of their older, more powerful sibling. When a second child comes along, parents might raise them with less of an iron fist due to their previous experiences. They might also be less attentive since there are other children in their lives. Therefore, the middle child is often a people-pleaser due to the lack of attention they get compared to older siblings and younger siblings. Because they receive less attention at home,  they tend to forge stronger bonds with friends, and as they tend to receive little to no acknowledgment or appreciation in their household, they seek that validation outside of their homes. 

Now if I talk about the ‘Ghar ka ladla’ a.k.a the youngest child, they tend to be the most free-spirited due to their parents' increasingly laissez-faire attitude toward parenting the second (or third, or fourth, or fifth) time around. Since parents generally don't have their eyes as glued to lastborns as their firstborns, the youngest sibling might develop their own ways of winning attention. They tend to be natural charmers with outgoing, social personalities. But with that kind of lack of attention and authority, the youngest child also tends to be rebellious, ‘loud’, and feels a need to be the center of attraction in all situations. Lastborns are known for feeling that "nothing I do is important” mindset. None of their accomplishments seem original. Their siblings have already learned to talk, read, and ride a bike. So parents react with less spontaneous joy at their accomplishments and may even wonder, 'Why can't he catch on faster?’ This kind of comparison and also a ‘careless’ attitude towards the youngest child makes them feel inferior to their siblings, and later to everyone surrounding them in a classroom, workspace, or relationships. 

But what if you don’t have any siblings to share and laugh about all the parental trauma you’ve experienced? An only child, according to Adler, tends to become “dependent to a high degree, waiting constantly for someone to show them their way, and searching for support at all times” as to them being the sole object of their parent’s attention. In addition, only children have the privilege (and the burden) of having all of their parents' support and expectations on their shoulders. They also come to see the world as a hostile place due to their parents’ constant vigilance. Do you think our parents don’t realize how their parenting styles and differences in treating their children affect a kid, or it’s just plain old generational conditioning and habits that are being handed over for decades? 

About the author 

Mimisha Deka is a student at NMIMS Mumbai, pursuing B.Sc in Applied Psychology. Other than trying to live the “Loralai Gilmore” life, her other interests are dancing, singing, and playing the ukulele. Her life depends on her to-do lists, shopping, and rewatching The Big Bang Theory, Gilmore Girls and Brooklyn Nine-Nine. If you ever want to have a deep conversation about life or discuss plots of murder documentaries, she’s your go-to girl. Kind-hearted, spontaneous, and optimistic are the words that perfectly describe her to a tee.