Speaker 1: Let's up, y'all before we start? What up? Y'all? Before
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Speaker 1: very very very very soon. Okay, let's talk about siblings.
Speaker 2: I'm Manny, I'm Noah, this.
Speaker 1: Is Devin, and this is no such thing the show
Speaker 1: where we settle our dumb arguments and yours by actually
Speaker 1: doing the research. On today's episode, who's more influential your
Speaker 1: parents or your siblings?
Speaker 3: There's no no such things touch thing.
Speaker 4: Touch than.
Speaker 1: To So today's episode was inspired by a new book
Speaker 1: called The Family Dynamic by Susan Dominis, who I'll be
Speaker 1: talking to later in this episode. The book profiles six
Speaker 1: families with multiple successful siblings and tries to analyze what
Speaker 1: factors have actually made them successful. So she looks into
Speaker 1: the influence of their parents, their siblings, the environments they
Speaker 1: grew up in. After reading the book, I think there's
Speaker 1: an argument to be made that siblings are actually more
Speaker 1: influential than our parents. But why don't we start here
Speaker 1: Since we all have siblings, let's go around and break
Speaker 1: down when we fall on our ber folder and how
Speaker 1: many siblings we have. So I'll start. I have one
Speaker 1: sibling who is fifteen years younger than me, so I'm
Speaker 1: thirty two and he is seventeen. Noah, I am a
Speaker 1: middle child.
Speaker 4: So I have an older brother who is thirty six,
Speaker 4: and a younger sister who is six years younger than
Speaker 4: me twenty six.
Speaker 2: I always struggle remembering my siblings agesc too, so but
Speaker 2: let's see if I can do this. I've got an
Speaker 2: older brother who's thirty five or thirty six. There's me
Speaker 2: who's thirty three. My younger sister's only a year younger
Speaker 2: than me, so she's thirty two.
Speaker 1: Irish siblings twins? What do they call that? Iris? Twins? Oh?
Speaker 1: Right after the other one? Yeah, if that's derogatory, I
Speaker 1: didn't come up with that, heyth.
Speaker 4: A lot of people are saying we need more of
Speaker 4: that Catholic twins.
Speaker 2: And then my youngest brother is twenty nine, I think
Speaker 2: twenty eight or twenty nine.
Speaker 1: He's not thirty yet. I know that. Who can say
Speaker 1: we're all, let's say, relatively successful year old living in
Speaker 1: New York. What were your family dynamics like growing up? Like,
Speaker 1: did your parents have really high expectations when it came
Speaker 1: to school? You know, some people grow up in households
Speaker 1: where they have like really strict curfews, like they can't
Speaker 1: hang out with friends at certain times. Like what was
Speaker 1: what was the vibe at home growing up? Yeah?
Speaker 2: I would say relatively strict in terms of like, yeah,
Speaker 2: sleepovers and that kind of stuff. I will say my
Speaker 2: older brother kind of took the brunt of that. Like
Speaker 2: by the time you get to the second child, it's
Speaker 2: not as strict.
Speaker 1: Mm. So okay, So give me some examples, Like in
Speaker 1: terms of school, what was the expectation.
Speaker 2: For all four of us?
Speaker 1: It was straight a's okay. Yeah, So if you came home,
Speaker 1: would it be it'd be like what's going on here?
Speaker 1: What's going on? But were your parents like checking your
Speaker 1: homework every night. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, okay.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I would say mine was sound just less less
Speaker 4: strict than that. There was definitely expectations of, you know,
Speaker 4: doing well and getting your stuff done. But I was
Speaker 4: And it's interesting. I'd be curious what my older brother
Speaker 4: would say. But for me, it was like pretty hands off.
Speaker 4: It felt like where it's like they trusted me to
Speaker 4: get my stuff done.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they didn't. I don't remember.
Speaker 4: Being like beg to do my homework or do things
Speaker 4: like that.
Speaker 2: How about hobbies, like would they make you like play
Speaker 2: piano or read? Like in our household, they made sure
Speaker 2: we were always reading something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, did you have to have to like read a
Speaker 1: book a week or ye?
Speaker 4: That stuff was always like usually tied to school, like
Speaker 4: the summer reading and that sort of thing. But you know,
Speaker 4: I mean I read, My family read and did this thing,
Speaker 4: so it was kind of natural to do.
Speaker 2: Okay. It wasn't like so you just liked reading.
Speaker 4: Yeah, which is parenting, But yeah, I wasn't like what
Speaker 4: are you reading this month?
Speaker 5: For godcha?
Speaker 1: You have to read parents an of books? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: would say it's similar to nouh. It was like the
Speaker 1: expectation was like, you're going to do well in school.
Speaker 1: But my parents I don't remember it, Like I'm sure
Speaker 1: when I was much younger they checked my homework and stuff,
Speaker 1: but it was like pretty much on me. So it
Speaker 1: was more so like here, we have expectations, but like
Speaker 1: it's up to you to like fulfill them. We're not
Speaker 1: going to give you like a step by step breakdown
Speaker 1: on how you are going to achieve this. All right,
Speaker 1: So we talked a lot about kind of expectations with
Speaker 1: your parents. Were your siblings like pressuring you to do
Speaker 1: things or like on you about stuff, especially because both
Speaker 1: of you had older siblings.
Speaker 4: Like, so this is something that I think is key
Speaker 4: is my brother's four years older than me, so we
Speaker 4: didn't really overlap in school. I feel like when people
Speaker 4: have siblings that are a year apart or two years apart,
Speaker 4: they're so tethered socially and kind of in the school
Speaker 4: system where it's like every teacher is going to know, okay,
Speaker 4: those are the those are the manny brothers.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you know, I did my stuff.
Speaker 4: So yeah, my brother wasn't caught in to discipline me much,
Speaker 4: but he was a good student, so definitely set an
Speaker 4: example in that sense. He definitely took his work seriously
Speaker 4: and then I saw him, you know, go to school
Speaker 4: and other things, so it was like, okay, so.
Speaker 1: He led by example more so than not like yo,
Speaker 1: no specific like just knock it off and do this,
Speaker 1: and we and then just more broadly like we never
Speaker 1: like fought really or bickered.
Speaker 4: Like other than like sure small things or whatever.
Speaker 2: My dynamic my older brother in terms of school is
Speaker 2: a little different because well, we we're classic like immigrant family,
Speaker 2: where like we're here in this country, you guys better
Speaker 2: fucking do perfect or they'll kick us out.
Speaker 3: And uh.
Speaker 2: But he so he was just like an insanely good student,
Speaker 2: and I think just because of the dynamic of like
Speaker 2: that immigrant family who like wants you to become pharmacists,
Speaker 2: that kind of stuff. It went down a chain of
Speaker 2: like my parents were really strict on him, and then
Speaker 2: he was definitely checking up on my schooling and being like, well,
Speaker 2: you know, how come you didn't do we better in
Speaker 2: this class? Blah blah blah. It wasn't like he would
Speaker 2: be a that upset, but more like checking in.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So he led more by like actually instruction.
Speaker 2: By example and also by like it was pretty like
Speaker 2: kind of hands on in the early Like I won
Speaker 2: the spelling bee at my school in fourth grade and
Speaker 2: so then they sent me to like the city spelling bee.
Speaker 2: I was practicing for the city championship with my older
Speaker 2: brother and that was like, you know, he was really
Speaker 2: drilling me on the words and stuff, and like then
Speaker 2: I went up there and failed to spell like sorcerer
Speaker 2: or something like that, and then he was like disappointed
Speaker 2: like that kind of yeah, sorcerer, I hope so s
Speaker 2: O R C E.
Speaker 4: R E R nice, well done?
Speaker 2: Can I get the country of Orgony?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 2: It was like he was like involved but not but
Speaker 2: kind of in a chill way, like it wasn't ever like,
Speaker 2: damn my brother's home.
Speaker 1: I needed a cool uncle.
Speaker 2: But he kind of had to do that as well
Speaker 2: because our parents were working all the time. And it's
Speaker 2: crazy to think, like he was actually like twelve when
Speaker 2: this was happening. Yeah, took on a lot of responsibility early.
Speaker 1: And then you know, obviously with me, it's very different
Speaker 1: having a brother. You know, I was in high school
Speaker 1: when my brother was born, so people always like, well,
Speaker 1: you had such a big age difference, like were you
Speaker 1: guys close and we were because I would drag him
Speaker 1: around and like it was in all my like student
Speaker 1: films at the time, Like I would put him in stuff,
Speaker 1: So I would hang out with him a lot. But
Speaker 1: obviously it is a very different dynamic. So one of
Speaker 1: the things that really drew me to Susan's reporting is
Speaker 1: her focusing in on families with multiple successful siblings and
Speaker 1: influence that they have on one another. I feel like
Speaker 1: most of the time we were talking about like successful people,
Speaker 1: we're usually talking about their parents and how their raise.
Speaker 1: So neither one of you have actually read this book
Speaker 1: yet that's or definitely done any research. So I'm curious,
Speaker 1: just based on what we were talking about in terms
Speaker 1: of influences and that sort of thing, who do you
Speaker 1: think has been more influential to where you are today?
Speaker 1: Your parents or your siblings.
Speaker 2: It's got to be I think it's got to be
Speaker 2: my siblings, And I think the reason. One of the
Speaker 2: reasons could be that my parents are like immigrants to
Speaker 2: this country and they just come from like kind of
Speaker 2: a completely different culture, whereas my siblings we all grew
Speaker 2: up here and I don't know, we like culturally socially,
Speaker 2: we were much more similar to each other than we
Speaker 2: were to our parents.
Speaker 1: No, it's definitely a mix.
Speaker 4: I'd probably say my parents overall, just as far as
Speaker 4: my kind of I don't know how to structure my
Speaker 4: life and those sorts of things. But then there's obvious
Speaker 4: things like I went to the same college as my brother,
Speaker 4: and you know, he did well in school, so I
Speaker 4: wanted to do well in school. So things like that.
Speaker 4: We kind of diverged at a certain point in terms
Speaker 4: of interests and kind of you know, career type and
Speaker 4: things like that. But there's definitely things where it's like, Okay,
Speaker 4: he set an example for me.
Speaker 1: But you still think that your parents at the end
Speaker 1: of the day still more influential, even if he was
Speaker 1: a positive influence.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think so. I mean, it's hard to kind
Speaker 4: of quantify, I guess, or like delineate what came from who,
Speaker 4: But that's just kind of my gut feeling, I guess.
Speaker 1: Okay, we're going to take a quick break, and when
Speaker 1: we come back, we'll hear from Susan and her reporting
Speaker 1: on family dynamics. All right, we're back. This is no
Speaker 1: such thing. I'm manny Noah, Devin, Can I have you
Speaker 1: start by introducing yourself sure.
Speaker 6: My name is Susan Dominus, and I am the author
Speaker 6: of The Family Dynamic, A Journey inside the Mystery of
Speaker 6: Sibling Success. I'm also a staff writer at the Sunday
Speaker 6: New York Times magazine.
Speaker 1: So as a reminder, Susan's book profile six different families.
Speaker 1: So I was curious why she chose these specific families.
Speaker 6: When we look at a family that has, you know,
Speaker 6: one kid who's wildly successful, I think you can think
Speaker 6: that maybe that kid was an outlier, a bunch of
Speaker 6: lucky things happened to that child, and or that person
Speaker 6: was extremely talented.
Speaker 3: And was an outlier in that way.
Speaker 6: But I was interested in families where multiple siblings were
Speaker 6: very successful, because when you see it across the board,
Speaker 6: then you kind of think, well, maybe there was something
Speaker 6: consistent that the parents were doing in the family home
Speaker 6: that inspired those kids. And I was curious to find
Speaker 6: out what those things were.
Speaker 1: So we already talked a bit about our own family dynamics,
Speaker 1: but I was curious to hear what Susan's family dynamic was. Like.
Speaker 6: I have an older brother and an older sister, and
Speaker 6: I grew up in the seventies and eighties, which most
Speaker 6: of us recalls an era of benign neglect.
Speaker 3: My parents definitely expected us.
Speaker 6: To get good grades, and if they were good grades
Speaker 6: were not forthcoming, that was a problem. But beyond that,
Speaker 6: they didn't have particularly life big dreams for us other
Speaker 6: than that we have stable careers and you know, happy lives.
Speaker 1: But when Susan was younger, she also spent time with
Speaker 1: other families where she noticed a very different family dynamic.
Speaker 6: My parents used to go on vacation just the two
Speaker 6: of them, or sometimes they traveled for work, and they
Speaker 6: would leave us with family friends for up to ten days,
Speaker 6: maybe even a little bit longer, each of us in
Speaker 6: a different household. And the particular family friends that I
Speaker 6: stayed with them most had like these really elaborate dinner
Speaker 6: time cultural kind of enrichment opportunities where the father would
Speaker 6: do very elaborate math word games with the kids, like,
Speaker 6: you know, playing is leaving Albuquerque flying x number of
Speaker 6: miles per hour, another one is leaving another city, what
Speaker 6: time is it when they cross paths, you know, where
Speaker 6: they would talk about current events and this very deliberate way,
Speaker 6: and I loved it until the moment when the father
Speaker 6: turned to me and asked me one of those math questions,
Speaker 6: and I burst into tears.
Speaker 3: Because like, there was no way in hell that I
Speaker 3: could do that.
Speaker 6: I was amazed, and I loved watching the kids work
Speaker 6: it out, but like I couldn't.
Speaker 1: It sounds like my worst nightmare. Like we're trying to
Speaker 1: have dinner and you're asking me math questions that I
Speaker 1: need to work out in my head.
Speaker 6: Well it's funny because I always admit that I was
Speaker 6: a very ambitious kid, and I think they did want to.
Speaker 3: Do something exciting with my life.
Speaker 6: And I was sort of intrigued by the fact that
Speaker 6: the parents were giving their kids this boost beyond our
Speaker 6: pretty mediocre public high school education that we were getting.
Speaker 6: So I both envied it a little bit and also
Speaker 6: was relieved when I got back to my house and
Speaker 6: all we had to do.
Speaker 3: My father was very strict about chewing with your mouth clothes.
Speaker 3: That was like the big imperative for our dinner table.
Speaker 1: So I'm curious, but what were your dinner time routines.
Speaker 1: Did you have any specific like every night we have
Speaker 1: to do ex for dinner? Were you getting math prolems
Speaker 1: at the dinner table?
Speaker 2: Not every night, but like definitely there were times when
Speaker 2: my dad would be like at dinner, like tell me
Speaker 2: what nine times four is or whatever, just so like
Speaker 2: just to kind of quiz us on the thing that
Speaker 2: we were. Yeah, but no, mostly I think our dinners
Speaker 2: were pretty chill.
Speaker 1: You know. My ritual was at the dinner table. We
Speaker 1: always had a TV in the kitchen. Oh oh we do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's great TV dinners.
Speaker 1: So kind of in the start of a book, Susan really
Speaker 1: comes at the idea that parents have this like huge
Speaker 1: impact on the outcome of their kids' lives. She says,
Speaker 1: you know, obviously there's some basic things that parents can
Speaker 1: do they set their kids up for success. But she
Speaker 1: makes the argument that these little, like small minute things
Speaker 1: that parents think so hard about about like should we
Speaker 1: have a chore wheel, and like these small decisions what
Speaker 1: rules should we have, they don't really matter all that much.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's basically we know this from twins studies, and
Speaker 6: from twins you've been separated at birth. And there are
Speaker 6: critiques of this research, but most behavioral genet at least
Speaker 6: will tell you that you know, you come into the
Speaker 6: earth and you have certain genetic variations that lead you
Speaker 6: in certain directions, and that accounts for like fifty percent
Speaker 6: of the differences among people in a population, let's say.
Speaker 3: But then there's also just this.
Speaker 6: Huge environmental effect, and people often think of that as
Speaker 6: like parenting. But the environmental effect is like everything that
Speaker 6: happens to you. It's the school that you go to,
Speaker 6: it's what teacher you had, it's your siblings, it's like
Speaker 6: whether it was sunny where you grew up. It's what
Speaker 6: opportunities were presented to you, and a huge amount of
Speaker 6: like chance and luck and happenstance. So parenting, when you
Speaker 6: think about it, by the time kids are five years old,
Speaker 6: you know, there's only so many hours a day you're
Speaker 6: spending with your parents, and there's so much that happens
Speaker 6: over the course of the day that your parents have
Speaker 6: nothing to do with. So the idea that you know,
Speaker 6: whether you enforce rules strictly or not, or make your
Speaker 6: kid practice for half an hour of piano or an
Speaker 6: hour a day, and that's going to have some like
Speaker 6: huge effect on their diligence or their conscientiousness. I don't
Speaker 6: I think the search suggests that's probably not true. You know,
Speaker 6: parenting matters for kids. I would say it matters in
Speaker 6: the moment for kids and you know, like, how do
Speaker 6: they feel, how is that relationship? Are they happy to
Speaker 6: come home at the end of the day, and all
Speaker 6: of that obviously matters. Are there things you can do
Speaker 6: to make your kids, you know, excel? The answer is
Speaker 6: probably less than you think.
Speaker 2: Wow, So, like the circumstances in your life probably have
Speaker 2: a lot more sway than the way you're raised.
Speaker 1: Well, I think the point that she makes is like
Speaker 1: it makes so much sense on you, hear right. It's like,
Speaker 1: especially when you're younger, you spend so much time at school,
Speaker 1: after school activity, hanging out with your friends. You don't
Speaker 1: spend outside of weekends that much like one on one
Speaker 1: time with your parents. There's a lot of time most
Speaker 1: of the time you're not spending with your parents. You know,
Speaker 1: most of the time you're spending when your parents you're sleeping.
Speaker 1: So I think what she's saying is that, like not
Speaker 1: parents don't matter at all. It's just like there's so
Speaker 1: many things outside of the parents control that happen day
Speaker 1: to day, and often when parents are thinking about how
Speaker 1: successful their kids are going to be, they're only thinking
Speaker 1: about the influence that they have and the things that
Speaker 1: they are bestowing onto their kids. They're not thinking about
Speaker 1: all the random things that can happen to them throughout
Speaker 1: the day that can really put them on a certain
Speaker 1: trajectory that they will have no say on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's interesting. As someone who's dating a British person,
Speaker 2: we always joke about like whether our kids would have
Speaker 2: in a British accent or an American accent, And we
Speaker 2: did a little bit of reading. It turns out they're
Speaker 2: going to have the accent of the kids at school,
Speaker 2: but they're not. It doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: Our accents don't matter exactly. Parents don't matter, kidding, But
Speaker 1: for parents or people who are thinking about being parents,
Speaker 1: there are a few things that Choosing points to in
Speaker 1: their book that they can do to help kids help themselves.
Speaker 1: So there's one study that showed that when researchers modeled
Speaker 1: persistence while playing with toys in front of babies, that
Speaker 1: may the babies more likely to be persistent.
Speaker 6: So basically, the study had researchers working with like fifteen
Speaker 6: month old babies, and the researcher would be holding a
Speaker 6: toy and you know, trying to make it make this
Speaker 6: sound and saying things like.
Speaker 3: Huh, how do I do this?
Speaker 6: And there would be a big button that you'd think
Speaker 6: would make the music play, but they would hide the buttons,
Speaker 6: so the researcher would eventually press this module that would
Speaker 6: make the song come out. And then they would see
Speaker 6: how long a baby, having watched a researcher persist, would
Speaker 6: then persist in getting a different toy to do something else.
Speaker 6: So it was basically seeing if modeling persistence had an
Speaker 6: effect on how long babies tried to do something, and
Speaker 6: the answer was they did see a real result, like
Speaker 6: watching a researcher persist did lead babies to try harder.
Speaker 3: The same researcher then went on. Her name is Julia Leonard.
Speaker 3: She runs the.
Speaker 6: Leonard Learning Lab at Yale. She got very interested in
Speaker 6: autonomy and because we know that when parents do intervene
Speaker 6: when like kids are doing a puzzle or something like that,
Speaker 6: it's very deep motivating and kids tend to try less
Speaker 6: hard the next time around when they're presented with a puzzle,
Speaker 6: like even a few hours later. So she set up
Speaker 6: this experiment at a children's museum in which four or
Speaker 6: five year olds were in the dressing room of the
Speaker 6: children's museum trying to put on hockey gear, which is
Speaker 6: kind of elaborate, and in some of the dressing rooms
Speaker 6: there was a sign that said, did you know that
Speaker 6: putting on clothing can be learning? And in the other
Speaker 6: rooms it just said dress up is fun, you know
Speaker 6: that kind of thing. In the room where there was
Speaker 6: no reminder that getting dressed could be learning, the parents
Speaker 6: jumped in and intervened all the time. And in the
Speaker 6: room where the parents were reminded that there was learning
Speaker 6: to be done and even simple everyday tasks like putting
Speaker 6: on shin guards, they waited a little bit longer. So
Speaker 6: it was both a reinforcement of the idea that parents
Speaker 6: jump in way too quickly and also got at the
Speaker 6: idea that maybe if parents appreciated that there is learning
Speaker 6: to be done in letting kids struggle with their tying
Speaker 6: their shoelace or buckling their backpack. Parents do see value
Speaker 6: in having their kids do puzzles and things like that,
Speaker 6: but there's also a lot of value to be had
Speaker 6: from learning the autonomy of just some small tasks that
Speaker 6: you do daily and getting it right and getting it
Speaker 6: right on your own.
Speaker 1: So the researchers say you should try to find opportunities,
Speaker 1: like when you're going to a grocery store, give your
Speaker 1: kids a list and say, hey, go find these things
Speaker 1: and don't be so hands on.
Speaker 5: That makes sense. I mean, think about how many people
Speaker 5: kind of seem to not be able to do anything,
Speaker 5: oh or like have you know it's like no, it's right,
Speaker 5: Like but like I'm think of simple thing like.
Speaker 1: You're scared to talk on the phone.
Speaker 4: Or yeah yeah, And like I can think of like
Speaker 4: code I can just think of as a kid being
Speaker 4: told like okay you can call this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you wanted a food. Yeah.
Speaker 4: It's like you're just doing a small thing like that
Speaker 4: that like you as a kid might be scared of.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 4: That then helps like have that little bit of confidence
Speaker 4: that like, Okay, I'm I'm an actual person and I
Speaker 4: can like do this thing that's scary or whatever.
Speaker 1: So enough about our god bamn parents. Like I said earlier,
Speaker 1: one of the things that sets this book apart is
Speaker 1: Susan's focused on siblings. And one thing that you called
Speaker 1: out in the book that is just it was so
Speaker 1: obvious once you said it, but like I hadn't thought
Speaker 1: about it until reading it was just like your siblings
Speaker 1: see you in a different way than your parents do, Right,
Speaker 1: your parents see you usually when you're performing for adults
Speaker 1: to some degree, and your siblings see you out in
Speaker 1: the world where you're with your friends, like they see
Speaker 1: you in so many different environments. They see that code switching.
Speaker 1: They know you at a deeper level than your parents do.
Speaker 1: So you just talked through, you know, how you saw
Speaker 1: that bit and your reporting with these families.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean I can even tell you in my
Speaker 6: own experience, if that's okay. I mean, I talk about
Speaker 6: how my brother, when I was fourteen years old, came
Speaker 6: to my bedroom and said he was home for visiting
Speaker 6: from college, and he said to me, you know, you
Speaker 6: should really join the high school newspaper, because he knew
Speaker 6: I liked to write. Our high school newspaper had been disbanded,
Speaker 6: and as so far as I was concerned, that was
Speaker 6: that there wasn't no high school newspaper. And he really
Speaker 6: just lectured me and was like, you should start a
Speaker 6: high school newspaper.
Speaker 3: It's terrible.
Speaker 6: Democracy ties in darkness and your fellow students are apathetic.
Speaker 3: And I was like, Jesus, all right, excuse my language.
Speaker 6: But I was like fine, fine, And so I started
Speaker 6: the high school newspaper up again. And I was exactly
Speaker 6: where I was supposed to be. And somehow my brother
Speaker 6: put it all together. And there's two reasons for it.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 6: One is that he was a peer, so he knew
Speaker 6: what a high school was supposed to look like. High
Speaker 6: school was supposed to have a high school newspaper, and
Speaker 6: there had been one when he was there.
Speaker 3: That's not something that would have been top of mind
Speaker 3: for my parents, you know. And he knew me.
Speaker 6: He knew that I liked to write that I was
Speaker 6: very curious, and I don't think my parents ever thought
Speaker 6: of journalism as like something they would have necessarily wanted
Speaker 6: me to pursue, because it wasn't really a secure path.
Speaker 6: But my brother thought it would be cool, and so
Speaker 6: I did it, and he thought it'd be cool for me.
Speaker 3: He knew me well enough to know that I would
Speaker 3: really love it, and I mean I really found my calling.
Speaker 3: I mean almost right away. I was like, wow, he
Speaker 3: really knows me well, yeah, and encouraged it.
Speaker 1: And do you think you would have taken that same
Speaker 1: advice if your parents would have given you, like said, hey,
Speaker 1: why don't you know go say maybe the exact same thing.
Speaker 6: I don't I think I would have rolled my eyes
Speaker 6: and said, you don't understand. It's not easy to get
Speaker 6: a high school newspaper started. Julia Leonard, also the same
Speaker 6: woman at the Learning Lab, has done research on from
Speaker 6: whom do teenagers basically want to get advice and what
Speaker 6: they The answer to that is people who know me well,
Speaker 6: and people who understand the task at hand. And by
Speaker 6: the time you're seventeen years old, they don't say their
Speaker 6: parents know them well. It's their friends, their peers, and
Speaker 6: their siblings, and siblings also understand the task at hand.
Speaker 6: You know, there's a reason why kids say to their
Speaker 6: parents all the time, what do they say, you don't understand?
Speaker 6: But they don't. We don't We're not there, we don't
Speaker 6: know what the dynamics are. So siblings really get it
Speaker 6: in a way that parents don't. And I think they
Speaker 6: can see the future in a way that parents can't.
Speaker 1: So do y'all have any stories of your siblings influencing
Speaker 1: you to do something that you feel like maybe you
Speaker 1: wouldn't have been as receptive to if your parents had
Speaker 1: suggested it.
Speaker 2: I mean the big one is right after college, I
Speaker 2: wanted to go to LA and like kind of do
Speaker 2: that whole film struggle, Like I already planned to sleep
Speaker 2: on my good friend's couch at the time for a
Speaker 2: couple of weeks until I found the job in the industry.
Speaker 2: But my older brother, I think, was maybe concerned about
Speaker 2: like the practicality of that and sent me quickly sent
Speaker 2: me a link for an application to be an intern
Speaker 2: at Business Insider, and I kind of just applied to
Speaker 2: it on a whim, but they got back to me,
Speaker 2: and then I ended up working there and moving to
Speaker 2: New York. And obviously my entire life today can be
Speaker 2: traced back to that decision. Butterfly, Yeah, I think this really.
Speaker 2: I mean, like I wouldn't have met you, guys, I
Speaker 2: wouldn't have met Mia, Like my entire life would have
Speaker 2: been completely different La beautiful.
Speaker 5: In a way.
Speaker 4: Well, maybe you would have had a great life over there.
Speaker 2: True, Yeah, maybe this is the timeline that fucking.
Speaker 4: It could have been Timothy shall.
Speaker 2: No, I would have been Timothy Shallame is like casting directly.
Speaker 1: To whether or not we like to admit it, our
Speaker 1: siblings do have an influence on us, and it does
Speaker 1: have a name. It's called the siblings spillover effect.
Speaker 6: We've always known that siblings tend to perform relatively similarly
Speaker 6: in school, and that effect is known as the siblings
Speaker 6: spillover effect. But what the cause of it is.
Speaker 3: Was sort of unknown, but parenting was a genetics was
Speaker 3: something else.
Speaker 6: So this researcher did a really interesting study in which
Speaker 6: she looked at kids who were old for their grade,
Speaker 6: meaning because of when their birthday fell, they happened to
Speaker 6: be on the older side of their grade. And we
Speaker 6: know that kids who are old for their grade do
Speaker 6: better because they're developmentally farther along. Teachers like them better,
Speaker 6: they can sit still more, they just have a better
Speaker 6: experience of school, and they're cognitively more developed.
Speaker 3: So if you're one of the oldest kids in.
Speaker 6: Your grade, you have this you know, by chance, by
Speaker 6: the chance of when your birthday falls, you have this
Speaker 6: academic advantage.
Speaker 3: And what the researcher found was that the younger siblings of.
Speaker 6: Those kids, regardless of whether they were old young for
Speaker 6: their grade, middle, they also did better. So they were
Speaker 6: somehow benefiting from the fact that their older sibling was
Speaker 6: doing better in school. And we don't know if it's
Speaker 6: that the older sibling then felt good about school and
Speaker 6: made school.
Speaker 3: Seem positive or tutored them.
Speaker 6: But we just know that there's this siblings spillover effect
Speaker 6: in which kids whose older siblings are doing better also
Speaker 6: do better.
Speaker 1: And to Titus our conversation earlier, there are some examples
Speaker 1: in a book where she profiles a family where the
Speaker 1: older sibling goes to a college and then the other
Speaker 1: siblings follow in their footsteps. So she profiles this one
Speaker 1: family called the Mergias, whose parents were from Mexico and
Speaker 1: the kids grew up to be really successful federal judges,
Speaker 1: civil rights activists.
Speaker 6: With the Mrgias, what you see is this network effect
Speaker 6: where the oldest sibling is the first one in his
Speaker 6: family to go to college.
Speaker 3: His parents would have been perfectly happy if.
Speaker 6: He'd gone to work at the plant, I think, but
Speaker 6: as they as the father and that family did. But
Speaker 6: he wanted to go to college because his friends were
Speaker 6: going to college and because he was already there. First
Speaker 6: of all, he set the expectation for the younger siblings,
Speaker 6: but he also made life so much easier for them
Speaker 6: because he understood how financial aid worked. He helped them
Speaker 6: navigate which classes to take and how he got.
Speaker 3: Them into the fraternity.
Speaker 6: So it was something that was hugely influential for them,
Speaker 6: and he didn't have the benefit of that, and you know,
Speaker 6: he was the trailblazer.
Speaker 1: And she points to as another example, Michelle Obama and
Speaker 1: her older brother Craig Robinson.
Speaker 6: Craig Robinson got recruited to play basketball. You know, they
Speaker 6: did his parent They were working class people.
Speaker 3: They weren't like you know what, Craig.
Speaker 6: Princeton's the place where you don't know, Princeton came to
Speaker 6: him because he was such a superb student.
Speaker 3: And athlete, and we know obviously that helps with recruitment.
Speaker 6: So Michelle thought, well, if he's going to Princeton, I
Speaker 6: can go to Princeton. I know, I know my ability,
Speaker 6: I know his ability, and if he can do it,
Speaker 6: I can do it. But the guidance counselor said to her, Michelle,
Speaker 6: I don't think you're Princeton material. So I mean, really awful,
Speaker 6: because we certainly know she was Princeton material, and she
Speaker 6: ignored the guidance counselor and obviously thrived there. So if
Speaker 6: her brother hadn't gone and the guidance counselor said to her,
Speaker 6: you're not Princeton material, she.
Speaker 3: Quite likely would have been like okay.
Speaker 6: But she knew otherwise because she had this close family
Speaker 6: member who made it there, and she knew herself and
Speaker 6: she knew him well enough to know if he could
Speaker 6: do it, she could do it.
Speaker 3: So siblings really matter.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's really interesting, my I mean, my older brother
Speaker 2: went to Ohio State on a bunch of scholarships, and
Speaker 2: then I went to Ohio State, and then my younger
Speaker 2: sister went to Ohio State.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and for me, my brother deaf, Like, I probably
Speaker 4: wouldn't have even thought about going to AU if it
Speaker 4: wasn't for my brother. He was like big politics junkie,
Speaker 4: so DC made sense for him. And then it was
Speaker 4: just like my experience seeing the campus and all that
Speaker 4: that drew me to applying there when it was time
Speaker 4: for me to look at school.
Speaker 1: All right, So we're gonna take a quick break and
Speaker 1: when we come back, we're gonna talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about birth order. We're back. So when it comes to siblings,
Speaker 1: one thing that people love love to talk about is
Speaker 1: birth order. Are you the oldest sibling, a middlesembing you and
Speaker 1: a youngest sibling? People say that they could just tell
Speaker 1: based on people's personalities. All right, And Susan looks into
Speaker 1: some of the research around this.
Speaker 6: So there's this known fact which is that the oldest
Speaker 6: child in families tends to have the academic edge, and
Speaker 6: that holds up in all kinds of studies.
Speaker 3: It's really consistent.
Speaker 6: And the thinking of that is that the oldest child
Speaker 6: and a family is the only one who is ever
Speaker 6: an only child, so they have the most enrichment from
Speaker 6: the parents and they have that single minded focus. And
Speaker 6: then as they get older, they also do a little
Speaker 6: bit of instruction of the younger siblings, you know, and
Speaker 6: that reinforces their knowledge and that's also kind of a
Speaker 6: sharpening of cognition, and you see it more and more
Speaker 6: as they get older and older, like when the kids
Speaker 6: are all in school. So that means, okay, on average,
Speaker 6: the oldest child is the most academic. What you then
Speaker 6: see with younger children is that they're overrepresented in participation
Speaker 6: in sports and in elite sports. And the thinking is
Speaker 6: that this must be because the younger kids see that
Speaker 6: the older child has their lane, which is school, and
Speaker 6: they as a younger child, are now going to try
Speaker 6: to excel in some other way, and certainly in America,
Speaker 6: that is often sports. So in the Groff family, Sarah
Speaker 6: True was the youngest of three. Her brother Adam went
Speaker 6: on to become like a serial healthcare entrepreneur MDPHD.
Speaker 3: Her sister, Lauren Groff.
Speaker 6: Is now this very esteemed and admired novelist, and they
Speaker 6: were terrific students, and even though I'm sure Sarah was
Speaker 6: a great student, she decided that she could not keep up,
Speaker 6: and she made a concerted decision that she was going
Speaker 6: to own something that her sister did not care about
Speaker 6: that much, which was swimming and sports, and she just
Speaker 6: knew that she could excel there because even though her
Speaker 6: sister was a tremendous athlete and even participated in the
Speaker 6: Junior Olympics, Lauren didn't care.
Speaker 3: That wasn't her main drive. She had other dreams.
Speaker 6: And so Sarah went on to become an Olympic triathlete
Speaker 6: and world class ironman competitor.
Speaker 3: And she remembers making a really concerted decision when she
Speaker 3: was young.
Speaker 1: Would you say that your older siblings were like the
Speaker 1: best academically?
Speaker 2: Yes, uh, yep, better than me for sure. I mean
Speaker 2: he was like validict I think he was a valedictorian
Speaker 2: in high school. But he was also one of those
Speaker 2: freaks that were also good at like athletics and like
Speaker 2: all around just in all the clubs and all that
Speaker 2: kind of stuff. So there I really had no.
Speaker 1: Yeah, are taken. It's funny, you know, with my age
Speaker 1: gap with my brother, I definitely am the more academic
Speaker 1: and he's definitely more athletic.
Speaker 2: But did you guys both start sports at the same age?
Speaker 1: So interesting now you asked that, So come back to that.
Speaker 1: There's this study that Susan sits in the book of
Speaker 1: youth soccer players training for the US women's national team.
Speaker 1: Three fourths of the people surveyed in this you know,
Speaker 1: really competitive program were younger siblings. And there's a couple
Speaker 1: different theories as to why that is. One of them
Speaker 1: is what you just brought up, which is that the
Speaker 1: younger sibling is going to start sports earlier because the
Speaker 1: older siblings are playing those sports already. Right, So you
Speaker 1: may not think to give a two year old a
Speaker 1: soccer ball, but if the older sibling is playing soccer
Speaker 1: and a younger sibling is going to see that and
Speaker 1: be like, oh, I got to play that. So if
Speaker 1: you have an older sibling that does play sports, they're
Speaker 1: teaching you stuff at at a younger age of here's
Speaker 1: the right way to do it, so you haven't advantage here.
Speaker 1: So one thing she points out to where we have,
Speaker 1: you know, the spillover effect. We're kind of following directly
Speaker 1: in the footsteps, and then you have this thing that's
Speaker 1: happening where it's like, Okay, you're doing that thing, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna do a different thing. Obviously, family with more resources
Speaker 1: is more able to have their siblings do completely different things, right,
Speaker 1: Like if you have a family of very little resources,
Speaker 1: you're not gonna be like, let's go to soccer and
Speaker 1: play baseball, and like this kid is going to play
Speaker 1: to cello, right, It's like everybody's going and doing the
Speaker 1: same thing.
Speaker 6: Well, we've realized also is that siblings function differently in
Speaker 6: advantaged families versus disadvantaged families. You see more differentiation in
Speaker 6: very well resourced families because the parents can afford to
Speaker 6: drive one to flute lessons and take the other one
Speaker 6: to tennis across town, and in less advantaged families, the
Speaker 6: kids spend more time together because maybe the parents are
Speaker 6: working long hours or because the parents aren't investing in
Speaker 6: all of these extracurriculars that are that take them away
Speaker 6: from the home, so the sibling spillover effects are more
Speaker 6: powerful in disadvantaged families. And even this well known idea
Speaker 6: that the oldest child has the greatest cognitive advantages, you
Speaker 6: don't see that in families for whom English is a
Speaker 6: second language, because the first kid is just trying to
Speaker 6: figure out what's going on, apparently, and then the second
Speaker 6: child benefits from the fact that the older child now
Speaker 6: was fluent in that language, so they kind of get
Speaker 6: acclimated into the culture a little bit more easily, and
Speaker 6: the parents, by the second child have figured out how
Speaker 6: the system works a little bit better. So I think
Speaker 6: they're probably you know, when parents immigrate, like the older child,
Speaker 6: if you know, can be the one who's struggling the
Speaker 6: most because the parents are struggling so much at that time.
Speaker 4: Very interesting, So that's interesting because it's like a micro generation. Yeah,
Speaker 4: so like you might all be three years apart, but
Speaker 4: like a lot can happen. It's just like a family
Speaker 4: moving here, it's going to be harder for them than
Speaker 4: obviously you know, their kids and then follows and it's
Speaker 4: the same for even just the siblings.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, one of the families she profiles in the
Speaker 1: book The Chen's this really comes out because the older
Speaker 1: sister is like, you know, all of the older kids
Speaker 1: are the family owns a Chinese restaurant, but they don't
Speaker 1: speak English, so the kids are the ones like talking
Speaker 1: to the landlord and like negotiating bills, right, Like they
Speaker 1: have this sort of like they got to grow up
Speaker 1: real quick. Yeah, you know, they're working at the restaurant
Speaker 1: basically as kids. So it's like, yeah, then they have
Speaker 1: the youngest other kids named Devan has this like huge
Speaker 1: advantage because they've done all this groundwork. So I did
Speaker 1: ask Susan, you know, if you had to pick, after
Speaker 1: doing all this research and looking at all these studies,
Speaker 1: who is more influential parents or siblings?
Speaker 6: I think that what I usually say is that parental
Speaker 6: effects are overestimated by the general population and sibling effects
Speaker 6: are underestimated.
Speaker 3: I don't know that they.
Speaker 6: Have more of an effect than parents, but I do
Speaker 6: think that siblings are more integral to helping each other
Speaker 6: find their paths again because of this idea that they're
Speaker 6: occupying the same world, so they can see the future
Speaker 6: in a way that parents can't, and they can provide
Speaker 6: connections and introductions and expand the horizons in a way
Speaker 6: that I mean, you know, in most families, parents kids
Speaker 6: don't have parents who are incredibly well connected and can
Speaker 6: make introductions. But if your sibling, if your sibling is succeeding,
Speaker 6: you know, beyond the station from which they came, then
Speaker 6: they can help you along in a way. And so
Speaker 6: I think of it as like the parents often in
Speaker 6: the families that I wrote about, they kind of sent
Speaker 6: like an arrow of ambition into the air with some
Speaker 6: kind of energy, or they'd set some example.
Speaker 3: Of having just succeeded or overcome.
Speaker 6: A lot of the parents were kind of quiet overcomers,
Speaker 6: extraordinary people who weren't famous but had lived tremendous lives.
Speaker 6: And then the siblings helped direct the arrow, they helped
Speaker 6: it find its direction. So, you know, I think they're
Speaker 6: very practical things that siblings can do to help each
Speaker 6: other along.
Speaker 1: So now, after hearing out our research, what are your thoughts.
Speaker 2: I feel more strongly that it's my siblings who influenced
Speaker 2: or impacted my life. But I do I feel like
Speaker 2: I learned a lot more about how exactly, whereas before
Speaker 2: I'd just been like, well, yeah, he's they're my siblings.
Speaker 2: Like I see them all the time, obviously naturally influenced
Speaker 2: and impacted by them, but it was really interesting learning
Speaker 2: exactly like the ripple effect and how they can how
Speaker 2: they lead as an example sometimes.
Speaker 1: Especially in your you know, upbringing, like you're saying, being
Speaker 1: a first gen yeah, you know, and a lot of
Speaker 1: the like you're saying, cultural things.
Speaker 2: Yeah, in a way, I think I was set up
Speaker 2: to be more impacted by my siblings than the average person.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, for sure. And that comes out in her
Speaker 1: book too, where you know, the families that she profiles,
Speaker 1: which our first gen, the siblings are really really paving
Speaker 1: the way.
Speaker 4: That makes a lot of sense. Yeah for me, if
Speaker 4: I had to pick, i'd still stay say my parents.
Speaker 1: Were the more influential.
Speaker 4: But then it's easy to point to all these different things,
Speaker 4: whether it's the specific college or you know, or I
Speaker 4: would have done better academically if my brother didn't exist, you.
Speaker 1: Know, gonna taken all the resources exactly so well, even
Speaker 1: the lanes that you decided.
Speaker 4: And things like that. It's like, yeah, so that could
Speaker 4: have just changed my trajectory as far as you know,
Speaker 4: maybe I would have gone down a different career path
Speaker 4: or that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: Maybe you would have been more of a politics john exactly.
Speaker 4: I could have been maybe the Democratic nominee for mayor
Speaker 4: you know, my brother existed, So that's fine, you know,
Speaker 4: I love them.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It makes me think about how you parent your
Speaker 1: kids to interact with one another, Yeah, and the importance
Speaker 1: of that, and like making sure that they have good relationships,
Speaker 1: that they support one another, that you know, because they
Speaker 1: do play such a big influence. It's not just like
Speaker 1: a random other kid in the house. Yeah, And also
Speaker 1: kind of makes me feel a lot better about, like
Speaker 1: as a parent, not being so stressed out about the
Speaker 1: prospect of like how every little thing that I do
Speaker 1: is going to completely change my kid's life if I
Speaker 1: forget to say, you know, thank you one time, like
Speaker 1: they're gonna me talking about that what they're doing is
Speaker 1: thirty years from now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But thinking about the spillover effect specifically, it does
Speaker 2: seem like, you know, you really just want to nail
Speaker 2: that first.
Speaker 4: Yeah, get that first one, really good, focus on that,
Speaker 4: and then you're and then you know, then you're done.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you give up one parent thing after you get
Speaker 1: that first one set up.
Speaker 2: It kind of sounds like it go one vacation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, hey, we got the first kids set up and
Speaker 1: where I.
Speaker 4: See you touch, thank you.
Speaker 6: Touch, thank So.
Speaker 1: That's it for our episode this week, Thanks once again
Speaker 1: to Susan Dominus. Her new book, The Family Dynamic is
Speaker 1: out everywhere and now we'll link to it in the
Speaker 1: show notes. There was this great fight that I just
Speaker 1: couldn't find a space for any episode about parents talking
Speaker 1: to their kids about STEM classes that I'll include in
Speaker 1: the newsletter. Most of such things produced by many fidel
Speaker 1: I don't know if Daman and me Devin Joseph. The
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