Speaker 1: Hello everybody, Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: the podcast, new listeners, old listeners. Wherever you are in
Speaker 1: the world, it is great to have you here back
Speaker 1: for another episode as we, of course break down the
Speaker 1: psychology of our twenties. Thank you for joining us, and
Speaker 1: thank you to begin to all of you for the
Speaker 1: support you have shown the announcement of my debut book,
Speaker 1: Person and Progress, which comes out in April twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: It has blown me away, truly, how many of you
Speaker 1: have pre ordered and sent me such lovely messages. And
Speaker 1: if you want to be one of the first people
Speaker 1: to get your hands on a copy and read it,
Speaker 1: you can find the link in the episode description. Even
Speaker 1: if you just want to check out the cover, it's
Speaker 1: all there. I just couldn't start the episode without acknowledging
Speaker 1: the love and the generosity and all the kindness that
Speaker 1: you have showed me. But this week we are not
Speaker 1: talking about the book or anything close to it. I'm
Speaker 1: going to move on and into our topic today because wow,
Speaker 1: all of you have wanted to hear about it for
Speaker 1: a while, and you have been so patient with me
Speaker 1: as I kept promising it. We're finally there. We are
Speaker 1: going to be talking about the psychology of the middle child.
Speaker 1: So late last year, I believe I did an episode
Speaker 1: on what it's like to be the eldest daughter, and
Speaker 1: so many of you related. So many of you were like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I totally agree that is me to a tea. But
Speaker 1: another huge number of you also said, you know, what
Speaker 1: about us middle children? What if I'm the middle child
Speaker 1: and the eldest daughter, because you know, I have an
Speaker 1: older brother or I have brothers, where do I sit? Well?
Speaker 1: After months of requests, I finally get to give you
Speaker 1: the answers you're looking for. What is middle child syndrome?
Speaker 1: How are middle children built differently? How are they raised differently?
Speaker 1: What is their psych ecology? What are their insecurities? They're
Speaker 1: inner emotional lives and personalities like you know, the eldest
Speaker 1: and the youngest of a family. They always get so
Speaker 1: much attention because they like book mark the family system
Speaker 1: like they book mark like the family unit. And you know,
Speaker 1: the middle child is never really made to feel special.
Speaker 1: But today we're going to put that spotlight on them
Speaker 1: and spend the next thirty forty minutes just focusing on
Speaker 1: middle children. Justice for the middle children, the chameleons of
Speaker 1: the family, the forgotten children. What does psychology and birth
Speaker 1: order theory say about this group of people and how
Speaker 1: is your personality influenced by this, you know, seemingly arbitrary
Speaker 1: position in the family, because a lot of the research
Speaker 1: and a lot of the studies would say that it
Speaker 1: is greatly influenced by it. So without further ado, there
Speaker 1: is so much to talk about, quite genuinely, so many studies,
Speaker 1: so many historical theories, so many lived experiences from some
Speaker 1: of you guys, some of the listeners who are middle children.
Speaker 1: I used to always think that only eldest children and
Speaker 1: only children listen to the podcast. You guys definitely proved
Speaker 1: me wrong. So for my middle children, or for those
Speaker 1: who are curious, buckle in, sit down. Let us break
Speaker 1: down the very intricate, very interesting psychology of the middle child.
Speaker 1: The idea that where you were born in the family,
Speaker 1: whether that is firstborn, middle, youngest, the idea that that
Speaker 1: will somehow influence your personality and how you grow up.
Speaker 1: It is supported and actually it was first put forward
Speaker 1: by something called birth order theory. You've probably heard about it,
Speaker 1: you've probably seen it on TikTok on Instagram. It's been
Speaker 1: doing the rounds. But this theory is really what we
Speaker 1: need to begin the episode with because it is the
Speaker 1: tree from which all of our our thoughts, our feelings,
Speaker 1: our ideas about middle children tend to come from. You know,
Speaker 1: it comes from the theory, but that theory also comes
Speaker 1: from experience, from what we typically see of the middle child.
Speaker 1: So birth order theory was developed by a very famous
Speaker 1: psychotherapist called Alfred Adler. You probably don't know his name,
Speaker 1: maybe you do, I shouldn't assume, but even if you
Speaker 1: don't know his name, you definitely know some of his work.
Speaker 1: So he originated the term inferiority complex if you've heard
Speaker 1: of that one. He was also one of the first
Speaker 1: psychotherapists to actually start studying personality. He was also and
Speaker 1: I don't know if you are familiar with this idea,
Speaker 1: he was the person who proposed that in life, the
Speaker 1: three major focuses for us are love, friendship, and work.
Speaker 1: So if you know that famous equation, that is doctor
Speaker 1: Alfred Adler. And he is also the one who birthed
Speaker 1: originated birth order theory. So he's kind of everywhere in
Speaker 1: modern psychology. Like if you go digging long and deep
Speaker 1: enough you will find some link back to him. And
Speaker 1: during that work on personality that we were we were
Speaker 1: speaking about, he observed a lot of people and he
Speaker 1: began to see this pattern between his participants in his studies,
Speaker 1: whereby people who were born into the same position in
Speaker 1: the family based on their birth order seemed quite similar
Speaker 1: and they adopted many of the same traits, even when
Speaker 1: he controlled for things like income, like country of birth,
Speaker 1: like the education of the parents. You know, if you
Speaker 1: were the eldest, that made you a certain person. If
Speaker 1: you were one of the middle children, or a second
Speaker 1: child as he called it back then, that also influenced you,
Speaker 1: as did your role as a youngest child or an
Speaker 1: only child. So he basically developed this theory that each
Speaker 1: family is like a constellation and when you were born,
Speaker 1: you were given a specific location or position in that
Speaker 1: constellation that will inform how you behave, how outgoing you are,
Speaker 1: how anxious you are, confidence, smart, ambitious you are based
Speaker 1: on kind of how you know the constellation and the
Speaker 1: solar system work based on where the sun is, based
Speaker 1: on how you rotate the other planets i e. Your siblings,
Speaker 1: i e. Your parents. Basically, and this is the major
Speaker 1: controversy with birth order theory. He basically says and said
Speaker 1: in the time, if you give me an individual and
Speaker 1: you tell me where they were born in their family,
Speaker 1: I could tell you exactly what kind of person they are.
Speaker 1: I can tell you what grades they're getting. I can
Speaker 1: tell you what their love life is like. I can
Speaker 1: tell you how ambitious they are, how anxious they are,
Speaker 1: how close they are with their family. Pretty big call
Speaker 1: to make. And I will say in recent years, as
Speaker 1: we've developed much more robust experimental research techniques, there are
Speaker 1: elements of this theory that have not withstood the test
Speaker 1: of time, especially as it relates to like grand assumptions
Speaker 1: about intelligence and success. And you know, is your marriage
Speaker 1: going to work out based on whether you're the eldest
Speaker 1: or the middle or the youngest. Also, you know, we
Speaker 1: are a lot more informed around gender and gender diversity
Speaker 1: and what it means to be someone who is perhaps
Speaker 1: non binary. You know, it used to very much be daughters, sons', eldest, youngest, middle.
Speaker 1: We now know that there are also blended families and
Speaker 1: it mixes and it matches. So the theory, you know,
Speaker 1: we need to take it with a grain of salt.
Speaker 1: We need to take what we can from it and
Speaker 1: leave some of the outdated parts of it behind. And
Speaker 1: it does still offer a very interesting way of seeing
Speaker 1: how children are perhaps treated differently in the family ecosystem,
Speaker 1: and there is no denying I think that, you know,
Speaker 1: family dynamics definitely shape personality, and that also includes birth order,
Speaker 1: because children are treated differently by their parents based on
Speaker 1: what position they take in the family and sibling dynamic.
Speaker 1: Eldest children, as we know, are stereotypically given a lot
Speaker 1: of responsibility. They're very ambitious, they want to take control
Speaker 1: of everything. Youngest the youngest child is often quite doted on.
Speaker 1: They're the baby, and well the middle child, the middle child,
Speaker 1: is what we're here to talk about today. So the
Speaker 1: only reason I offer this caveat that perhaps Adler's original
Speaker 1: theory is a little bit outdated is just so that
Speaker 1: you know it's not going to apply to everyone, especially
Speaker 1: since the original findings were based on cross sectional data,
Speaker 1: and you know, in the modern age, we really want
Speaker 1: more of that longitudinal data. That's really what would be
Speaker 1: best for answering questions around birth order theory. You know,
Speaker 1: if you followed people across their life and you saw
Speaker 1: how that changed. That is so nerdy and boring, and
Speaker 1: we don't need to get into like the statistical and
Speaker 1: experimental details. But the biggest complaint I always get anytime
Speaker 1: I talk about birth order theory is like, that doesn't
Speaker 1: apply to me, Like that's not me, that's that's fine,
Speaker 1: that's totally okay. In fact, it's normal for theories to
Speaker 1: not apply to everyone. That's why we need to continue
Speaker 1: to test them, all right. But what Adler did typically
Speaker 1: find was that eldest children were very ambitious. They felt
Speaker 1: a real sense of responsibility. They were maybe a bit entitled,
Speaker 1: a bit anxious, but very focused, very well behaved. They
Speaker 1: also tended to be friends with other eldest children. Eldest
Speaker 1: daughters are their own unique kettle of fish. You can
Speaker 1: listen to episode one, one hundred and forty seven on
Speaker 1: that if you want to know about that specifically. And
Speaker 1: then we had, you know, the youngest children. They tended
Speaker 1: to be very sociable, extroverted, a little bit maybe attention seeking.
Speaker 1: They also tend to get away with more be rule challenges.
Speaker 1: Some might say they're a little bit spoiled as well,
Speaker 1: because they are the baby of the family. I was
Speaker 1: talking to my friend Steph about this, and she is
Speaker 1: the youngest child, and she was explaining to me. She
Speaker 1: was like, well, you know, by the time I was fourteen, fifteen, sixteen,
Speaker 1: all my siblings had like moved out, so you know,
Speaker 1: my parents had more money and more resources to spoil me,
Speaker 1: and you know, they were kind of tired at that
Speaker 1: stage of like, you know, applying all the rules, they'd
Speaker 1: become a lot more slack, less chores, more freedom. She
Speaker 1: kind of got away with a little bit more. You know.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of parents start out being like,
Speaker 1: these are the kinds of people and parents were going
Speaker 1: to be, and we're going to have no screens, and
Speaker 1: we're gonna have strict rules. Now children will behave and
Speaker 1: they will learn manners, and we have, you know, a
Speaker 1: lot of expectations. But you know, surely you get tired.
Speaker 1: You know, the eldest child cops the most of it,
Speaker 1: then the middle child, the middle children, I should say,
Speaker 1: and the youngest child. By the time we get around
Speaker 1: that parents get tired. They can't be bothered. You know.
Speaker 1: I found that with my little sister as well, like
Speaker 1: not to call her out like they're a lot more slack,
Speaker 1: I could also go into what this dynamic looks like
Speaker 1: for only children being both the eldest, middle, and youngest.
Speaker 1: That is for another time. Where does this leave the
Speaker 1: middle child? Knowing what the eldest child and the youngest
Speaker 1: children tend to look like, what do the middle children
Speaker 1: look like? Well, they are literally stuck in the middle.
Speaker 1: They are stuck in between the ambitious, responsible eldest and
Speaker 1: the charming spot youngest, and they can end up feeling
Speaker 1: left out, neglect did forgotten about because they aren't the
Speaker 1: bookend children. You know, It's also important to note they
Speaker 1: also are the only sibling who has to share their
Speaker 1: birth position with someone else. What do I mean by
Speaker 1: that is that you can only have one eldest, and
Speaker 1: you can only have one youngest, but you can have two, three, four,
Speaker 1: I don't know, let's get crazy here, five middle children.
Speaker 1: So not even their birth order, of their birth position
Speaker 1: is their own. Sometimes middle children even have to share
Speaker 1: the middle position. So that is why they're sometimes referred
Speaker 1: to as like the forgotten child of the family. Whether
Speaker 1: you agree with that description or that's your experience or not,
Speaker 1: it's really led to this creation of this term called
Speaker 1: middle child syndrome. It's not a clinical disorder. You know,
Speaker 1: you can't go to a psychologist and ask for diagnosis
Speaker 1: and a script and some medication. But it basically explains
Speaker 1: a pattern of feelings and behaviors reflected by the middle child.
Speaker 1: And I'm going to start with the positives here. What
Speaker 1: makes the middle child so different in a good way
Speaker 1: and so unique and something to be celebrated. Well, the
Speaker 1: middle child is often highly independent and flexible. You know,
Speaker 1: they're not too fussed about getting their own way because
Speaker 1: they'll kind of make their own way. They're very much
Speaker 1: used to that. Their position as the middle child means
Speaker 1: that they you know, haven't had those first through you know,
Speaker 1: first few years being an only child like the eldest.
Speaker 1: But they aren't the baby like the youngest. They are
Speaker 1: maybe given special treatment, so they kind of get used
Speaker 1: to being tucked away in the middle and not getting
Speaker 1: their own way. My sister is like this one hundred
Speaker 1: thousand percent. She's so accommodating, and I do think it's
Speaker 1: because she is a middle child. You know, when we
Speaker 1: were kids were used to like my parents made such
Speaker 1: a big deal of making sure that Ellie, who was
Speaker 1: my sister, was allowed to make decisions. We had Ellie
Speaker 1: Days or Ellie decisions, where Ellie got to choose what
Speaker 1: we did, Ellie got to choose what we ate, because
Speaker 1: so often she'd kind of just coast under the radar,
Speaker 1: like she wasn't going to be loud and annoying about
Speaker 1: not getting her own way, and so ninety nine percent
Speaker 1: of the time she didn't. So they would really be
Speaker 1: quite intentional with making sure that just because she was
Speaker 1: the most cooperative, she didn't have to always be the
Speaker 1: one who missed out. Middle children are also very diplomatic.
Speaker 1: They're always resolving the tensions or the fights between their
Speaker 1: siblings or between their parents and their siblings, which is,
Speaker 1: as we know, sometimes a form of parentification. The child
Speaker 1: takes on the role, the emotional role of the parent.
Speaker 1: A child should not be, you know, mediating or resolving
Speaker 1: conflict at any point in a family. That is the
Speaker 1: role of the parent. That is their duty. So often,
Speaker 1: you know, we tend to think of the eldest child
Speaker 1: or the eldest daughter being parentified. Sometimes in these instances
Speaker 1: when there is, you know, it's more emotionally complex, and
Speaker 1: you need someone to see both sides, you need someone
Speaker 1: to call the shots. The middle child is the one
Speaker 1: who does it. I often think that the reason they
Speaker 1: turn out to be such mediators is because they can
Speaker 1: see both sides very well, because they're often the ones
Speaker 1: who have the least amount of like age difference. You know,
Speaker 1: the eldest and the youngest have the largest age difference.
Speaker 1: The middle child is kind of often developmentally or you know,
Speaker 1: age wise, smack bang in the middle. You know, they
Speaker 1: can they have maybe more of the maturity than the youngest,
Speaker 1: but they have more of the empathy for the current
Speaker 1: experience than the eldest, So that is something that we
Speaker 1: typically see. Also, they're very loyal. As one article from
Speaker 1: Psychology Today, which is I quote it all the time.
Speaker 1: I love Psychology Today. This is what this article said.
Speaker 1: They're very, very loyal. And you know, this second part
Speaker 1: is up for debate. They are also typically family oriented.
Speaker 1: Now why is this up for debate. It used to
Speaker 1: be that people thought that middle children weren't very family oriented.
Speaker 1: As soon as they kind of got the opportunity to
Speaker 1: leave out, they went they didn't. You know, they were
Speaker 1: the ones who went off on their own, which is
Speaker 1: kind of true. They are very independent. But a two
Speaker 1: thousand and nine study I was reading actually suggests that
Speaker 1: they still really care for the family, and they value family,
Speaker 1: and they put lots into the family. They may actually
Speaker 1: just have better boundaries, or they are less dependent on
Speaker 1: their family than the eldest or the youngest, and so
Speaker 1: from the outside it looks like they don't care. It
Speaker 1: looks like that isn't a priority for them. No, not true,
Speaker 1: It's just that it looks different. They also may be
Speaker 1: really protective of their relationships outside of the family, which
Speaker 1: brings me to like what I would call a neutral
Speaker 1: trait of the middle sibling. They can be quite secretive,
Speaker 1: especially about their private life. You know, who they're dating,
Speaker 1: who they're friends with, their problems. You know, they don't
Speaker 1: want to make too much noise. Is I guess kind
Speaker 1: of what I'm saying now, This part about being secretive
Speaker 1: towards their problems that bears examining, because this is actually
Speaker 1: not very psychologically healthy. It's not something that we want
Speaker 1: to see or we want to encourage in any child
Speaker 1: or a middle child, whoever it is. You know, you
Speaker 1: have never heard someone say, you know, I pushed all
Speaker 1: my feelings down and I suppressed it and I stayed silent,
Speaker 1: and now I feel so much better. No, we hear
Speaker 1: people say I feel better when I open up, I
Speaker 1: feel better when I share. I feel better when I
Speaker 1: you know, have community around me who understands what I'm
Speaker 1: going through. So the fact that middle children are more
Speaker 1: likely to withdraw and isolate can at times be quite worrying.
Speaker 1: This is why this very tendency to withdraw isolate be
Speaker 1: quite secretive cooperative. This is why people call middle children
Speaker 1: the chameleons. They blend in, they don't stand out. They
Speaker 1: are very like I guess that's the best swear to
Speaker 1: put it. They don't stand out, right, And the best
Speaker 1: way to show this or the best example of this
Speaker 1: that I've seen in the research was actually a paper
Speaker 1: from the eighties and it examined gifted children and birth
Speaker 1: order theory. So basically what the people wanted to find
Speaker 1: out was, you know, is the eldest always going to
Speaker 1: be the gifted child or the youngest? Like does birth
Speaker 1: order determine whether you've got some specialness about you? And
Speaker 1: they invited people parents to bring in their supposedly gifted children,
Speaker 1: and all of them were bringing in their eldest children,
Speaker 1: a huge majority were. But actually when they went to
Speaker 1: test these children. They also said to the parents, well,
Speaker 1: you know, we'll give you a discount if you bring
Speaker 1: in your middle child, your youngest child. We just want
Speaker 1: to do it. You know, with all of them, chances
Speaker 1: are you could have multiple gifted children and the parents
Speaker 1: would be like, no, no, no, no, no, Like our
Speaker 1: middle child is so you know, so easy going, like
Speaker 1: they're lovely, they're great, but they're not a standout. You know,
Speaker 1: they're not standing out in academics, they're not standing out
Speaker 1: in sports or arts. They're not not that talented. But
Speaker 1: when they'd come in for testing, the doctors, the professors,
Speaker 1: the teachers, whoever was administering the tests, they often found
Speaker 1: that actually, these middle children, even the youngest children and
Speaker 1: the eldest children, they all had the same relatively the
Speaker 1: same intelligence, the same eq the same level of talent,
Speaker 1: but the middle child blended in. The middle child did
Speaker 1: not stand out, and the middle child did not have
Speaker 1: the same wild expectations that the eldest or the youngest
Speaker 1: might be accustomed to experiencing. You know, by the end
Speaker 1: of this experiment, they had fifty different sibling pairs. Out
Speaker 1: of that fifty forty two of them. So comparing eldest
Speaker 1: and middle forty two of them were almost identical in
Speaker 1: terms of this all these objective measures for giftedness, but
Speaker 1: on the outside, the eldest was just a lot more
Speaker 1: loud about it, and maybe the parents were expecting them
Speaker 1: to be the talented one, and so they were more
Speaker 1: likely to kind of put the tiara, put the crown
Speaker 1: on them and say, great, you're the one that we're choosing.
Speaker 1: You're the gifted one. Remember, these parents were the ones
Speaker 1: bringing in these kids, and a lot of the time
Speaker 1: they weren't bringing in the middle children. So they're kind
Speaker 1: of seen differently despite objectively being the same. They're seen
Speaker 1: differently in the family, which may also cause them to
Speaker 1: act differently. It could be a self fulfilling prophecy the
Speaker 1: other explanation for this. And this is just something that
Speaker 1: I personally think it wasn't in the paper. I think
Speaker 1: that the middle child like sees how the eldest child
Speaker 1: is treated and is like that is way too much pressure.
Speaker 1: Like I that stress does not look fun, that does
Speaker 1: not look enjoyable. I'm just gonna blend in because I
Speaker 1: just want to crute, Like my eldest sibling looks super stressed,
Speaker 1: doesn't look happy. I'm gonna go under the radar. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna maybe opt out of that situation, or or another
Speaker 1: explanation is they think or they can't be They can
Speaker 1: only be room for one, they can't be room for two.
Speaker 1: So I'm just gonna chill. I'm gonna do something else.
Speaker 1: Those are like two of the thoughts that I kind
Speaker 1: of have about this. And it may also explain why
Speaker 1: sometimes the middle child goes in the opposite direction of
Speaker 1: their older brother or sister in terms of personality and
Speaker 1: in terms of how they express that personality. So I'm
Speaker 1: gonna bring up another study. Guys, I'm full of studies today.
Speaker 1: I've got so much research to share with you. And
Speaker 1: this one actually came from some researchers at MIT, and
Speaker 1: what they found was that, you know, middle sons, in particular,
Speaker 1: they were more likely to be the black shape of
Speaker 1: the family compared to eldest sons, eldest daughters, youngest daughters,
Speaker 1: youngest sons, the middle child, specifically, the middle sons, they
Speaker 1: were the thumb that kind of stuck out. So this
Speaker 1: research was conducted in twenty seventeen, semi recently on the
Speaker 1: CUSP and the team of researchers collected and analyzed data
Speaker 1: from thousands of sibling groups in the United States and
Speaker 1: in Denmark, and they found that the middle son, if
Speaker 1: there was a middle son, was twenty five to forty
Speaker 1: percent times more likely to have problems with discipline, getting
Speaker 1: told off at school. They were more likely to have
Speaker 1: been suspended, to be seen as a bit rebellious, or
Speaker 1: to even end up in jail. The explanation that was
Speaker 1: given by the head researcher in which we see repeated
Speaker 1: quite frequently when it comes to speaking about the middle child,
Speaker 1: they just don't get the same amount of undivided attention
Speaker 1: as the eldest or the youngest, and perhaps for boys
Speaker 1: in particular, they compensate for that by acting out. They
Speaker 1: really want that attention, They want to be cared for,
Speaker 1: and if they can't get that care organically, they can
Speaker 1: get it through being rebellious because people have to look
Speaker 1: at them. I think that that is a very interesting
Speaker 1: explanation that comes up again and again and again. The
Speaker 1: middle child is overlooked, they're dominated by the stronger siblings.
Speaker 1: They slip through the cracks, and that means they have
Speaker 1: to carve out their identity in any way that they can. Obviously,
Speaker 1: I think a big long term consequence of that is
Speaker 1: a lot of resentment. Any one of us who has siblings.
Speaker 1: We know that when you're young, everything is always a competition,
Speaker 1: and when it's exaggerated by this other complex aspect to
Speaker 1: the equation of being the middle child versus the eldest
Speaker 1: or the youngest, it can just become a bigger fire.
Speaker 1: It can just get out of hand. There are some
Speaker 1: exceptions and distinctions, as with everything in life, and one
Speaker 1: of my favorite things that I've learned about birth order
Speaker 1: theory from researching it all these years is that middle
Speaker 1: child syndrome in particular, actually becomes less pronounced the bigger
Speaker 1: the age gap is between siblings because they have time
Speaker 1: to really develop and solidify their own unique identity. It's not,
Speaker 1: you know, superseded by that of their eldest sibling or
Speaker 1: younger siblings. So say, for example, you have an age
Speaker 1: gap of five years compared to one year, so you know,
Speaker 1: like the kids are seven and twelve and seventeen, or
Speaker 1: seven and eleven and fifteen or whatever it is, that
Speaker 1: is preferable to kids that are like one, three and
Speaker 1: four or something like that, because they're at different developmental periods,
Speaker 1: so the parents can do different activities with them. They
Speaker 1: don't have their hands as full, and that really seems
Speaker 1: to a deviate the middle child syndrome that we're speaking
Speaker 1: about here. Also gender plays a role because you can
Speaker 1: be the middle child but also the eldest daughter. You know,
Speaker 1: even if you're not the eldest child, you may be
Speaker 1: the oldest daughter as the middle child, and you still
Speaker 1: may be forced to take on the maturity the daughters
Speaker 1: are expected to and the responsibility, and you may feel
Speaker 1: like you need to almost be a parent for your
Speaker 1: older sibling, your older brother, even though you're younger. So
Speaker 1: there is these interactions. They definitely need more research on this.
Speaker 1: I don't think I've even come across a study about this,
Speaker 1: maybe because I think being an eldest daughter perhaps supersedes
Speaker 1: being a middle child. But they would definitely interact in
Speaker 1: terms of the double burden of not only needing to
Speaker 1: be responsible for your male siblings and for your younger siblings,
Speaker 1: but then also expecting to be that extra bit cooperative
Speaker 1: and perhaps being that extra bit ignored by the family.
Speaker 1: So just something to think of. Regardless, we can I
Speaker 1: think we can see and we can claim that there
Speaker 1: is a shared experience within middle children. There is things
Speaker 1: that are very very similar, that are common that people
Speaker 1: could relate to one another about. What I want to
Speaker 1: answer next is what happens with this experience when we're adults.
Speaker 1: How does this kind of follow us through our adult
Speaker 1: lives even when we're not a child anymore, even when
Speaker 1: we're not around our siblings all the time, Even when
Speaker 1: this middle child syndrome is not being enforced and is
Speaker 1: not actively being placed upon us, it still impacts our personality.
Speaker 1: So we're going to talk about that and also how
Speaker 1: to make sense of some of these experiences, how to
Speaker 1: maybe even let go of some of the resentment to
Speaker 1: do with middle child syndrome after this short break, so
Speaker 1: stay with us. One of the principles behind ideas like
Speaker 1: reparenting in a child healing, age regression therapy, any number
Speaker 1: of those methods, is that the experiences you have as
Speaker 1: a child are reflected in your adult personality. People you know,
Speaker 1: of course, we changed over the course of our lives
Speaker 1: based on relationships, based on place, based on experiences context.
Speaker 1: But the roles that we adopt as children, be that gender, roles,
Speaker 1: social roles or family roles, they tend to really leave
Speaker 1: a mark. Think about how when you were a child,
Speaker 1: you were taught to be polite, you were taught to
Speaker 1: respect your elders, to not you know, I don't know,
Speaker 1: cut in line. It feels very unnatural to go against
Speaker 1: that right. It carries with us. The same goes for
Speaker 1: how we have been conditioned to act in the family
Speaker 1: and then outside of the family. In the case of
Speaker 1: birth order or being the middle child, if you constantly
Speaker 1: had to take on the role of a mediator peacemaker,
Speaker 1: you were the cooperative one, and you took on that
Speaker 1: role with your siblings and with your family as you
Speaker 1: grow up. This can be transferred to other relationships, into
Speaker 1: your friendships, into your role in the workplace, who you date,
Speaker 1: how you relate to them. You might find it really
Speaker 1: hard to shake this deep sense that you can make
Speaker 1: everyone get along the way that you always did with
Speaker 1: your sisters, or your brothers, or your parents. Even you know.
Speaker 1: I have one friend who's a middle child who was
Speaker 1: like you know, when I met my partner and in
Speaker 1: earlier relationships, I really had to learn that I did
Speaker 1: not have to manage the conflict. I was not responsible
Speaker 1: for always having a timeline for the conflict, for finding
Speaker 1: a solution. I didn't have to keep harmony between us
Speaker 1: or even between him and his siblings. You know, a
Speaker 1: middle children may have that natural conflict aversion like you know,
Speaker 1: I can't deal with these heartened emotions. I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: let's just move on. I don't want to deal with this.
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna pull back, keep silent in these circumstances.
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna blend in. In another way, adult middle
Speaker 1: children are often really great at negotiating the really able
Speaker 1: to bring about consensus without kind of being pulled into
Speaker 1: the flurry of emotions because they are so agreeable by nature.
Speaker 1: You know what I would love to do a PhD
Speaker 1: on if I ever get the chance. And I've said
Speaker 1: this for a long time, I would love to see
Speaker 1: if you could find like a correlation between birth order
Speaker 1: and the careers that people choose, like whether they are
Speaker 1: analytical careers or creative careers, what kind of skills are required,
Speaker 1: and like chart our tendency towards certain categories of careers
Speaker 1: or professions based on like youngest middle eldest kids. I
Speaker 1: get a bunch of families with I don't know, three four,
Speaker 1: five siblings and be like where did you end up?
Speaker 1: What are you doing? And is there like similar can
Speaker 1: we find a pattern? Like it would be so fascinating
Speaker 1: because if we were like to take the profile laid
Speaker 1: out of the middle child, like the stereotypical middle child,
Speaker 1: and disregard any of the nuances, what would they be?
Speaker 1: And I feel like they'd be great at HR. They'd
Speaker 1: be a great social worker or a teacher. They'd be
Speaker 1: great in PR public relations even like customer service, or
Speaker 1: a journalist. The journalists one in particular, I think would
Speaker 1: be good because they can be very diplomatic and independent
Speaker 1: and maybe like not stand out if you're doing like
Speaker 1: a big scandalous story on like corruption, you can be
Speaker 1: a little bit secretive, like we said before, a little
Speaker 1: bit sly. Definitely going off track here, but you know,
Speaker 1: if the eldest are quite dominant, the youngest is a
Speaker 1: bit of tension seeking and charismatic, and the middle child
Speaker 1: is cooperative and is a little bit like sneaky, where
Speaker 1: does that kind of lead them in terms of their career?
Speaker 1: Obviously it's probably unlikely a that I'm ever to do
Speaker 1: that study, but be that if I were to do
Speaker 1: that study, I would find anything concrete because with something
Speaker 1: like Korea personality, of which personality is only mildly informed
Speaker 1: by birth order, Like that's only a small contribution. You
Speaker 1: have so many other things. But that's like the thing
Speaker 1: with psychology, right, even if you can't have one answer,
Speaker 1: it can give you a clue, it can give you hints.
Speaker 1: And so although other factors like finances like even gender roles,
Speaker 1: or your values, or your dreams and your hobbies, that
Speaker 1: is also going to contribute to a career choice, much
Speaker 1: like personality, I would just find it really fascinating, Like
Speaker 1: if we could just find something like research for research sake.
Speaker 1: Moving on though, One thing that adult middle children do
Speaker 1: speak about a lot though, is growing into an adult
Speaker 1: and finally realizing how overlooked they may have been as
Speaker 1: a child, especially in a dysfunctional family dynamic. In those
Speaker 1: dynamics when everybody is absolutely focused on themselves, it is chaotic,
Speaker 1: it is confusing, it is wild, it is unmanageable. Maybe
Speaker 1: it's a little bit toxic. Someone always has to lose
Speaker 1: out And because the middle child made less of a fuss,
Speaker 1: maybe it was always you. The resentment over those experiences
Speaker 1: can definitely grow over time. Even if you're like, oh, no,
Speaker 1: you know, there was never a problem. Maybe you turn
Speaker 1: twenty five, twenty six, twenty seven, maybe you start considering
Speaker 1: how you would raise your own kids, and you were like,
Speaker 1: I don't think I would want them to feel the
Speaker 1: way that I did. I wouldn't want my child to
Speaker 1: feel like no one paid attention to them. I don't
Speaker 1: want them to feel like they have to make adjustments
Speaker 1: for everyone else. Those moments can really push you into
Speaker 1: a place of introspection and anger. That's a big one.
Speaker 1: Anger that comes up years later is not uncommon. There
Speaker 1: can also be resentment, you know, not just towards your parents,
Speaker 1: your parents are normally going to be the first ones
Speaker 1: to get that, but also your siblings, Like why why
Speaker 1: did you why were you treated like you were special?
Speaker 1: Why were you the golden child? Why why couldn't I
Speaker 1: have been the golden child? Why did I just have
Speaker 1: to blend in? Why did you guys get to stand out?
Speaker 1: Why did you guys get spoiled? Why did you guys
Speaker 1: get to have more of a say as much as children?
Speaker 1: I guess do ever say, that's the really interesting anger?
Speaker 1: And I would also say grief and sadness. Sometimes that
Speaker 1: comes with being aware of how your past and your
Speaker 1: childhood and the role you played has shaped who you
Speaker 1: are as an adult and has maybe left a bit
Speaker 1: of an emotional mark on your personality. I think this
Speaker 1: is something that we do just need to come to
Speaker 1: terms with. There's no changing it, and hopefully we can
Speaker 1: release that bitterness for yourself. You know, that's something that
Speaker 1: you have to carry. You might feel bitter angry towards
Speaker 1: someone else, but they're not carrying that feeling. You are.
Speaker 1: It becomes your burden. As much as you might feel
Speaker 1: that your parents or your siblings deserve to feel guilty
Speaker 1: or bad or do you deserve recognition, Inevitably that's going
Speaker 1: to take up space, more space in your mind than
Speaker 1: in their mind, and it can also lead to some
Speaker 1: pretty heavy thoughts, you know, thinking, you know, why wasn't
Speaker 1: I given more space in the family? Thinking? Is it
Speaker 1: because I'm unlovable? It's because I'm boring, It's because of
Speaker 1: who I am? Thinking, you know, is it because my
Speaker 1: parents didn't love me as much? Now? That is what
Speaker 1: resentment loves to do. Resentment takes any thought you have
Speaker 1: and bundles it in with all the confusion and sometimes
Speaker 1: the hurt and the anger, and it just makes it
Speaker 1: bigger and bigger and bigger, especially when you don't call
Speaker 1: out those those thoughts, especially when you don't think about
Speaker 1: what another explanation could be, and maybe there isn't one.
Speaker 1: We're going to get to that in a second. What
Speaker 1: I needed to remember is three things. Three things. If
Speaker 1: you're feeling this type of way about who you are
Speaker 1: as a middle child, you are allowed to feel frustrated
Speaker 1: by the differential treatment between you and your siblings. That
Speaker 1: is okay, That is normal. To feel upset about it,
Speaker 1: to feel maybe even jealous. You can feel sad for
Speaker 1: the experiences that you didn't feel like you got to
Speaker 1: have because that was your childhood too. Those were your
Speaker 1: opportunities as well. However, that cannot dictate the rest of
Speaker 1: your life story. Secondly, if it's any consolation, I think
Speaker 1: middle children honestly rock like they are normally some of
Speaker 1: the best people I've ever met. You have some of
Speaker 1: the best traits you know. Compared to eldest children and
Speaker 1: youngest children, I will say the middle child has fewer
Speaker 1: negative traits and fewer idiosyncrasies than most so if it's
Speaker 1: any consolation, and it doesn't have to be, I do
Speaker 1: think that you're probably pretty remarkable and you do get
Speaker 1: a good deal in terms of how other people see
Speaker 1: you and how easy it is to get along with you,
Speaker 1: and how fun you typically are and sociable. Finally, this
Speaker 1: final reminder, birth order is not everything. There is not
Speaker 1: one thing that defines someone fully, and family position is
Speaker 1: not deterministic. It is not a magic ball. It certainly
Speaker 1: is not something that will solely define you for all
Speaker 1: of the years to come. You can heal the parts
Speaker 1: of you that you feel you don't like because of
Speaker 1: where you are in the family, and you can also
Speaker 1: heal the parts of you that were resentful by engaging
Speaker 1: in some reparenting reparenting yourself. So reparenting we mentioned it
Speaker 1: at the top of this section. It is a therapeutic
Speaker 1: approach that involves nurturing and healing ourselves and our childhood
Speaker 1: selves by providing the care, the validation, the support, and
Speaker 1: the attention that you may have felt was lacking in childhood.
Speaker 1: So for middle children who often feel very overlooked or
Speaker 1: caught up in family dynamics, reparenting is particularly powerful and
Speaker 1: it's particularly powerful when you provide yourself with the attention
Speaker 1: like I said before, that you maybe didn't receive, or
Speaker 1: when you allow yourself to be in control and to
Speaker 1: call the shots, and you don't always have to be
Speaker 1: the cooperative one. You don't always have to be the
Speaker 1: one who says yes. You know, in terms of how
Speaker 1: we do that, how we enact reparenting, make a big
Speaker 1: deal of yourself, Make a big deal of your achievements.
Speaker 1: Be loud in like celebrating who you are and what
Speaker 1: you've achieved, and what you're doing in a way that
Speaker 1: perhaps you didn't as a child. You know, have the
Speaker 1: big birthday parties if that's what you want. Just literally
Speaker 1: speak out loud to yourself, Wow, I'm so proud of
Speaker 1: what I'm doing. What I'm doing right now is a
Speaker 1: big deal. I am making an impact that is visible.
Speaker 1: I'm impressive. Remember, you are the parent now, so what
Speaker 1: you always wanted to hear as a middle child but
Speaker 1: that you didn't receive, is now something that you can
Speaker 1: provide yourself. Another way to reparent yourself as the middle
Speaker 1: child is to not always be the one in the middle.
Speaker 1: Consciously make the decision to be the one on the outside,
Speaker 1: not be the one who has to mediate If your
Speaker 1: siblings are fighting, or your roommates, or your parents, or
Speaker 1: your parents and your siblings, whoever it is, you don't
Speaker 1: have to fix it. Even if every fiber in your
Speaker 1: body is screaming to get involved. You don't have to
Speaker 1: allow any of that to take up mental real estate.
Speaker 1: You don't have to think about what the best thing
Speaker 1: is to say to make both people happy. Just let
Speaker 1: people be messy, let them have their problems. That also
Speaker 1: involves having strong boundaries. If there is a pattern of,
Speaker 1: like two of your siblings or two people you know,
Speaker 1: continuously fighting and continuously getting you involved, just you really
Speaker 1: at some point to say, I'm sorry, that's not my
Speaker 1: job anymore to mediate your conflicts. That is not my job.
Speaker 1: That is not all I'm worth. You guys can stay
Speaker 1: angry at each other because you chose to be angry
Speaker 1: at each other, not because I didn't help, not because
Speaker 1: I wasn't there. This is your choice, these your actions.
Speaker 1: This isn't not me. I think that's a hard one
Speaker 1: to learn, especially when you do have that instinct to
Speaker 1: tend to want to fix things and resolve the conflict.
Speaker 1: But you're prioritizing yourself. Now, that's the whole deal, that's
Speaker 1: the whole goal. That's what we're that's what we're after.
Speaker 1: Prioritizing yourself even when you feel selfish. One final beautiful
Speaker 1: way to reparent is to focus on what makes you
Speaker 1: special in the family and also in your life. You know,
Speaker 1: look at each member, at each member of your family,
Speaker 1: notice how they're different, why they're different, their strengths, their weaknesses,
Speaker 1: and do the same for yourself. You have an identity
Speaker 1: in the family. You are probably the best add a
Speaker 1: lot of things, and you do deserve praise, and you
Speaker 1: do deserve appreciation and attention for all of that, and
Speaker 1: you deserve to take up space in your family and
Speaker 1: to say this is what I want and I'm proud
Speaker 1: of myself and I'm doing great things. And you can
Speaker 1: definitely bring that up with your family. Bring it up.
Speaker 1: Be like, I really want to be appreciated more. I
Speaker 1: want you guys to see what I'm doing. I don't
Speaker 1: want to be the one who always has to cooperate.
Speaker 1: I don't want to be the one in the middle.
Speaker 1: You can also choose not to do that. I think
Speaker 1: that is totally up to you. If you think the
Speaker 1: response from your parents or from your siblings is not
Speaker 1: going to be a positive one. Whatever is going to
Speaker 1: be best for you? Because I think that often the
Speaker 1: middle child is always forced to accommodate what's going to
Speaker 1: be best for others. We want to flip that script.
Speaker 1: What is best for you now? As an adult, as
Speaker 1: someone who is independent and free. What are you going
Speaker 1: to keep doing to make sure that you get what
Speaker 1: you need from your life. You get to have a say,
Speaker 1: You get to do what you want to do. You
Speaker 1: don't have to be the mediator. You get to be
Speaker 1: as social, as introverted, as whatever it is that you want.
Speaker 1: How are you gonna make that happen? I really do
Speaker 1: have a lot of love for my middle children. I
Speaker 1: think that they're pretty amazing. As an eldest daughter, I'm
Speaker 1: always trying to impress my middle sister, Like I'm always
Speaker 1: trying to be like, hey, do you like me? You
Speaker 1: know now that we're a little bit older, Like do
Speaker 1: you think do you think I still think I'm cool?
Speaker 1: And she's just so laid back, and I'm like, fuck,
Speaker 1: I'm really jealous. I'm really jealous of that. So get
Speaker 1: a lot to be grateful for a lot to be
Speaker 1: grateful for. Sorry, so I really hope that you learned
Speaker 1: something from this episode. Thank you for being patient with me.
Speaker 1: I know a lot of you have requested it over
Speaker 1: the last and here you go. Hopefully it's everything that
Speaker 1: you wanted from it. Hopefully there was some cool facts
Speaker 1: that you can take away into conversations and say, hey,
Speaker 1: maybe I'm the way I am because of this, and
Speaker 1: this is the study that tells me that, and whatever
Speaker 1: whatever it is. So thank you for listening. Make sure
Speaker 1: that if you haven't already, you leave a five star
Speaker 1: review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, whereever you were listening. Make
Speaker 1: sure that you are following along, and if you want
Speaker 1: to pre order my book, the link will be in
Speaker 1: the description of this episode. Thank you to all of
Speaker 1: those of you who have already done so. It really
Speaker 1: made my week to see you all getting behind it.
Speaker 1: If you have episode suggestions, we also love to hear them.
Speaker 1: This was an episode suggestion, so I do love hearing
Speaker 1: from you about topics that we haven't yet covered. You
Speaker 1: can DM me at that psychology podcast and also follow
Speaker 1: us over there. And until next time, be kind, stay safe,
Speaker 1: be gentle with yourself, and We will talk very very soon.