I think one of the theories I believe in, and I have certainly written about it before, is the birth order in which people are born and the role it plays with who they marry, and how they get on with others.  

Without going into it in great detail, essentially, and there are exceptions, an oldest child generally will get on better with a youngest child, in terms of marriage, and for example, two oldest children, if they are married, would normally have a lot of conflict.  The exceptions happen when there are gaps that are so big between the birth of children that a child may be the last born, but essentially brought up almost as an only child or eldest child, because of the huge age gaps.

I think of this quite a bit when I deal with my family because I resented it a lot, when I was small, that as an oldest child you are forever blamed by your parents as to anything that your siblings do wrong.  If they speak cheekily to the parents, the parents claim that they learnt it from you.  When they do something right of course, it was never learnt from you and as a result, and from an oldest child’s perspective, you are always to blame for something and almost never ever get credit.  

I thought about that when I spoke to my daughter the other day telling her that she must not just sit back while one of my other daughters does something naughty and she must do something about it and she said to me that they then reply to her, “You are not the boss of me”.  It just reminded me how many of the messages we give as parents are so contradictory, because I certainly do tell my children that nobody is in charge of anybody else and they must all speak up themselves, but then one sends a contradictory message of telling the oldest child that he/she must look out for the others.  I guess I sort of accepted that these contradictions are just completely normal and you have to tell children that they have to look after each other and at the same time that they are responsible for what they do themselves.  I guess older children will always come in for the most criticism, but in some ways they often get the best upbringing and the most attention from parents in their early years which often assists them in leadership roles.  

I am sure by now I have said enough things to irritate those who are not oldest children and I would love to know where you were born in your family’s sequence – in other words, are you a middle child, an oldest child or a youngest child – and what your perspective is as a result – How do you see oldest children typically, how do you see youngest children and how do you see middle children?