A Look at the Importance of Birth Order

NY Times: Birth Order: Fun to Debate, but How Important?, by Perri Klass:

. . . Everyone takes it personally when it comes to birth order. After all, everyone is an oldest or a middle or a youngest or an only child, and even as adults we revert almost inevitably to a joke or resentment or rivalry that we’ve never quite outgrown.

Children and parents alike are profoundly affected by the constellations of siblings; it is said that no two children grow up in the same family, because each sibling’s experience is so different. . . . But that doesn’t mean the effects of birth order are as clear or straightforward as we sometimes make them sound. . . .