Birth Order and Career
October 22, 2008 by Cherie Burbach
Filed under Parenting
How do you rank in the birth order question? More than that, do you think birth order can affect your career?
I caught this article over at CNN about birth order, and naturally I wanted to see what the Career and Kids readers had to say about all this. After all, one of the quotes in the article is:
“Most people have an intuitive knowledge that birth order somehow has an impact on development, but they underestimate how far-reaching and just how significant that impact is.”
Firstborns, for example are said to be more independent and do very well financially than their siblings. Younger children are said to be manipulative when it comes to getting what they want. And you don’t even want to be a middle child – those kids are supposed to grow up and be riddled with angst and confusion.
As you can probably tell, I am a bit skeptical about this whole birth order thing. I think life is what you make it. Or perhaps that’s a result of my only child personality?
I have many friends that don’t seem to follow birth order conclusions, either. One of my best friends is a middle child and she’s very driven and has done very well. I know of one first born that doesn’t fit the driven and independent description at all. Are these folks exception to the rule?
What do you think? What’s your position in terms of birth order and do you think it affects your career and advancement?
I read the article and think it’s absolutely wrong at least when it comes to my family. The oldest of my siblings sounds far more like the youngest. He makes less that 35k, is not satisfied in his career, and is an attention whore.
My sister is the middle child and fits that definition moderately well, but she loves the lime-light, manipulates people, and is far more attached to family than friends.
I am the youngest, I am far closer to friends than family and I am earning a masters degree at the moment (neither of my other siblings finished their undergrad degree). While the adjectives used to describe the first born I would say fit me better than my siblings, there is no empirical way to measure and prove that, thus I will not draw that conclusion.
I doubt we are all exceptions to this rule….
Mel:I know. The difficulty I have in believing this article is it’s just based on averages.
i wont believe that birth orders affects careers .. its just on how you handle things up.. how you manage to cope up even if your younger or older, there are lots of ways on how to start your careers. there are one for freelancers out there in the web that helps them to find clients and just by posting their resume they can have their own project….
I think that one does not affect another!