The Birth Order Book: Why You Are The Way You Are is a classic now and I’ve come across it occasionally over the years as I browsed bookstores and libraries and stood reading excerpts, hunkered between the shelves. I found the idea of birth order interesting, probably because I’m the oldest of six. I recently decided I wanted to learn more so I finally bought the book that would most likely give the best explanation.
I highly recommend The Birth Order Book for everyone. It is a superb explanation of how our personalities are affected by whether we are born first, second, third, middle, or last in our family. It includes a look not just at first, middle, and last born personalities and traits, but also how variables such as the length of years between birth positions affects a person.
For example, if your sister is 2nd born and you are the 3rd born and the last of the kids, if you are five or six years younger than your sister, then you have the traits of a last born but are also a “functional firstborn.” This idea was interesting for me since I’m eight years older than the next one in line. Besides spacing, author Dr. Kevin Leman goes into depth about eight other variables including gender, emotional, mental, and physical differences, adoptions, blended families, and more.
He covers other topics, too, including how your parents’ birth order can affect you and your siblings, ways our non-family relationships are affected when we partner with people who have the same or different birth order in their family, how birth order can affect business interactions, and parenting guidance for the various types of family combinations.
Lehman’s down to earth voice and his clear explanations of psychology are easy to understand and make the book fascinating. You can see yourself, your parents, family, friends, and colleagues within the roles and typical patterns he describes. I went around for a few weeks either asking my friends about their birth order or analyzing others and even began to understand some interpersonal dynamics that had always intrigued or confused me.
The book has a lot of information about firstborns which I appreciated, being a firstborn. This makes sense because the odds are that there are more firstborns and only children (who share similar traits) in the world.
I had not heard of the discouraged perfectionist until this book. I love the concept and it certainly rang true for me. In my twenties I had bosses tell me I was a perfectionist but I didn’t exactly understand what they meant. I didn’t want things perfect, just right and as they ought to be. Then later I believed I’d grown out of my perfectionism. No, according to Dr. Leman I was just a discouraged perfectionist.
What I found even more eye-opening was his connecting the dots between perfectionism and feeling not good enough. Now *that* I’ve struggled with for most of my life. But I attributed it to other influences. Seeing it through the lens of birth order makes it more manageable.
Dr. Leman gives advice on handling perfectionism and advises aiming for excellence as opposed to perfection. I imagine as a last born, his experience of perfectionism is more external and based on seeing others deal with it since his wife is a firstborn, his daughter, and actually three of his children are also functional firstborns due to large age gaps between his kids. Plus, he was a practicing psychologist counseling people.
I think firstborns who have experienced perfectionism could also have valuable advice on dealing with it and The Eldest Daughter Effect, whose authors are both eldest daughters, has some insight here.
This book provided me with lots of aha moments as things that have puzzled me became clear. These include:
- Why I’ve resisted general chattiness when I work among middles or last born.
- Why the majority of my few friends are so compatible with me – they are all firstborn, too.
- Partly why I have few friends, a firstborn trait.
- How my mother’s firstborn and grandmother’s only and great grandmother’s firstborn tendencies all magnified with each generation and are now quite strong in me. With a firstborn father, too. Not sure this is a blessing or a curse!
- How the age gap between me and my next sibling also gives me only child tendencies.
- Why my marriage to a firstborn son of an only mother and firstborn father was the way it was.
Another thing I liked was the fact the author has a large family (five kids). He explains how within a large family, the children tend to make smaller groups of first, middle, lasts in the way they function. This makes sense but can also be a little more confusing when trying to understand yourself.
Birth order isn’t a box we each fit in but explains many general characteristics and tendencies we develop as kids in the pinball machine of life in our family. As Dr. Leman says, “Does birth order explain everything? No, but it has always proved to be a helpful tool when clients understand it and apply it to their lives.”
Dr. Leman is arguably the top expert on birth order today and has written over 30 books. A few are on birth order and the others are on related topics such as parenting, marriage/relationships, and self-help. I’ve read another one of his books (The Firstborn Effect) and see a couple more on his bibliography I’d like to read.
Since Dr. Leman covers all birth positions, everyone can find something relevant in this book! Even only children. Perhaps that’s why it’s been around for so long. It has something for everyone.
Highly recommended book to help us understand ourselves and others better, which can improve our lives and relationships. Birth order is a fascinating lens through which we can become more hopeful and accepting and Dr. Leman exposes the issue clearly, sensitively, and entertainingly.
Book cover by carynwrites
Children in line by Keith Johnston from Pixabay / filtered from original