Birth Order, Joseph and his Colorful Coat

Roger Fritts

February 23, 1997

Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Church

Bethesda, Maryland

When I recall the story of how Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery, I think of my Aunt Eleanor. Also I think of the many stories of family cutoffs, brothers or sisters, parents and children who have broken off contact. I have talked with people who do not know where their children are, people who do not know where their brother or sister is. I have talked to people who know that a brother or a sister lives nearby, but for many years they have had no contact.

The story of Joseph and his brothers describes jealousies caused by parental favoritism. It describes rivalries between older and younger children. It depicts the conflicts that arise between stepchildren, and alludes to the special problems that occur when a parent dies.

These issues within families have attracted people’s attention since the beginning of civilization. From the murder of Abel by his older brother, Cain, to popular movies and television shows of the 1990s, the relationships between older and younger siblings have fascinated people.

I am interested because I want to understand myself. I wonder why my sisters and brother are so different from me?

•550•My younger sister is a full-time transcendental meditator living a celibate life with other meditators in an old hotel in New York State. In contrast, I am married, with three children. •550

•550•My older sister lives and works in Park City, Utah. She skis all winter. In contrast, I have never skied in my life, fearing that I would break my legs.•550

•550•My younger brother is a chef and manager of a restaurant in Annapolis. He is highly skilled at carving blocks of ice into sculptures, using a chain saw. In contrast, I have never used a chain saw, fearing that I would carve away important parts of my anatomy.•550

Why is it that my brother and my sisters have such different personalities, such different ways of relating to the world? Furthermore, how does the structure of my family affect my children? My three children have different personalities and interests. These issues fascinated the ancient people who wrote down the story of Joseph and his brothers. They are issues that still attract our attention today.

Clearly genetic make-up determines some differences in brothers and sisters. Researchers conducting studies of identical twins separated at birth have discovered that these people, with identical genetic codes, have many things in common. Our genes define much of who we are.

However, some researchers feel that birth order also plays a role. Alfred Adler was the first psychologist to address the influence of birth order on personality development. In his book Understanding Human Nature, first published in 1929, he assessed how birth order influences personality and social development.

Grounded in the birth order psychology of Alfred Adler, Walter Toman conducted research on birth order and published a book called Family Constellation in 1961. He explored the influences of birth order on social behavior and personality. The keystone ofToman's theory is that relationships in adult life replicate the first and most significant relationships of childhood, the bonds between family members. Some adult relationships mirror the childhood ones closely, while some do not at all. The more closely an adult interpersonal relationship matches a sibling relationship, the greater prepared for the adult relationship the individual is. When adult relationships mirror sibling relationships, provided the sibling relationships were happy and functional, the adult relationships are more likely to be happy and successful.

For example, Toman believes that if you were the oldest girl and had a younger brother whom you liked, your marriage is more likely to be successful if you marry a man who had an older sister. This combination is a good one because one partner is used to having juniors and being in charge, while one partner is accustomed to looking up to an older sibling. According to this theory, it is not an accident that I am married to a woman who is almost the same age of my older sister.

This research is controversial. For example, a 1983 book reviewed more than a thousand publications on the subject. Most effects of birth order, the writers concluded, are artifacts of poor research design. A 1990 study came to the conclusion that birth order “plays only a bit-part in the drama of sibling differences.”

On the other hand the latest book in support of generalizations based in birth order, is Frank Sulloway’s book Born to Rebel, published last year. A science historian, Sulloway reviewed 196 studies involving 120,800 people. He concludes that we can make general izations about people based on birth order. He writes that “the literature on birth order exhibits consistent trends that overwhelmingly exceed chance expectations.”

I tend to agree with Sulloway. I think of human personality as a big house. We cannot go inside this house to see fully what is inside. However, we can look in the windows. Each window gives us a view, an insight into what is in the house. While we cannot see all the insides of the house, we can learn a few things about what is inside. The study of birthorder, although far from perfect, is one window into the human personality.

Sulloway looks at birth order from the perspective of Darwin and evolutionary theory. Personality is the collection of strategies that each individual develops to survive child hood. Each of us works to establish our own individual role in a family, and in that role or niche we struggle to survive. We compete with our brothers and sisters in an effort to secure physical, emotional and intellectual resources from parents. Sometimes the competition is so intense it results in cutoffs from our brothers and sisters, as was the case with Joseph.

Consider, for example, a particularly grim side of animal behavior. Under some circum stances, animals kill their sisters and brothers. Sulloway gives several examples:

•550•Young sand sharks devour each other inside the mother until only one well-fed shark is left alive to be born. •550

•550•Faced with a food shortage, the oldest blue-footed boobie birds with the help of the parents, peck a younger brother or sister to death.•550

•550•Female cuckoos lay their eggs in other birds’ nests. When the cuckoo hatches, its first act is to eject all eggs, and live chicks from the nest. The cuckoo does this although it is blind when hatched. •550

This process also occurs in human cultures. For example in Latin America, the infant mortality rate is two or three times higher for children born fifth or later than it is for firstborns.

Sibling personality differences are strategies for enhancing parental love and attention. Younger siblings face different challenges than do their older siblings, and therefore their personalities develop in different ways. This is why children from the same family can beso different.

Take as an example Joseph's eldest brother, Reuben. When Joseph became his father’s favorite, he challenged Reuben's special position as the oldest child. Yet Reuben did not want to go along with the plan to kill Joseph. Sulloway would say the oldest brother has learned to earn attention and love from his father by having respect for the authority and tradition represented by his father. The oldest child tends to be more conservative socially and politically than younger siblings. So Reuben was behaving like a typical elder brother when he looked for a way to save Joseph's life.

In contrast, young Joseph had many characteristics of a younger brother. Typical younger children have found that they are more likely to survive by being daring, bold and fresh. They like to challenge opponents who are stronger than they are. They wage higher bets than others. They sometimes appear ambitious and obstinate. Their chief interest is in the quality of life and in the joys and sensations of the present, such as a coat of many colors. Younger children are more interested in creative activities and they may achieve great and unusual things. Despite a certain obstinacy, despite the frictions their ambitions create, the younger siblings tend to be kindhearted and soft. They can forgive and forget. So at the end of the story, Joseph forgives his brothers for selling him into slavery.

I find it interesting to look at this ancient biblical story using generalizations about birth order. However, I find it even more interesting to look at myself and the people around me from the perspective of birth order. I am going to describe your personalities based on birth-order research. Of course other circumstances, such as family history or death of a parent, may make everything I say invalid for you. However, you are intelligent people and I trust that you can discriminate between general trends for a large group and individual circumstances.

As I announce your birth order, I invite you to raise your hand.

First, if you are an only child, please raise your hand.

If you are an only child, growing up you are likely to have had greater conflict with your parents than the average child. Also, you are likely to be much more politically and religiously liberal than firstborns. However, only children are the least predictable group. You tend to be hard to generalize about precisely because you have no siblings. Because you are freer to occupy a variety of family niches, you embody much individual variability. This diversity means your birth order cannot be used as a guide in selecting a marriage partner.

Next, if you are a firstborn child with younger brothers or sisters, please raise your hand.

If you are a firstborn child, you are likely to seek parental favor by trying to be the responsible child in the family. The typical firstborn strategy is to align your interests with those of the parents, adopting the parents’ perspective. You tend to identify more closely with tradition. You tend to be ambitious, conscientious, and achievement-oriented. Compared with other children, you are also more conforming, and conventional. Through out most of your childhood you enjoyed the advantages of being bigger, stronger, and smarter than your younger siblings. As a result you are more assertive and more anxious about your status. Firstborns are more likely to do well in school and they are over represented among leaders, including presidents, astronauts, and ministers. You are less likely to take risks, preferring to stay home instead of traveling, preferring tennis to bungy jumping. Politically and religiously you are more likely to be conservative than liberal. You tend to be more moralistic and tough-minded. You will be happiest married to a youngest child.

Next if you are a middle-born child, please raise your hand.

If you are a middleborn, compared with other siblings, you are more flexible and favor compromise. If you fight, you do so largely out of frustration, or compassion for others,not from hated or ideological fanaticism. Being a middle child appears to foster a consider able willingness to compromise apparently because the role embodies a minimum of personal power. You are seldom able to employ brute force against an older sibling and your parents hamper you in your expression of aggression toward the youngest sibling whom they protect as the baby of the family. Thus, as middle children you develop diplomatic skills and you are more willing to share power with others. Politically and religiously you are likely to be moderate. You are more interested in moral persuasion than violent confrontation. You can marry anyone and be happy, but, whomever you marry, you will not have the strong, intense feelings of love felt by a firstborn who marries a lastborn. Any single marriage relationship cannot duplicate all the relationships you had as a child.

If you are a youngest child, please raise your hand.

If you are the youngest child, you tend to be far more open to new experiences and ideas. You are likely to be more easygoing and popular. Youngest children’s most pressing problem is to find a valued niche that avoids duplicating the ones already staked out by older brothers and sisters. In seeking to excel in domains where other siblings have not already established themselves, you are more likely to be unconventional, adventurous and rebellious. You are more likely to be a social progressive, liberal in religion and politics. As the family underdog you identify with other down-trodden individuals. You are far more willing to take risks than your older brothers and sisters. For example, you are more likely to travel and to engage in dangerous physical activities. You try to achieve through risk taking what firstborns gain through conformity to parental expectations. You tend to be more interested in work that enables you to both take risks and be creative. You might be an artist, an actor, a musician, a dancer, a journalist or a dentist. You will be happiest married to a firstborn.

As I said in the beginning, I have an aunt whom I have never met. The reasons for this cutoff will never be clear to me. It occurred when I was a small child and most of thepeople involved are now dead. I can only speculate by studying the patterns in other families, and trying to learn, in hopes that the same pattern will not be repeated in the family I have created.

When we hear in religion about the importance of brother and sisterly love, we tend to think of these words referring to a universal love. However, it also means that we should try to get along with our actual brothers and sisters. Doing this is not easy, especially as we compete in our families for limited resources. The stress on our families can be so great that cutoffs can occur.

In the Bible the ancient Hebrews recorded stories about the complex relationships between people in families. The story of Cain and Abel, the story of Joseph and his colorful coat, and other stories in the Old Testament explore these complex relationships.

Although primitive and imperfect, today the study of birth order tries to give us new and deeper insights into who we are. Knowledge of ourselves and of others liberates us from being locked into old patterns of behavior. With selfunderstanding we can better control our lives. When we are in touch with who we are, we can better choose our direction, we can better select our path through life.

Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Church
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