Birth Order in Fiction and Real Life

LUCY BURDETTE: The other day on Facebook I stumbled across an article about the middle child syndrome, and also how middle children may become extinct as modern families are having one or two children only. I am the second of four, arriving only eleven months after my sister. (Can you imagine? What were they thinking?) Then a brother came two years after me and another sister after that. Actually I seem to have turned out more bossy and overachieving than my older sister, which doesn't fit the stereotype of the middle child as overlooked, under-appreciated, natural mediators. 

This made me think that even though I've had three main characters in my writing life so far, none have been the middle child in their families. Cassie the golfer had one older brother whom she adored but did not see that much. Rebecca Butterman, my psychologist character, had a younger sister whom she also adored though she found her to be un-psychologically-minded. Now Halyey Snow has no siblings at all except for Rory her stepbrother. I’m kind of sad about the lack of siblings in my series, as I had a rich sibling life, if not always perfectly smooth. Makes me wonder why? And ps, Middle Child Day is August 12 and I for one plan to celebrate!

My siblings and I by John Lloyd

HANK PHILIPPI RYAN: Well, hmm. I saw that! SO interesting. I don't notice it in other books, I guess. I do in mine--Charlie McNally is the older sister, (as I am) with the requisite bossy/ambitious/achiever/needy-of-praise-and-attention personality.  Jane Ryland is the younger sister, who feels a bit second-tier, and is envious and annoyed with her as-previously-described  older sister. And I definitely thought about birth order when I chose that!  And in TRUST ME, Mercer Hennessey is an only child--to enhance her aloneness.  

Lord Nelson and the Angels by pellethepoet

INGRID THOFT:  I’ve never thought about this, Lucy, but how interesting!  Fina is the youngest of four, but I have three older sisters, and she has three older brothers.  We are alike in that we are both problem-solvers and take issue with the stereotype that youngest children are spoiled and inept.  Birth order was important, but the most important part of Fina’s family make-up was that she was one of many kids.  Her siblings play a critical role in the series, and I really wanted to show the family dynamics that can emerge among siblings.  The characters in my WIP run the gamut from youngest of two, and eldest of three, to only child.  I wonder if I’ve written any of them to type?  I’ll have to take a closer look!

Siblings by James Dennes

JENN McKINLAY: I'm the youngest of six, and I am the textbook youngest. I am loud, willful, impulsive, and essentially "want what I want when I want it". As for my characters, (let's just go with the heroines and leave the heroes out of it) I have Melanie the youngest of two, Angie the youngest of eight, hmm, Lindsey, the youngest of two, Scarlett, an only child, Mackenzie, an only child, uh oh, Annie, youngest of two with a lot of step siblings, Jessie, an only child, and (EUREKA!), Carly, the fourth of five girls. There's a middle child! And yet, not an oldest anywhere to be found. Huh. Very interesting, Lucy! Excuse me, while I go ponder this. 

Triple trouble by pellethepoet

RHYS BOWEN: I'm a typical eldest child: over-achiever, wants to please. Actually I'm more like an only child as my brother was seven years younger than me, so always a little brat rather than a rival or companion. We get along beautifully now! Molly Murphy has three younger brothers so had to raise when her mother died. They figure occasionally in the stories. Lady Georgie has an older half-brother, but I don't think she behaves like a second child, as he is much older. She is more like an only child. Constable Evans was an only child. What all of these have in common is that irrespective of birth order they are all on their own in the world without family support to rely on. It is only Pamela, one of the daughters in In Farleigh Field, who has the benefit of a family around her. And she is a middle child with two sisters above and two below. But it is the sister below her, Dido, who actually behaves like the middle child. Pamela is the sensible one!

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I am an oldest child, was married to an oldest child, and have most of the typical traits associated with my spot in the family pantheon. My younger sister is the classic middle child (I sent her that article, Lucy!): always out there hustling. She is the communications hub of the family. Our brother Patrick is a true youngest child crossed with The Only Boy: a laid-back, easygoing, affectionate guy who basks in the knowledge that he's pretty much always adored.

My two main characters are oldest children, which I thought was a well-considered decision to make them the type of hyper-responsible people they are. However, seeing how closely many of our characters track our own birth order,  I'm starting to wonder! My secondary hero and heroine are different: always-eager-to-please Kevin Flynn is the smack-dab middle of five boys, while loner Hadley Knox is, you guessed it, an only child.

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Lucy, I have thought about this a good bit. I am the youngest of two, but my brother was almost ten years older so I was in many ways an only child. Duncan is the older of two, and Gemma is the younger of two, both sisters. Did I always want a sister? Duncan has the assurance of an eldest child, while Gemma, growing up in the shadow of her critical, bossy sister, compensates by being very driven. Melody and Doug, their friends and sergeants, are both onlys. I do find I have trouble writing characters who come from really large families, partly because it's so outside my experience, and partly because it really complicates the plot! I LOVE reading about big families, however.

Lucy: Debs, yes I wondered about that--if my lower sibling count has to do with how difficult it would be to keep juggling all those people!

HALLIE EPHRON: I grew up, third of four sisters, with the bossiest, most overachieving oldest sister anyone could have. I've always admired LITTLE WOMEN, because Alcott managed to bring FOUR sisters to the pages of that novel and not confuse the reader, and because Jo is a middle child.

The relationship I most often mirror in my books are between a main character and her sister. YOU'LL NEVER KNOW, DEAR is all about an older sister who, in her forties, gets a chance to find the baby sister she lost when she was seven. Come to think of it, COME AND FIND ME is about a missing sister, too. Hmm.

Here's me (on the left). My sisters Delia and Amy are both focused on Nora (far right), and there's me at the other end, looking at the photographer.

LUCY: Reds, do your characters match your life? Readers, is birth order something you notice in a book?

The Birth Order Factor, Jungle Red Style

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Oh Baby! On birth order and its scars

HALLIE EPHRON: Last year, my husband and I scanned all of the old family pictures that I ended up with, loaded them onto flash drives, and gave the flash drives as Christmas presents to my family. It sure beat fruitcake -- which just for the record I adore. Anyone who gets unwanted fruitcake, send it to me.

I was the third of what turned out to be four of us, sharing (something I've never been good at) 'middle' status with my sister Delia. I credit that birth order with a tendency to avoid competition -- which is why it took me so long to finally get with the family business and write.

My oldest sister was the typical bossy overachiever. My other middle sister the typical peace-maker, and she's still the one who connects us all. My baby sister was the brat, always wanting things her (as opposed to MY) way. A rule breaker who'd much rather dance on the yellow line than cross in the crosswalk.

Where are you in your family? Oldest, youngest, or like me one of the ones caught in the middle, and did it mark you for life?

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Typical bossy overachiever, you say? Yup,I'm the oldest. (And was REALLY good at all those things.)

HALLIE: Why am I not surprised by this?

HANK: Which meant my younger sister, Nina the top of the middle, was my servant. She was the funny cute popular one, I was the nerdy striving bookish ambitious one. I'm not sure how "bookish" and "wanting the spotlight" can connect, but there you have it.

The next middle sister, Nancy, was "Nurse Nancy," taking care of everyone. Nina and I used to pretend to play with her, and then make up the rules of all the games. "No, it's okay for me to use that word in Scrabble, it's Hawaiian." Nancy's a top-notch caterer now, still taking care of everyone, and makes her own rules.

Liz, the fourth? The horsey one (meaning, she loved horses)and now teaches dressage.

Then came the youngest, Chip, who's a hot shot environmental attorney. I can't believe I used to baby sit for Chip when I was 16 and he was 6. Now he's gorgeous and a real catch. Just saying.

Whenever we're all together, the SAME relationships emerge. I boss, Nina laughs, Nancy cooks, Liz ignores, Chip pontificates. We love it.

HALLIE: So funny, Hank -- when my daughters, now both over 30, get in the back seat of the car they still fight. ("You're breathing funny..." "Move over..." "You smell like cheese...")

JAN BROGAN: I'm the youngest of four, but the only girl, so I feel marked both by birth order and by gender isolation. As the youngest, you don't get to give orders, so you learn to ignore them. For that reason, I'm not a good joiner, not especially a leader, but definitely a freelancer who likes to go her own way.

But to get to play with older brothers - you had to be pretty tough - no whining allowed when you were selected to be "it" yet again - and you had to be competitive. I had one of my brother's friends tell me that it was obvious I was always trying to "beat my brothers."

But I have to say, I feel blessed to have brothers, at least my brothers. The oldest, Bob, is definitely the leader of the pack - and he has set the tone -we stay extremely closer and support each other and no petty arguments are ever been allowed. There are no factions. (do you think that's a girl thing?) In fact, I don't think any of us has had a single argument with each other as adults. Since it was the norm in our family, I never fully appreciated it until I started looking around at other people's adult sibling relationships.

RHYS BOWEN: Another bossy overachiever here. Actually I was an only child until I was seven, so I was used to being the center of the universe and not at all happy to have a bratty little brother. He claims he never did well in school, never bothered to try because I was so perfect and over-achieving. I never really got to know him until we were both adults and now he lives in Australia which means we don't see each other too often. By our mother's death and upheavals in his personal life made us really close.

It is interesting to find out that FOUR Reds were one of four siblings because I have four children and the oldest was always an over-achiever but not bossy the second always feisty, insecure and rebellious, the third even feistier, independent and determined to get her own way and the youngest, the only boy, growing up expecting success and acceptance and getting it.

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I'm the youngest of two, and my brother is almost ten years older. He was so definitely the bossy, type-A, take charge, overachiever--my mom used to say from the time he could walk and talk he had logical, reasoned arguments for why things should be done his way.

You might guess that this put me in the big-time pleaser category, something I've struggled with my entire life. I've never been sure how much birth-order really has to do with personality, though. I can't imagine my brother having been different if our birth order had been switched. And because I was so much younger I grew up in many ways like an only, which SHOULD have made me bossier...

Interesting that I've made my two main protagonists, Duncan and Gemma, the older siblings out of two, and my secondary protagonists, Melody and Doug, are both only children. I seldom write characters that come from big families, and I'm not sure whether I'm reflecting my own circumstances, or just avoiding fictional complications:-)

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: My family sibling relationships are... complicated. My dad (five kids) married my mom (three kids) and adopted me. We didn't all live together when we were young, but things can get pretty raucous at family get-togethers.

I'm the oldest of my three, the good daughter and bossy older sister who struck out for college when my sister was fifteen and my brother ten. Emotionally speaking, I'm the farthest ranging, the one who drives everyone nuts because I never remember birthdays and I'll go for months without calling before I suddenly realize, "Oh! I should let my parents know I'm still alive!" Physically, we're also far-flung: I'm 400 miles away from my parents, as are my brother and sister and their families. Barbara and Patrick and I all lived in D.C. once, but they stayed while I decamped for Maine, so now we're over 500 miles apart.

We were all spaced far enough apart so we all had our day in the sun - I got to be the adored only child for a while, then Barb, with naturally curly blonde hair and big blue eyes, and finally Patrick, who was so cute (he has a dimple! On his cheek!) ladies would stop my mother to coo over him. He's still awfully adorable. But taken. Hank, I have a fabulous single friend here in Maine. I think we should talk about your brother, Chip.

LUCY BURDETTE: I am the second of four, arriving only eleven months after my sister. (Can you imagine? What were they thinking?) Then a brother came two years after me and another sister after that. Actually I seem to have turned out more bossy and overachieving than my older sister--though we were always lumped together and called "the girls." Really I was supposed to have been a boy, named after my father, Robert. Then my brother came along--oh the rejoicing! he was always the prince among us girls, which was most annoying, though he's turned out to be a lovely man and very funny.

But my older sister and I used to torture the younger sibs by making up rules and games--like "Get Lost", which we played in campgrounds. Once the tent trailer was pitched, we'd take the younger kids blindfolded into the far recesses of whatever property it was and abandon them with the campground map. (You don't need a degree in psychology to interpret that!)

ROSEMARY HARRIS: I'm the younger of two girls - and practically perfect in every way. At least that's what what parents and older sister seemed to think. She was six years older so there was enough of a spread for us not to be competitive - although Paula was the least competitive person I've ever met. She totally let me have my way with EVERYTHING. We shared a bedroom and some days I'd decide to move all of her stuff and she never once complained! She also taught me to smoke and drink and play Seven Minutes in Heaven. All the important life lessons.

Sadly (or maybe not) no baby pictures of me exist. I think the Polaroid was the hot camera when I was little and all of those photos seemed to have disintegrated.

HALLIE: Goodness, Rosemary, so you named your main character Paula Holiday after your sister! That is the sweetest thing ever.

JUNGLE RED QUIZ AND BOOK GIVEAWAY! WHO'S WHO?
Post your guesses in Comments.

Today we're share some pictures of us when we were little and maybe even, for a few glorious moments, the baby in our families. Can you tell who's who? Prizes!! (AIRTIME and COME AND FIND ME) to the first two to guess who's who. One of the babies in here is a ringer. (Check back tomorrow to see who won.)


MATCH THE BABY PICTURE TO:
a. Jan Brogan
b. Lucy Burdette
c. Hallie Ephron
d. Rhys Bowen
e. Deborah Crombie
f. Hank Phillippi Ryan
g. Julia Spencer-Fleming
h. Ringer (one of these photos is stand in for Ro)