The Mystery of the Middle Child

I can’t stop thinking about birth order and the role it inevitably plays in how each of my children will turn out, especially my middle child Cheeks.

When I dropped him off at preschool today his did his usual – kiss me goodbye with a nervous look in his sensitive espresso eyes, then trudge off to play by himself.

According to his teachers, alone is mostly what Cheeks chooses to be at school, a stimulating stage for the dynamic developmental experience featuring, at times, some 70 potential friends. Cheeks can’t be bothered though, playing on his own, building sand hills for plastic cows to graze on. Sometimes he engages in parallel art and cooking play.

The extremely social, talkative adult part of me wishes Cheeks would make friends at school, establish a regular gang of kids. The extremely shy, nearly a-social little girl in me remembers how crippling it felt to break the ice with new people in new places. She wants to protect her loner middle child from the crushing, sometimes unruly seeming crowd of kids at school.

I’m conflicted to say the least. Maybe Cheeks is too.

As early as the 1920s Austrian psychologist Alfred Adler asserted that yes, according to his extensive research, birth order does in fact influence the development of a child’s personality and intelligence.

Tomes have been written on the controversial subject. Study after study has picked apart birth order. I'm betting nearly every mother throughout history has too. One recent study even showed that birth order affects which careers children will grow up to be in and how successful they will be.

Who really knows? Will mothers of middle children ever stop worrying about how well they will adjust, how their birth order-related propensities might serve or disserve them in life?

When will I stop obsessing over making sure Cheeks is getting enough attention, enough stimulation, enough of my (mostly paper thin) patience, enough of my heart, enough of my soul? Probably never, not even when he’s flown the coop. It's a case of caring too much, if that is even possible.

Simply put, researcher Adler contended that each child vies for the attention of his/her parents, and that each successive child has to compete that much more than their older siblings. Maybe this is why Cheeks is so fitful. He does what works. His rage stirs up a massive tidal wave in me and it shows.

Also, depending on the size of the family, each child struggles for parental attention that much more, according to Adler. The competition could be worse for mine. I could have had six children like my grandmother, not just three.

Still, even having skimmed studies old and new, I often wonder how much I can attribute “middle child syndrome” to my Cheeks’ white hot temper, social shyness and ultra-emotional sensitivity.

I wonder what Cheeks thinks of himself. Of me. Of his older brother and little sister. Of his entire family. Does he feel left out? Left in the middle child lurch?

Mostly he builds walls that feel too steep for me to climb. Sometimes, when in the rare mood to open up one-on-one, he tosses me a rope and I carefully climb in, stepping lightly and in perfect awe.

What's your birth order? How do you feel your birth order shaped your personality if at all?