Rather than compete directly with an identity another sibling is already known for, siblings proactively claim a unique perceptual psychological space in the minds of parents... In other words, if your brother was already seen as the “smart one,” you may have claimed the territory of the “funny one.” If your sister established her role as the “athlete,” you may have fashioned yourself the “artist.” And if your sister or brother was always praised for being the “good girl/boy,” you may have reveled in your role as the “rebel,” “free spirit,” or “changemaker.”
August 24, 2025
"I’m cracking up just picturing the laughter around the Sunday dinner table if I had declared myself the family’s 'changemaker'!"
Texted Meade after I sent him a quote from the Psychology Today article "The Real Reason We Can Be So Different From Our Siblings":
Posts
23 comments:
"Texted Meade after I sent him a quote from the Psychology Today..."
Psychology Today... say no more.
Too true (though not really anything new). Birth order plays a big role as well. And there's a big difference between those who are engaged in the world of their peers and those who are more contained in the world of their parents. The latter can't escape the family dynamic of parental expectations and pressures. The former can't understand it and often aren't even aware of it.
P.S. If you want to be the family changemaker, stock up on singles and fives.
Meadehouse changemaker. Available on the Althouse Amazon Portal
Rebels with a cause, without a clue, and differential inclusion is a warning sign of amelerioting cognitive dissonance through exercise of liberal license or #MeToo syndrome.
My older brother (the first of four sons) fulfilled the role of no-account, cheating, thieving, drug-addicted, alcoholic asshole in brilliant fashion.
Like Obama and his Nobel Gong for not being Little Bush the Moron, I profited from the difference.
Simplicity Patterns or just Simplicity was a magazine for women who made their own clothes. It's bankrupt now, so the name might be up for sale. (Looking at you, Psychology Today.)
Like the heir, the soldier, the scholar, the adventurer, and the priest. What to do with the extra sons? Can’t have them lounging in the gambling clubs of London.
My 3 siblings and I (ages 54 to 65) could not be more different. We get along very well, and have an active group chat. But I don’t know about the psychology gobbledygook. We were different as very young children too.
Coming from a family of eight children, there was a lot of flexibility in which mantle you would wear over the years.
Time erases most of the distinctions, though. These days the conservatives in my family have taken the role of Indulgent Sphinx and the more proggy siblings the role of Hysterical Doomsayer. That aside, there isn’t much to distinguish us.
..early on my older sister staked her position as the one most likely to push her younger sibling out of the nest. She did not relinquish the spot until forced in high school…
I dunno. There’s a ton of effort and angst expended and lost if your chosen role isn’t natural for you.
What the hell does a "changemaker" do? Oh yeah, gets to be head of NPR and decides that reverence for truth gets in the way of change.
Josephbleau: "What to do with the extra sons? Can’t have them lounging in the gambling clubs of London."
Well, if their hair is perfect, they could be werewolves....
RR
JSM
And yet the family bedwetter, although always applicable to someone, is avoided as if it caries no honor at all. This is an oversight, a missed opportunity, if you will.
Break a $20 for me, Meade?
Sibling rivalry is a biological response that was developed over hundreds of thousands of years when offspring had much lower survival prospects and rates. If there are 5 children and it is likely that only 3 of you will survive you find ways to seek advantage over other siblings.
Because firstborn are almost always bigger and stronger than younger siblings and the problems grow for each successive child as they have more larger and stronger siblings these differences in a primitive hunter gatherer tribe this created biological adaptations that drove younger siblings to more extreme ends to survive.
But in modern society these adaptions cause very different issues. It is this mismatch that we are struggling with right now.
I never met a so-called free spirit that wasn’t addicted to something and more likely a few Some things.
“My older brother (the first of four sons) fulfilled the role of no-account, cheating, thieving, drug-addicted, alcoholic asshole in brilliant fashion.”
This older brother must’ve pissed on your flower pot numerous times in the past. You’ve mentioned this guy and his misdeeds so many times that I’ve developed a smoldering hatred for him, though I never met the ne’er-do-well.
@Iman--I wasn't the only person whose flower pot was a target, but I was certainly his first and primary victim until we parted ways.
In my family the first born child was treated as perfect by my parents. Unfortunately he wasn’t. But as youngest my duty was to never expose him. So I played my part to please them, and it wasn’t easy. If he made all A’s them my duty was to make at least one B. Very strange. He was anti social so I had to make friends in other families. That taught me how normal people lived. And I became sports and later career oriented.
I know this is weird, but it’s true. Thank God for good coaches.
Meade can give you twenty five twos…
tcrosse: I bought one of those with Green Stamps 60 years ago. Back when I had paper route. “Collecting! For the Lafayette Journal & Courier!”
Post a Comment
Please use the comments forum to respond to the post. Don't fight with each other. Be substantive... or interesting... or funny. Comments should go up immediately... unless you're commenting on a post older than 2 days. Then you have to wait for us to moderate you through. It's also possible to get shunted into spam by the machine. We try to keep an eye on that and release the miscaught good stuff. We do delete some comments, but not for viewpoint... for bad faith.