Meyers-Briggs tests. Buzzfeed quizzes. Astrology signs. Birth order. What do all these things have in common? They all purport, with varying levels of accuracy, to tell you something about yourself, and perhaps give you some tools to both better understand yourself, and better understand those around you.
Personally, I think astrology is nonsense, Buzzfeed quizzes were funny fifteen years ago, but personality tests can be useful diagnostic tools. What of birth order? I finally got around to reading The Birth Order Book, Dr. Kevin Leman’s seminal tome on the subject, which was originally published in 1985, but continues to be reprinted and remains relevant today.
The book starts with talking specifically about traits commonly found in each position in the birth order. As an oldest, I felt like it absolutely nailed me, and gave me some useful tools to move forward that I hadn’t considered before. Granted, at the time I was also reeling from the abrupt ending of my last job, but I found some answers to the “Why” questions that I was asking here, and some tools to do better at my next gig.
I didn’t get a whole lot out of the marriage section, but it would be handy for any single folks as they contemplate the kind of person they’re looking for in a partner.
What I found particularly interesting was how the book’s descriptions captured some of the personality aspects of my own kids.
Not-so-Mini-Me is a classic firstborn. He’s conscientious, responsible, with a strong sense of duty. At times, he’s a little too much like me.
The Princess is a mixture of firstborn and middle-child traits. As the firstborn girl, she seems to tend towards the Defeated Perfectionist architype (something I’d never considered before), but she also shares middle-child traits of deliberately going in the opposite direction of her older brother in a lot of things.
Future Jedi is a classic middle child. He very fortunately found his niche in sports, something his older siblings aren’t particularly interested in. I see him a lot of times mediating compromises between his older and younger siblings when people want to play a group game together, or can’t agree on a TV show or movie to watch. He also has a finely honed sense of justice, to see what’s fair or unfair.
The Centurion probably got the biggest boost of sympathy and understanding from me after reading this book. I didn’t appreciate how difficult his position in the family zoo can be. With older brothers who are “the smart one” and “the sports one”, an older sister who’s “the future leader”, and a little sister who’s “the baby”, he has a hard time defining his role. One of my major takeaways from the book was how I need to do better at helping him find some good outlets that are his niche, and his alone.
The Queen I think I mostly understand. The biggest point the book had for her was for MLGB and I to watch out that we don’t let her do too much simply because we’re tired by the time she hits her teen years.
It’s definitely a book that I recommend. You can get the most recent version off Amazon (and if you use this link, I’ll get a little bit of a commission out of it!)