Essay About Birth Order

Does birth order really affect one’s personality and future? Me personally I believe that it is true to an extent. By that I mean I do not believe that just because you are the first born child of a family makes you any more likely to become richer or more famous than any other child born into the same family. However, I do believe that personality is affected greatly by birth order. Depending on when you were born (oldest, middle, or youngest) can greatly affect personality, social skills, and how a person grows up in general.
Ms. Susan Whitbourne, author of “The Elusive Birth Order Effect and What it Means for You,” has done extensive research into the topic and has found that there are two types of birth order, ABO (actual birth order) and PBO (psychological birth order). Actual birth order refers to the numerical rank in which you were born into you family. I believe that the following factors really shape a person’s personality. These factors include: gender, number of years in between children in in multi-child family, and family history. Psychological birth order refers to the self-perceived position in the family and is a bit more complex because it is harder to determine how to measure. Do we measure based on actual achievements and if so what achievements?
I strongly …show more content…
Hartshorne’s passage, “Did you know that 21 of the first 23 astronauts into space were firstborns?” If this is true it is merely coincidence. Just being the firstborn child in a family cannot determine how good you will be at something like an astronaut. However, I will argue and I do believe that personality is greatly affected by birth order. As previously stated in the essay, the different age groups of birth order (oldest, middle, youngest, and only child) really determines one’s personality like a firstborn being more of a leader than say the middle or