I don't understand the question.

what is your birth order among your siblings? Lehman has a prediction about job choices and personality traits as they relate to where a person stands in order of his birth. So: the choices relate to whether one is categorized by being a first, only, youngest & etc. Lehman says that an interval of ten years between siblings "restarts the clock," such that the ten year younger sibling is treated as a first born. Lehman would predict a heavy preponderance or majority of prosecutors are first or only childen.click here for three views of the concept

(I think the "blended" part is just to help clarify how to answer the poll, but the formatting did throw me off for a minute)

Signed,
Shannon "The firstborn" Edmonds

Right you are, SE.

Ben "primus inter pares" Leonard

first born.

brother (last born), same parents, 10 years and 3 months younger than me is a peace officer.

The author would argue Ray and his brother are an example of a "reset" with two first-borns. Youngest children tend to make great salemen and actors. My little brother is a sporting goods salesman with a three state territory serving the Houston area, N. & E. Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana.

Lehman also points out youngest and eldest children often seek each other out for marriage and tend to have a lower rate of divorce. First-borns, think back on the only and edldest folks you have dated...contentious? I am astonished at the number of youngest children I have dated...and yep, I married one.

[This message was edited by BLeonard on 01-26-06 at .]

Now I understand. I just didn't understand the phrasing of the poll question. I've heard some of this before. I too, am first born.

Have you personally had this issue arise in punishment? Has anyone else?

I am troubled by one of the doc's discoveries that you reported on, Ben: "...youngest and eldest children often seek each other out for marriage..." that sounds a little weird, except for families in certain parts of east Texas and some locations in the Ozarks. Now that could be one of those statements weakened by the lack of hyphens or semicolons, and the meaning totally changed by such, or since I am third born out of seven children, I'm a little slower on the uptake, obviously. But I do know that my youngest sister, number 7, would never seek out my older brother, #2 for anything but maybe a cash donation.

So, if I ever get accused of a crime, in addition to alleging that I am of course, bipolar, the flavor of the decade, can I also claim birth order as a defense? The Third child syndrome?

(I'm not responding to AP's post.)
As a 4th/youngest child, I've gotta say the "babies" (30%)are giving the first borns (42%) a run for their money on this poll.

I am the eldest of 4 boys. We are not separated by that much time:
Me - Feb. 1960
#2 June 1961
#3 Dec. 1963
#4 Jan. 1965

# 4 was born exactly 2 weeks before my 5th birthday. I was always the reserved, rules-following child. #2 was wild, #3 was a mixture. #4 was in trouble all the time and is in the car-selling bidness.

Damn, my youngest (baby) brother turns 41 today! That makes me OLD!

[This message was edited by Trey Hill on 01-25-06 at .]

Why can I somehow imagine my little brother's future defense attorney (only 8 years younger, apparently it wasn't quite enough) calling me as a very surprised punishment witness for his next debacle:

"Isn't it true that YOU, Little Miss Perfect Eldest Child of the Family, never got in trouble, always right about everything, annoying little honor roll priss that you were, are the REAL cause of my client's downfall and ultimately his presence here today?!"

I guess it's at least somewhat more interesting that the typical, "I had a lousy childhood and my parents are responsible for everything bad I've ever done" defense.

Elizabeth

At least this explains why I, the baby, was so relentlessly perused by my wife, the oldest - in her family, not mine. I always thought it was my good looks, charming personality, and sunny disposition.

(Notice my clever use of "," and "-" thingies for clarification that I did not actually get hitched to my older sister)

However, I do have an older sister and suffice to say that the good doctors theory does not hold true.

Of my children, both have taken on the role of "first born". The older is adopted and my daughter has made it known from very early on that she plays second banjo to no one.

"Babies" are giving those elders and first-borns a good run. Lehman refers to babies as the "little con artists" of the family. Unable to impose their will through force, they learn to be cracker-jack negotiators. I have often thought of this job as on very close to sales, especially in the court presentations and the negotiations.

Some down-sides to the first/only children are that they tend to be uptight, authoritarians jealous of the usurpation of their primacy by the others who come after. When the second born comes within three years of the first, often the rivalry can be brutal.

Even twins know who was "born first." Consider the rivalry of Jacob and Essau....that was a whopper.

Trey, my brother was about 26 months younger than I. We grew up fighting like cats and dogs...did you have that experience?

My next youngest brother was only 14 mos. behind me. We fought like cats and dogs too. I ended up a prosecutor and he ended up, let's just say he knew the legal system and the jailhouse from a very different perspective than I do....
Of course, we were both adopted, so that gets us into the whole nature vs. nurture debate too, but that's another poll.

me: overachieving thrice-degreed appellate nerd prosecutor

middle brother (3 years younger than me): attended UTA, has enough hours for a degree if only they were all in a specific major; drives a Mrs. Baird�s truck; he�s the guy who brings the Butter Cups to the Hop N Shop

youngest brother (4 years younger than me): has technical degree; salesman for Dr. Pepper; can BS a bird out of a tree

Middle Bro avoided any number of punishments by telling our mother that he was the middle child and therefore just had more problems in life. Youngest Bro was just too darn cute, and was the allegedly innocent victim of elder siblings too often, to be punished much.

Bros used to fight tooth and nail every single day when we were kids, but they now live together (long, LONG story involving numerous ex-wives).

And yes, both bros are making more money than big sis, degrees notwithstanding.

Thanks, guys, for a funny diversion from trying to figure out how to reconcile Ngo with double jeopardy concepts . . . see, being the eldest isn�t all it�s cracked up to be. A nice drive with a truck full of cupcakes sounds pretty good right about now.

My older sister, the firstborn (there are just 2 of us) was high school valedictorian, cried when she got her first B, did the UT Plan II degree, has a Ph.D. and is a Latin Professor. Limited social skills, but scary intelligent.

Then there's me, the baby. Government servant, show off trial lawyer, an egomaniac with a self-esteem problem, and I make more money than her. Woo hoo!

Married to a middle child. Advice to parents: Never have three children, because as Jan Brady says, "Being in the middle is like being invisible!"

I'm the neglected, overlooked, less loved middle child of great parents and I often let them know it. Me, my older Photographer brother and younger homemaker mother of 2 sister are all the same years apart (around 2 - I think) I was a freshman while Bro was senior and thus abused by him, and my sis was a fresh while I was a senior and thus I tried to abuse her but she would always go runnign to Momma and Daddy and they would force me to stop and wouldn't even listen to the reasoning that I had to suffer from Brother and they always said to tuff it out , it was only a right of passage and that didnt hold true for sister b/c she was a girl but I really know it was because she was the baby and I was the middle child and so they just didn't care what happened to me b/c they had an older and a younger and one boy and one girl and thus I was expendable and.....anyways, I ain't bitter and I don't have the middle child complex...(@#&$T@#* it!!!

My oldest sister is/was an ER pediatric nurse who later got a PhD in nursing. She taught at several universities (she is 16 years my senior). She married a hard working poor boy (oldest in his family) who proceeded to build a multi million dollar engineering corp. They live in a high rise condo in the medical center in Houston.

My other sister (13 years oldewr than I) is a secretary. My brother (closest to me in age but still 11 years older) is also an engineer with his own business.

My father (also an engineer) used to explain to friends and family that I was the "black sheep" of the family. Since my skills with such matters as differential equations, statics, dynamics and stress formulas were lacking, I was forced to attempt a less noble profession than engineering. He would explain that I, the slower of his progeny, retreated to the relatively abstract world of the law. He would further lament that I took my failings one step further and became a ..(he would swallow hard at this part of his dissertation)......a politician. Oh, if I'd only become a banjo player in an east Texas house of ill repute, he could have held his head up when speaking of these things.