The term Birth Order is foreign to many people who hear it for the first time. Their next question is, “What determines your birth order?”
The simple answer is your number in order of your birth in the family.
The Firstborn is #1 having started life as an Only child until the second child is born. This Firstborn is the child that has the most photos in the family photo album.
The order then follows #2 then #3 and the baby is #4.
All have a decreasing number of photos and the fourth is lucky to get one baby photo.
However, it’s not always this simple. This is just the beginning to find your “REAL” birth order and applies when the children are spaced less than four school years apart.
There are really eight questions that must be answered to find your “REAL” birth order.
When births are four or more years apart you add the Only child birth order to the child’s number of birth. This gives the child a Double Birth Order.
The Firstborn would become a One/Only the second would become a Two/Only, then Three/Only and last Four/Only.
Adding the Only birth order amplifies, intensifies, and magnifies all the personality characteristics of the birth order number.
Knowing if any of the children were disabled or had any other handicap influences the other children’s birth orders.
Multiple births in the family, Twins, Triplets or greater have an influence on the birth order numbers of all the other children.
Trying not to get too complicated but there is another type of Double Birth Order.
When two or more groups of children are separated by four or more school years, they receive two ordinal numbers and share the characteristics of both.
For example, a four-year gap between the first two children and the last two children give the last two children the Double birth orders of 3/1 and 4/2. The Third child is also the oldest in the second group and the fourth child is the second child in the second group.
Nothing is as simple as it first appears.
In reality, there are at least 19 birth orders and combinations.
I am Dr. Robert Hurst author of Life’s Fingerprint: How Birth Order Affects Your Path Throughout Life. I have been an Orthodontist for over 50 years and have been observing my patients from childhood to adulthood and beyond. My patients call me Dr. Bob.