Do You Have Middle Child Energy?

          I’ve always believed that you don’t need to be a Middle Child to know what it feels like to be a Middle Child. If you’ve ever felt left out, left alone or left behind, then you know the feeling. But in a post on the PureWow website, Executive Editor Dara Katz adds a whole new twist. She writes that your actual birth order position might not at all match up with the birth order energy you give off.

          That means you could be a youngest child or oldest child, but give off Middle Child energy. Or, maybe you’re a Middle Child who gives off oldest child or youngest child energy. I suppose that could happen, even though I’m pretty sure I’ve never been mistaken for anything but a Middle Child. Big surprise.

          In any case, you can CLICK HERE to take the Birth Order Energy Quiz and see how you fare. Maybe you’ll have a whole new reason to celebrate Middle Child’s Day on August 12! 

 

NOTE: I took the quiz, and hit the birth order trifecta! I am a Middle Child, feel like a Middle Child, and give off Middle Child energy. You can’t get more Middle Child than that!! 

 

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Fighting Middle Child Mockery

           On a recent “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver,” Mr. Oliver just couldn’t resist the urge to do a little birth order bashing. The topic was dangerous “forever chemicals” found in household products. “Harmful chemicals are just not something you should lose track of,” Oliver said. “They’re not your car keys or your middle child,” he quipped.

          Ha ha. Very funny.

          How a discussion of toxic chemicals can somehow become an opportunity for some Middle Child mockery demonstrates exactly what we’re up against -- just how pervasive the problem is. There you are, minding your own business, innocently watching a favorite TV show, when – BAM! You’re suddenly the butt of some first born funnyman’s joke.

          Well, I say enough is enough. Can we continue to stand by and do nothing while others hurl hurtful birth order barbs our way?

          Not on my watch!!

(Click image to enlarge)

 

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Test Your Birth Order IQ

          In preparation for Middle Child’s Day, I found a couple of quizzes and an interesting read from the interwebs that I hope will help get you in the spirit.

The Middle Child of Recounts

     Recount fever has swept the nation, and nowhere has it hit harder than in my home state of Florida. But there’s a call for a Florida recount that, not surprisingly, isn’t getting any attention. And it has nothing to do with politics for a change. This recount centers around a 2017 study which, as reported by the website DoYouRemember.com, found that “Middle Children Are Most Likely To Be Troublemakers.”
     When I read that headline, I found it so outrageous it made me want to break one of my mother’s good vases. But a team of researchers from MIT, Northwestern University, the University of Florida and Aarhus University in Denmark concluded that “in families with two or more children, second-born boys are on the order of 20-40 percent more likely to be disciplined in school and enter the criminal justice system compared to first-born boys.”
     Like it wasn’t bad enough other studies have already found we don’t do as well in school as our older siblings, we have lower IQs and make less money than them, too. We needed this like we needed a hole in the head.

     The study cites all sorts of reasons for this phenomenon, but that’s a discussion for another post. As the ranking member of the Middle Child Party, I’m having a hard time accepting these findings. Oh, did I forget to mention the name of the study? “Birth Order and Delinquency: Evidence from Denmark and Florida.” Yeah, FLORIDA! You know, the people who brought us the hanging chad. I should just accept the accuracy of the data they collected from Florida!? I think not. So I’m doing what any red-blooded Floridian Middle Child would do. I DEMAND A RECOUNT!

Our 1st (and maybe last) State of the Union Address.

     As Middle Child's Day approaches, it's time to evaluate the state of our union. And while I hate to play the Grinch who stole Middle Child's Day, I have to admit -- these are not the best of times for Middle Children...

Is Sarah Jessica Parker a Middle Child, Without Her Even Knowing It?

          As the founder and Union Boss of the International Middle Child Union, I’m in touch with high-profile, Middle Child celebrities all the time. And when I say “in touch with,” I mean I e-mail them and usually never hear anything back. But a recent “correspondence” was particularly interesting. When I contacted Sarah Jessica Parker’s publicist to gauge interest in a Middle Child project I’m working on, I was told the following:

          Now hold on one darn second! Do you really think I would risk my reputation as the world’s leading Middle Child advocate by contacting someone if I wasn’t sure they were a Middle Child? Well, maybe. But not in this instance. You see, there's a common misconception about Middle Children, and as the head of the IMCU, it’s my job -- neigh, my duty -- to set the record straight.

          Most people think that to be a Middle Child, you have to be the one smack dab in the middle of an odd number of siblings. Naturally, this leads to another fallacy: that there can only be one Middle Child per family.

“I'm a what!?!”

          But that's not at all the case.

          According to birth order experts, if you're not the first born or the last born, you're in the middle. This comes as a great shock to many people who may not have realized they are actually a -- gulp -- MIDDLE CHILD!! While it is true that Sarah Jessica is the youngest child from her mother’s first marriage, her mother remarried when Sarah was 3½ years old and had four more children with Sarah’s step-dad. In total, SJP has seven siblings: three older and four younger. She wasn't the first of eight, or the last -- so she's a Middle Child -- like it or not.

          I told her publicist maybe she should break it to Sarah gently. Believe me, I know that's not anything anyone wants to hear. I also explained that fortunately for Sarah, she's not alone. Five of her siblings are also Middles. This brings me to another important distinction. Specifically, you can be “A” Middle Child without being “The” Middle Child. And trust me, there’s a BIG difference.

Sarah Jessica Parker (back row 2nd from right:
one of six Middle Children

          I went into great detail about this in a previous post (See “Sandwiched Siblings: a Study in Middleocrity”), but here’s the gist. When you’re the middle of three, you’re outnumbered. It’s two against one. When there are four siblings, it’s a toss-up. There are as many middles as non-middles.
Anything over four and the Middles are the majority. So clearly, there are very different dynamics depending on what kind of Middle Child you are, and probably varying degrees of Middle Child Syndrome. I’ve even met some Middle Children who actually report having NO Middle Child Syndrome at all. But I think they’re just in denial.

          In any case, being “The” Middle Child is even worse than being “A” Middle Child. Trust me. So in the hopes of breaking down birth order barriers, I call on Sarah Jessica Parker to stand with the Middle Children of the world. Embrace your Middle Child-ness. Tell the world you are one of us. Or at the very least, tell your publicist.

The International Society of Middle Children is now the International Middle Child Union!

We've got a logo! That makes us almost legitimate.

     That's right, we've unionized! (At least we're calling ourselves a union. According to WikiHow, there's a lot of work involved in forming a real union, and quite frankly, who can be bothered? I have more important things to do with my time, like make logos and membership cards for self-created, un-certified unions.) Anyway, what's a union, real or otherwise, without a logo? Or an acronym, for that matter. Well, we've got one of them too!
     The International Middle Child Union, or I.M.C.U, is open for membership to Middle Children of all ages. After all, you never stop being a Middle Child -- even when you're no longer a child. It's the gift that keeps on giving! We also welcome  anyone who's sympathetic to the cause, because sometimes being a Middle Child is more than just a matter of birth order -- it's a state of mind.
     Joining the union is easy, but even more important, it's FREE. You can show your support by doing any of the following:
          - "Like" us on Facebook
          -  Follow us on Twitter
          -  Subscribe to or follow this blog
      If you're a real screwed up Middle Child, you can even do all three! And while you're here, make sure to find out about our upcoming Middle Child Strike. Hey, we're a union -- aren't we supposed to have a strike? Scroll down 7 posts for details, or use the handy Blog Archive. Once you've joined, remember to cut out the membership card below. (No cheating, you have to join first!) It will prove you're a card carrying Middle Child. As if you needed any more proof.

Is Middle Child Syndrome for the birds?

One of these Zebra Finches is
probably screwed. Guess which.

Researchers at the University of Lancaster Enviroment Center recently studied over 100 Zebra Finches and have concluded that hatching order impacts how birds will behave in adulthood. (This study, by the way, might be as useful as someone blogging about being a Middle Child, but that’s a whole other discussion.) Armed with this knowledge, a Middle Child can’t help but wonder -- if birth order really does influence bird behavior, does this mean birds can have Middle Child Syndrome, too? Hopefully, further study will reveal the answer to this and other burning questions: Does the father Zebra Finch constantly remind the Middle-born Zebra Finch that he doesn’t fly as well as his older brother? Do the first-born and baby Finch gang up and blame the Middle Finch when the mommy Finch wants to know why the nest is such a mess? And are Middle Finches left alone in the nest while their whole family goes out for ice cream -- I mean worms? I can tell you one thing for sure. If birds do have Middle Child Syndrome, I’ll bet they’re the ones who randomly shit on your head.



Middle Child Economics (MCE 101)

Yeah, he's one of us! It figures.

         The benefits of being a Middle Child just keep getting better and better. I know we complain a lot about how we're always getting short changed, but I thought that was figuratively speaking. Well, it turns out we literally are, too.
         A 2011 CareerBuilder study found that among workers with siblings, a first born is the most likely to earn more than $100,000, while a last born is the most likely to work in middle management. And what about the Middle Child? We’re the ones most likely to have an entry level position earning less than $35,000! Can’t a Middle Child get a break? We couldn’t even own the middle management category? It has our name written all over it! But it gets even better.

The Middle Child Conspiracy: a closer look

A Smack Dab inestigative report reveals the truth about Middle Child Presidents!

          
          As happy as I was to learn that 52% of all U.S. Presidents were actually Middle Children and not firstborns, (See "The Middle Child Conspiracy"), the Middle Child in me suspected it was too good to be true. So in the spirit of this year’s Presidential elections, I did a little fact checking. It turns out that just like in real life, both sides are playing it fast and loose with the facts. Granted, it’s a little hard to label some Presidents in one category or the other. For example, George Washington’s father had four children with his first wife before the 1st President was born. Washington was the first of six children from his father’s second marriage. So does he count as the first born or the fifth born? FDR was the only child from his father’s second marriage, but had an older half-brother from his father’s first marriage. So is he the oldest or the youngest? And if we consider him an only child, does he count as both the oldest and youngest?

The Middle Child Conspiracy

     

     If you’re a Middle Child, you’ve long known there is a concentrated effort to keep us down. (If you’re not a Middle Child, you still know about it as you are probably part of the conspiracy!) Proof of this was evident again this morning on the Today Show. Psychiatrist and Today Show Contributor Dr. Gail Saltz was doing a piece about birth order. While talking about how wonderful first-borns were and what great leaders they make, she cited that over half of U.S. Presidents were first born. Well, I suppose that’s true –if you’re only counting first-born males!! When that statistic was figured, first-born females weren’t figured in as older siblings, according to Catherine Salmon and Katrin Schumann, co-authors of The Secret Power of Middle Children. The truth of the matter is 52 percent of U.S. Presidents were actually Middle Children!! Of course, we can argue whether or not that’s a good thing, but that’s not the point!! It’s just another example of how we always get the short end of the stick.

Guess the Middle Child...

One of these celebrities is a Middle Child. The other two have no excuse! 

Post your answer in the comments section.