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Your older brother makes you angry (but not your older sister)
Filed under: Siblings, Development/Milestones: Babies
If you have an older brother, chances are you're a more aggressive person than you would've been if you'd had a sister instead.
That's the news from Brian White on our partner site, That's Fit. He points out a recent survey that found that children with older brothers are, over time, more likely to become aggressive than kids who grow up with older sisters. What's also interesting, is that those children with younger sisters actually turn less aggressive than if they'd had a young brother, or no younger siblings at all.
No word on why this happens, though the research seems to indicate that it's because boys are more aggressive, so younger siblings, essentially, have to get tough in order to compete with their older brothers. That was certainly the case in our house -- I was the oldest, and, though I'm embarrassed about it now, I used to pick on my younger brother and sister all the time. It's not hard to see how, over the years, responding to those taunts and jabs could've made them more aggressive people.
How is it in your house? Do you think your younger children would be calmer if big brother wasn't around so much?
*Photo is of my younger brother and I. Fortunately now we get along.
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ReaderComments (Page 1 of 1)
10-03-2007 @ 5:52PM
Jennifer said...Uumm...we were all aggressive... I have an older brother and a younger sister. We always fought. My poor parents! We get along now and I can say that I was the typical middle child, the peace keeper, the quiet one (though if you ask my mom she would tell you I was quiet because I was thinking of ways to get the other two in trouble.) I was also the first one to scream- learned fast that you are more likely to be seen as the injured party that way. :-D
My parent's friends have told us (now that we are grown) that they were not sure how our parents dealt with us as they would have shipped us off to reform school had we been theirs.....
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10-04-2007 @ 3:20PM
Irit H said...I'm an only child, but my friend has a older brother, who has just recently went to college, and i'd say that my friend, like me, is not very aggressive.
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10-04-2007 @ 4:06PM
Sandyone said...My older sister has the capacity to bring out an incredible amount of anger. My older brothers, not so much. My family dynamics probably skew the study, though...I had two older brothers, then two older sisters, then me, then a younger brother, then a younger sister.
My kids, however, exhibit this pattern. My first was rather spirited and his younger brother just came along for the ride. The younger girls are all different, but we're something of a loud family. That's probably more parenting style, though.
Birth order stuff is so cool and great for generalizations, but I'm constantly mistaken for a first-born.
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