The pattern may be accentuated as the oldest takes care of successive children in a continuing attempt to win the parents’ approval. This can result in an oldest child who resents the burden and feels as an adult that his or her life was sacrificed for the younger children. In any case, the oldest rarely has a chance to be a child very long before becoming a “parent,” unless the younger siblings are born many years after the oldest.
When the second child is a different sex, the negative reactions of the first child are not usually as dramatic; there is less direct sense of threat to the status of the oldest and less need to compete. If all the younger siblings are of the opposite sex, the characteristics just described will be moderated considerably. For example, an older brother of sisters is often warmer and more caring than an older brother of brothers.
When the second child is the same sex, however, the threat to the first seems much greater. If the younger ones are all of the same sex, especially if there are two or more, the oldest-child characteristics are usually intensified.
If there are more than five years between the oldest and the next child, the oldest — who has been an only child all that time — is more secure, more sure of his or her place in the world, and more likely to feel reasonably benign toward the newcomer. He or she may even enjoy the younger child.
I can taste even now the fresh delight of learning the boy’s open face, his early laughter, prevailing geniality and the immediate presence of a watchful mind, ready to learn every trick we [Reynolds and his parents] could teach and to thank us steadily with stunts of his own.
Reynolds Price, writing about his brother seven years younger in Clear Pictures: First Love, First Guides
Sometimes an oldest child is able to take advantage of the parents’ inexperience and become the power in the family, behaving imperiously and stubbornly with the parents and the younger children. This is most likely to happen where the parents are both youngests and uncomfortable with the experience of being in charge.
Occasionally, the oldest child will end up being a leader of the siblings against the parents. However, most oldests side with the parents against the unruly younger children, though they may go through a period of rebellion when they are teenagers.
The oldest in the family is often disciplined more than younger children. One reason for this is the parents’ anxiety and higher expectations. Another is that when other children come along, the added burdens make parents more impatient with the oldest and more likely to expect more from that child. Parents often unjustly blame the oldest when there are fights among the siblings because they think the oldest “should know better.” More than one youngest has reported “getting off easy” in the family because all the pressure went on the older children and the youngest slipped through without much friction.
Since oldest children spend more years in the exclusive presence of their parents, they spend more time observing and imitating their behavior. They are consequently the children most likely to be similar to their parents. If the parents are nurturing and warm, they will be like that; if the parents are aggressive and harsh, they will be like that. When their parents are old or dead, the oldest sibling is usually the one that takes on the parents’ role of organizing holiday get-togethers, or handling family crises, or running the family business.
Oldest children often end up as guardians of the status quo. They begin by defending their own position in the family against later children, go on to preserving the family traditions and morality for their younger siblings, and may end up trying to protect the status quo in the world. Oldest children have fond memories of the past when they were the only. They do not have good feelings about change. In reaction to that situation, they may become so rigid that they are unwilling to accept any change and unable to compromise.
The closer contact with their parents gives oldests better verbal skills and more exposure to abstract thinking than their younger siblings. As a result, oldests usually adapt better to the learning techniques of school. May Stewart studied 7,000 London school children and found that the older children in two-child families were generally better students than the younger children and stayed in school longer. This higher rate of school “success” was true even though overall there was no difference in IQ between the oldest child and youngest child in the families.
Oldests usually have more privileges than the younger siblings, but also are expected to and do assume more and more responsibility as they grow up. An oldest girl usually has the same responsibilities as an oldest boy — sometimes even more — but not the same privileges.
As adults, oldest children usually have many parental qualities; they can be nurturing and protective of others and they are often able to handle responsibility well and assume leadership roles. More than half the presidents of the United States have been oldest male children, and 21 of the first 23 American astronauts were oldest or only children. The world is often ruled by oldests, which reflects both the liabilities and the advantages of that position. World War II, for example, was conducted by oldest sons Churchill, Hitler, Mussolini, and Hirohito along with only children Roosevelt and Stalin.
This sense of responsibility can also be a burden. Oldest children may turn into perfectionists and worriers, who dare not make mistakes or disappoint their parents (or other authority figures). Stutterers are often oldest children who are so fearful of saying something wrong that they can’t say it at all. Oldest children tend to have trouble accepting mistakes by others, too. They are the most likely of the children to internalize their parents’ expectations about being good. They conform to what is expected of them and tend to think in terms of what they and others “should” do. They may be trying so hard to achieve and be good in school, for instance, that they neglect to make friends. And, since they soon realize that nothing is ever perfect, many oldests tend to be pessimistic about the world in general and their life in particular.
Jimmy Carter, whose father set “seemingly impossible standards of performance” for him, became a lifelong perfectionist who could never openly rebel against his father’s harsh discipline, the Navy’s hazings, or Congressional disloyalty, according to biographers Bruce Mazlish and Edwin Diamond. His younger sister says that, “no matter how well Jimmy did, Daddy always said he could do better. Daddy always wanted Jimmy to go straight to the top.”
Youngest brother Billy, however, openly admits to not having Jimmy’s drive or his need to succeed. “It does not bother me to lose a softball game; it drives him crazy....I enjoy life.”
Oldests also tend to be compulsive to the degree that they can’t walk through a room without straightening the picture frames and can’t throw away a tin can without washing it first. A large percentage of people diagnosed as obsessive-compulsives are oldest children.
The emphasis on high achievement tends to make oldest children more tense, more serious, more reserved, and less playful than others. They usually work hard and are conscientious at whatever they do. They have learned to associate fun and play with the immaturity of their youngest siblings. Superachiever Meryl Streep has been called one of the most intelligent and perceptive actresses in Hollywood. The oldest sister of two brothers, she “looked like a mini-adult” as a child and had a “bossy streak.” One of her brothers referred to her as “pretty ghastly.”
If the standard of achievement in a particular family is measured by success in crime, the oldest will be a high achiever in that. The oldest may become the “godfather” or a gang leader.
The important thing for oldests is to have the admiration and respect of others. If it doesn’t come naturally, they may seek a position of authority in order to demand respect. They often appear