In a bit of bad news for the bro, a new study indicates that the oldest child has the higher IQ. I really don't put much stock in IQ tests, but I love pointing them out. What's particularly interesting about this new study is that it is the role of the eldest that matters, not any actual birth order. Being of multiple birth, these studies are also intriguing with how other researchers try to interpret the results, and how they don't apply to me: "The older child benefits by having to organize and express its thoughts to tutor youngsters, [Frank J. Sulloway] said, while the later born children may have no one to tutor."
My family always treated me as the eldest, the bro definitely had middle child syndrome growing up, and the brother the Brother was absolutely the baby of the family, even though all of us were only separated by 10 minutes of child birth. The bro and I were more like twins than anything else, and I never tutored him in anything. Well, maybe a little calculus, once, but that's it. This story reminds me of treating astrological signs as personality types and associating them with birthdates. Again, those kinds of things don't apply to my multiple birth experience. But then, I'm a Scorpio, and all Scorpios think that astrology is a bunch of Taurus.
Dude - Darn. I was hoping you would have been done blogging for the day. I was soooo gonna post on this.
ReplyDeleteAnd yep, a little calculus. Once. I still pwn you in humanities, though.
Dude: You still should post on this. Your material on sibling revelry (heh) should be worth reading!
ReplyDeleteAs an oldest child, I completely concur with the findings of this study.
ReplyDeleteOldest Rulz, Youngers Drool