A research has put to rest all this confusion and shown how parents favour one child over the other. According to a study published by the Journal of Marriage and Family, 75 per cent of mothers report feeling closer to the eldest child, her first born.
A recent study has found that it's not the youngest child that's liked the most. It's actually the eldest! While eldest children around the world have had to be the example for their younger siblings and parents being extra strict on them, it looks like there was a good reason.
However, she may be fibbing because researchers are now saying that your mom and dad actually favor the baby of the family. While the youngest sibling is usually the funniest kid, mom and dad favor the youngest for a reason that might surprise you.
Parents with two children who admit to having a favourite overwhelmingly (62%) prefer the youngest. Only 30% say they prefer the eldest.
The firstborn effect
Firstborns tend to possess psychological characteristics related to leadership, including responsibility, creativity, obedience and dominance. They are also more likely to have higher academic abilities and levels of intelligence than their younger siblings.
Researchers have found a correlation between risk-taking and being the last-born sibling.
Oldest Child Birth Order Traits (Firstborn)
“Firstborn children can be goal-oriented, outspoken, stubborn, independent, and perfectionistic,” Smelser says, and when you look at the way firstborns are nurtured, it starts to make sense why.
Harman interviewed 950 parents from a wide range of family set-ups, and concluded that the happiest families were those with four or more children. The main advantages cited by these parents were increased positive social interactions within the family and high levels of support among siblings.
Summary: A research group has studied whether parents' gender preferences and investment in offspring are affected by their status, wealth, education or childhood environment. Instead, parental preferences were best predicted by their sex.
Does that hold true for your family? The order you were born can have an impact on how successful you are in life, according to Sandra Black, an economics professor at the University of Texas at Austin.
Interestingly, studies show that fathers' favorites are likely to be their youngest daughter, while moms are likely to favor their oldest son, Kluger says. They may be of the opposite sex, he says, but they tend to share traits associated with the parent's sex.
You've probably heard it before and brushed it off if you're a second, third or fourth+ child - but it's true: the eldest sibling is the smartest, according to research.
Though there is no clear answer, research has found that, in general, fathers tend to be more loving towards their children than mothers. In one study, fathers were found to be more responsive to their children's needs, both emotionally and physically.
Most prolific mother ever
The record for number of children born to one mother is 69 in the 1700s, according to Guinness. She was the wife to Feodor Vassilyev, a peasant from Shuya, Russia. She gave birth to 16 pairs of twins, seven sets of triplets and four sets of quadruplets.
But then why do most mums feel their firstborn daughter looks like the father? Some researchers have a theory that dates back to the pre-DNA era. Back then, evolution and survival demanded that the child resemble the father. After all, that was the only evidence to support the paternity of the child.
In fact, one study published in the Journal of Family Psychology found 74% of moms and 70% of dads reported preferential treatment toward one child. And even though parents in the study did not indicate which child they preferred, siblings can often report sensing which child is the parent's favorite.
According to a survey conducted by British parenting website Bounty, two girls are considered the best combination for parents to have a happy and harmonious family life. In their study, they surveyed 2,116 parents who had children aged 16 and under.
Predivorce family dynamics: In most intact families, sons and daughters are closer to their mothers than to their fathers. This does not mean the children and their fathers love one another less.
Statistically speaking, daughters win the day, but sons win dad by a nose. These findings are somewhat surprising, given the prevailing theory that preference for sons or daughters is based less on the sex of the parents than on their socioeconomic status.
Of course, as women age, the odds of conceiving also gradually lower. The ideal childbearing age is often considered to be in the late 20s and early 30s. Pregnancies later in life could come with some health risks.
A gap of 3 years or more greatly reduces the chances of sibling rivalry. By this time the older child is secure in him or herself and quite independent. In addition, the mother's body is fully recovered from the challenges of pregnancy and birth of the first child.
He found that if you want to be happy, that is, enhance your well-being, you should stop after one child. Child number two or three doesn't make a parent happier. And, for mothers, he found, more children appear to make them less happy—although they are happier than childless women.
Eldest children are slightly more likely to be Introverts (+2.37%) Middle children are less likely to be Introverts (-5.74%) and more likely to be Extraverts (+5.39%). Youngest children are very slightly more likely to be Introverts (+1.13%) than they are Extraverts (-1.07%).
According to an old notion, first-born children are genetically predisposed to appear more like their father. It was thought that this was done so that the father would accept the child as his and provide for and care for them.