The Psychology of your 20s - 245. The psychology of the middle child

Episode Date: November 4, 2024

We all know the stereotypes about the eldest child, the youngest and the only child, but the middle child often seems to be left out, and not just from our conversations on birth order theory, but also seemingly from the family sometimes. In today's episode, we putting a spotlight on the middle children, including how their position in the family makes them so agreeable, why they often become the conflict mediators, and how this can build resentment later in life.  We also discuss why middle children feel so unseen, but also are the most independent, how they behave in friendships, relationships, in the workplace, and what happens when there are multiple middle children, as well as how to reparent your middle child. Listen now!  PREORDER MY BOOK: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/755841/person-in-progress-by-jemma-sbeg/  Follow Jemma on Instagram: @jemmasbeg Follow the podcast on Instagram: @thatpsychologypodcast For business: [e-mail]  The Psychology of your 20s is not a substitute for professional mental health help. If you are struggling, distressed or require personalised advice, please reach out to your doctor or a licensed psychologist.   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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We always say that trust your girlfriends. Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe, on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello everybody. Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to the podcast. New listeners, old listeners, wherever you are in the world. It is great to have you here back for another episode as we of course break down the

psychology of our 20s. Thank you for joining us. And thank you to begin to all of you for the support you have shown the announcement of my debut book, Person in Progress, which comes out in April 2025. It has blown me away. Truly, how many of you have pre-ordered and sent me such lovely messages. And if you want to be one of the first people to get your hands on a copy and read it, you can find the link in the episode description. Even if you just want to check out the cover, it's all there. I just couldn't start the episode without acknowledging the love and the generosity and all the kindness that you have shown me. But this week, we are not talking about the book or anything close to it. I'm going to move on and dive into our topic today because,

wow, all of you have wanted to hear about it for a while. And you have been so patient with me as I kept promising it. We're finally there. We are going to. going to be talking about the psychology of the middle child. So late last year, I believe, I did an episode on what it's like to be the eldest daughter and so many of you related. So many of you were like, yeah, I totally agree. That is me to a tea. But another huge number of you also said, you know, what about us middle children? What if I'm the middle child and the eldest daughter? Because, you know, I have an older brother or I have brothers, where do I sit? Well, after months of requests, I finally get to give you the answers

you're looking for. What is middle child syndrome? How are middle children built differently? How are they raised differently? What is their psychology? What are their insecurities, their inner emotional lives and personalities like, you know, the eldest and the youngest of a family, they always get so much attention because they like bookmark the family, system, like they bookmark, like, the family unit. And, you know, the middle child is never really made to feel special. But today, we're going to put that spotlight on them and spend the next 30, 40 minutes, just focusing on middle children, justice for the middle children, the chameleons of the

family, the forgotten children. What does psychology and birth order theory say about this group of people? And how is your personality influenced by this? you know, seemingly arbitrary position in the family because a lot of the research and a lot of the studies would say that it is greatly influenced by it. So without further ado, there is so much to talk about quite genuinely, so many studies, so many historical theories, so many lived experiences from some of you guys, some of the listeners who are middle children. I used to always think that only eldest children and only children listen to the podcast, you guys definitely

proved me wrong. So, for my middle children or for those who are curious, buckle in, sit down, let us break down, the very intricate, very interesting psychology of the middle child. The idea that where you are born in the family, whether that is first born, middle, youngest, the idea that that will somehow influence your personality and how you grow up, it is supported and actually it was first put forward by something called Burmerell. order theory. You've probably heard about it. You've probably seen it on TikTok, on Instagram. It's been doing the rounds. But this theory is really what we need to begin the episode with, because it is the tree from which all of our assumptions, our thoughts, our feelings, our ideas about middle

children tend to come from. You know, it comes from the theory, but that theory also comes from experience, from what we typically see of the middle child. So birth order theory, was developed by a very famous psychotherapist called Alfred Adler. You probably don't know his name. Maybe you do. I shouldn't assume. But even if you don't know his name, you definitely know some of his work. So he originated the term inferiority complex, if you've heard of that one.

He was also one of the first psychotherapists to actually start studying personality. He was also, and I don't know if you are familiar with this, idea. He was the person who proposed that in life. The three major focuses for us are love, friendship and work. So if you know that famous equation, that is Dr. Alfred Adler. And he is also the one who birth-originated birth order theory. So he's kind of everywhere in modern psychology. Like if you go digging long and deep enough, you will find some link back to him. And during that work on personality that we were speaking about, he observed a lot of people and he began to see this pattern between his participants and his studies whereby people who were born into the same

position in the family based on their birth order seemed quite similar. And they adopted many of the same traits, even when he controlled for things like income, like country of birth, like the education of the parents. You know, if you were the eldest, that made you a certain person. If you were one of the middle children or a second child, as he called back then, that also influenced you, as did your role as a youngest child or an only child. So he basically developed this theory that each family is like a constellation. And when you were born, you are given a specific location or position in that constellation that will inform how you behave, how outgoing you are, how anxious you are, confident, smart, ambitious you are, based on kind of how, you know,

the constellation and the solar system work based on where the sun is, based on how you rotate the other planets, i.e. your siblings, i.e. your parents. Basically, and this is the major controversy with birth order theory, he basically says, and said at the time, if you give me an individual and you tell me where they were born in their family, I could tell you exactly what kind of person they are. I can tell you what grades they're getting. I can tell you what their love life is like. I can tell you how ambitious they are, how anxious they are, how close they are with their family. Pretty big call to make. And I will say in recent years, as we've developed much more robust experimental research techniques, there are elements of this theory

that have not withstood the test of time, especially as it relates to grand assumptions about intelligence and success, and, you know, is your marriage going to work out based on whether you're the eldest or the middle or the youngest? Also, you know, we are a lot more informed around gender and gender diversity and what it means to be someone who is perhaps non-binary. You know, it used to very much be daughters, sons, eldest, youngest, middle. we now know that there are also blended families and it mixes and it matches. So the theory, you know, we need to take it with a grain of salt. We need to take what we can from it and leave some of

the outdated parts of it behind. And it does still offer a very interesting way of seeing how children are perhaps treated differently in the family ecosystem. And there is no denying. I think that, you know, family dynamics definitely shape personality. and that also includes birth order because children are treated differently by their parents based on what position they take in the family and sibling dynamic. Eldest children, as we know, are stereotypically given a lot of responsibility. They're very ambitious. They want to take control of everything.

The youngest child is often quite doted on. They're the baby. And, well, the middle child, the middle child is, what we're here to talk about today. So the only reason I offer this caveat that perhaps Adler's original theory is a little bit outdated is just so that you know it's not going to apply to everyone, especially since the original findings were based on cross-sectional data and, you know, in the modern age, we really want more of that longitudinal data. That's really what would be best for answering questions around birth order theory. You know, if you followed people across their

life and you saw how that changed. That is so nerdy and boring and we don't need to get into the statistical and experimental details. But the biggest complaint I always get, anytime I talk about birth order theory is like, that doesn't apply to me. Like, that's not me. That's, that's fine. That's totally okay. In fact, it's normal for theories to not apply to everyone. That's why we need to continue to test them, right? But what Adler did typically find was that elders children were very ambitious. They felt a real sense of responsibility. They were maybe a bit entitled, a bit anxious, but very focused, very well behaved. They also tended to be friends with other eldest children. Elders' daughters are their own unique kettle of

fish. You can listen to episode 147 on that, if you want to know about that specifically. And then we had, you know, the youngest children. They tended to be very sociable, extroverted, a little bit, maybe attention seeking. They also tend to get away with more, be rural, challenge, and challenges. Some might say they're a little bit spoiled as well because they are the baby of the family. I was talking to my friend, Steph, about this. And she is the youngest child. And she was explaining to me, she was like, well, you know, by the time I was 14, 15, 16, all my siblings had like moved out. So, you know, my parents had more money and more resources to spoil me. And, you know, they were kind of tired at that stage of, like, you know, applying all the rules. They'd become a lot.

more slack, less chores, more freedom. She kind of got away with a little bit more. You know, I think a lot of parents start out being like, these are the kinds of people and parents were going to be, and we're going to have no screens, that we're going to have strict rules. Now children will behave and they will learn manners and we have a, you know, a lot of expectations. But, you know, surely you get tired. You know, the eldest child copses the most of it, then the middle child, the middle children, I should say. And the youngest child, by the time we get around that, that parents get tired, they can't be bothered. You know, I found that with my little sister as well, like not to call her out.

Like, there are a lot more slack. I could also go into what this dynamic looks like for only children being both the eldest, middle and youngest. That is for another time. Where does this leave the middle child, knowing what the eldest child and the youngest children tend to look like? What do the middle children look like? Well, they are literally stuck in the middle.

They are stuck in between the ambitious, responsible eldest and the charming spoilt youngest. And they can end up feeling left out, neglected, forgotten about because they aren't the bookend children. You know, it's also important to note. They also are the only sibling who has to share their birth position with someone else. What do I mean by that is that you can only have one eldest and you can only have one youngest, But you can have two, three, four, I don't know, let's get crazy here, five middle children. So not even their birth order of their birth position is their own. Sometimes middle children even have to share the middle position.

So that is why they're sometimes referred to as like the forgotten child of the family, whether you agree with that description or that's your experience or not. It's really led to this creation of this term called middle child syndrome. It's not a clinical disorder. You know, you can't go to a psychologist and ask for diagnosis and a script and some medication, but it basically explains a pattern of feelings and behaviors reflected by the middle child. And I'm going to start with the positives here. What makes the middle child so different in a good way and so unique and something to be celebrated?

Well, the middle child is often highly independent and flexible. You know, they're not too fuss about getting their own way because they'll kind of make their own way. They're very much used to that. Their position as the middle child means that they, you know, haven't had those first through, you know, first few years being an only child like the eldest, but they aren't the baby like the youngest. They aren't maybe given special treatment. So they kind of get used to being tucked away in the middle and not getting their own way.

my sister is like this 100,000 percent. She was so accommodating. And I do think it's because she is a middle child. You know, when we were kids, we used to, like my parents made such a big deal of making sure that Ellie, who is my sister, was allowed to make decisions. We had Ellie days or Ellie decisions where Ellie got to choose what we did. Ellie got to choose what we ate because so often she'd kind of just coast under the radar. Like she wasn't going to be loud and annoying about not getting.

her own way. And so 99% of the time she didn't. So they would really be quite intentional with making sure that just because she was the most cooperative, she didn't have to always be the one who missed out. Middle children are also very diplomatic. They're always resolving the tensions or the fights between their siblings or between their parents and their siblings, which is, as we know, sometimes a form of parentification. The child takes on the role, the emotional. The emotional. The emotional role of the parent. A child should not be, you know, mediating or resolving conflict at any point in a family. That is the role of the parent. That is their duty. So often, you know, we tend to think of the eldest child or the eldest daughter being parentified. Sometimes in these instances

when there is, you know, it's more emotionally complex and you need someone to see both sides. You need someone to call the shots. The middle child is the one who does it. I, often think that the reason they turn out to be such mediators is because they can see both sides very well, because they're often the ones who have the least amount of age difference. You know, the eldest and the youngest have the largest age difference. The middle child is kind of often developmentally or, you know, age-wise, smack bang in the middle. You know, they can, they have maybe more of the maturity than the youngest, but they have more of the empathy for the current experience than the eldest. So that is something that we typically see. Also, they're very loyal as one article

from psychology today, which is I quote it all the time. I love psychology today. This is what this article said. They're very, very loyal. And, you know, this second part is up for debate. They are also typically family oriented. Now, why is this up for debate? It used to be that people thought that middle children weren't very family oriented. As soon as they kind of got the opportunity to leave out they went. They didn't, you know, they were the ones who went off on their own, which is kind of true. They are very independent. But a 2009 study I was reading actually suggests that they still really care for the family

and they value family and they put lots into the family. They may actually just have better boundaries or they are like. less dependent on their family than the eldest or the youngest. And so from the outside, it looks like they don't care. It looks like that isn't a priority for them. No, not true. It's just that it looks different. They also may be really protective of their relationships outside of the family, which brings me to like what I would call a neutral trait of the middle sibling. They can be quite secretive, especially about their private life, you know, who they're dating, who they're friends with, their problems. You know, they don't want to make too much noise, is I guess,

kind of what I'm saying. Now, this part about being secretive towards their problems, that bears examining, because this is actually not very psychologically healthy. It's not something that we want to see or we want to encourage in any child or a middle child, whoever it is. You know, you have never heard someone say, you know, I pushed all my feelings down and I suppressed it and I stayed silent and now I feel so much better. No, we hear people say, I feel better when I open up. I feel better when I share. I feel better when I, you know, have community around me who understands what I'm going through. So the fact that middle children are more likely to withdraw and isolate can at times be quite worrying. this is why this very tendency to withdraw isolate be quite secretive, cooperative.

This is why people call middle children the chameleons. They blend in, they don't stand out. They are very, I guess that's the best way to put it. They don't stand out, right? And the best way to show this, or the best example of this that I've seen in the research, was actually a paper from the 80s. and it examined gifted children and birth order theory. So basically what the paper wanted to find out was,

you know, is the eldest always going to be the gifted child or the youngest? Like, does birth order determine whether you've got some specialness about you? And they invited people, parents, to bring in their supposedly gifted children. And all of them were bringing in their eldest children. A huge majority were. But actually when they went to test these children, they also said to the parents, well, you know, we'll give you a discount if you bring in your middle child, your youngest child. We just want to do it, you know, with all of them. Chances are you could have multiple gifted children. And the parents would be like, no, no, no, no, no. Like our middle child is so, you know, so easygoing. Like they're lovely, they're great, but like they're not, they're not a standout. You know, they're not standing out in academics. They're not standing out in sports or arts. They're not that talented. But when they'd come in for testing, the doctors, the professors, the teachers, whoever was administering the tests, they often found that actually these middle children, even the youngest

children and the eldest children, they all had the same, relatively the same intelligence, the same EQ, the same level of talent. But the middle child blended in. The middle child did not stand out and the middle child did not have the same wild expectations that the eldest or the youngest might be accustomed to experiencing. You know, by the end of this experiment, they had 50 different sibling pairs. Out of that 50, 42 of them, so comparing eldest and middle, 42 of them were almost identical in terms of all these objective measures for giftedness.

But on the outside, the eldest was just a lot more loud about it. and maybe the parents were expecting them to be the talented one. And so they were more likely to kind of put the tiara, put the crown on them and say, great, you're the one that we're choosing. You're the gifted one. Remember, these parents were the ones bringing in these kids, and a lot of the time they weren't bringing in the middle children.

So they're kind of seen differently, despite objectively being the same, they're seen differently in the family, which may also cause them to act. act differently. It could be a self-fulfilling prophecy. The other explanation for this, and this is just something that I personally think it wasn't in the paper, I think that the middle child, like, sees how the eldest child is treated and is like, that is way too much pressure. Like, I, that stress does not look fun. That does not look enjoyable. I'm just going to blend in,

because I just want to cruise. Like, my eldest sibling looks super stressed. doesn't look happy. I'm going to go under the radar. I'm going to maybe opt out of that situation. Or, or another explanation is they think, well, they can't be, they can only be room for one. They can't be room for two. So I'm just going to chill. I'm going to do something else. Those are like two of the thoughts that I kind of have about this. And it may also explain why sometimes the middle child goes in the opposite direction of their older brother or sister in terms of personality and in terms of how they express that personality. So I'm going to bring up another study. Guys, I'm full of studies today. I've got so much research to share with you. And this one

actually came from some researchers at MIT. And what they found was that, you know, middle sons in particular, they were more likely to be the black sheep of the family compared to eldest sons, eldest daughters, youngest sons, the middle child, specifically the middle sons, they were the thumb that kind of stuck out. So this research was conducted in 2017, semi-recently, on the cusp. And the team of researchers collected and analyzed data from thousands of sibling groups in the United States and in Denmark, and they found that the middle son, if there was a middle son, was 25 to 40 percent times more likely to have problems with discipline, getting told off at school, they were more likely to have been suspended, to be seen as

a bit rebellious, or to even end up in jail. The explanation that was given by the head researcher in which we see repeated quite frequently when it comes to speaking about the middle child, they just don't get the same amount of undivided attention as the eldest or the youngest. And perhaps for boys in particular, they compensate for that by acting out. They really want that attention, they want to be cared for. And if they can't get that care organically, they can get it through being rebellious because people have to look at them. I think that that is a very interesting explanation that comes up again and again and again.

The middle child is overlooked. They're dominated by the stronger siblings. They slip through the cracks. And that means they have to carve out their identity in any way that they can. Obviously, I think a big long-term consequence of that is a lot of resentment. Any one of us who has siblings, we know that when you're young, everything is always a competition. and when it's exaggerated by this other complex aspect to the equation of being the middle child versus the eldest or the youngest, it can just become a bigger fire.

You can just get out of hand. There are some exceptions and distinctions as with everything in life. And one of my favorite things that I've learned about birth order theory from researching it all these years is that middle child syndrome in particular actually becomes less present. announced, the bigger the age gap is between siblings because they have time to really develop and solidify their own unique identity. It's not, you know, superseded by that of their eldest sibling or youngest siblings. So say, for example, you have an age gap of five years compared to one year. So, you know, like the kids are seven and twelve and seventeen or seven and eleven and fifteen or whatever it is, that is preferable to kids that are like one, three and four or something like that

because they're at different developmental periods. So the parents can do different activities with them. They don't have their hands as full. And that really seems to alleviate the middle child syndrome that we're speaking about here. Also, gender plays a role because you can be the middle child, but also the eldest daughter. You know, even if you're not the eldest child, you may be the oldest daughter as the middle child and you still may be forced to take on the maturity, the daughters are expected to and the responsibility, and you may feel like you need to almost be a parent for your older sibling, your older brother, even though you're younger. So there is these interactions. They definitely need more research on this. I don't think I've even come across

a study about this, mainly because I think being an eldest daughter, perhaps supersedes being in middle child, but they would definitely interact in terms of the double burden of not only needing to be responsible for your male siblings and for your younger siblings, but then also expecting to be that extra bit cooperative and perhaps being that extra bit ignored by the family. So just something to think of, regardless, we can, I think we can see and we can claim that there is a shared experience within middle children. There are things that are very, very similar that are common, that people could relate to one another about. What I want to answer next is what happens with this experience when we're adults. How does this kind of follow us through

our adult lives, even when we're not a child anymore, even when we're not around our siblings all the time, even when this middle child syndrome is not being enforced and is not actively being placed upon us, it still impacts our personality. So we're going to talk about that and also how to make sense of some of these experiences, how to maybe even let go of some of the resentment to do with middle child syndrome after this short break. So stay with us. 2%. That is the number of people who take the stairs when there is also an escalator. available. I'm Michael Easter, and on my podcast, 2%, I break down the science of mental toughness, fitness, and building resilience in our strange modern world. I'll be speaking with

writers, researchers, and other health and fitness experts, and more to look past the impractical and way too complex pseudoscience that dominates the wellness industry. We really believe that seed oils were inherently inflammatory. We got it wrong. Many of the problems that we are freaked out about in the world are the result of stress. Put yourself through some hardships and you will come out on the other side a happier, more fulfilled, healthier person. Listen to 2% that's TWO% on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Do you remember when Diana Ross double-tapped Little Kim's boobs at the VMAs? Or when Kanye said that George Bush didn't like black people. I know what you're thinking, what the hell does George Bush got to do a little kill?

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This isn't over until justice is served in Arizona. Listen to Love Trapped podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. One of the principles behind ideas like reparenting, in a child healing, age regression therapy, any number of those methods, is that the experiences you have as a child are reflected in your adult personality. People, you know, of course we change over the course of our lives based on relationships, based on place, based on experiences, context. But the roles that we adopt as children, be that gender roles, social roles or family roles, they tend to really leave a mark. Think about how when you're a child, you were taught to be polite, you were taught to respect your

elders to not, you know, I don't know, cut in line. It feels very unnatural to go against that, right? It carries with us. The same goes for how we have been conditioned to act in the family and then outside of the family. In the case of birth order or being the middle. child. If you constantly had to take on the role of a mediator, peacemaker, you were the cooperative one and you took on that role with your siblings and with your family, as you grow up, this can be transferred to other relationships, into your friendships, into your role in the workplace, who you date,

how you relate to them. You might find it really hard to shake this deep sense that you can make everyone get along the way that you always did with your sisters or your brothers or your parents even you know i have one friend who's a middle child who was like you know when i met my partner and in early relationships i really had to learn that i did not have to manage the conflict i was not responsible for always having a timeline for the conflict for finding a solution i didn't have to keep harmony between us or even between him and his siblings you know, a middle children may have that natural conflict aversion. Like, you know, I can't deal with these heightened emotions. I'm just going to, let's just move on. I don't want to deal with this.

I'm just going to pull back, keep silent in these circumstances. I'm just going to blend in. In another way, adult middle children are often really great at negotiating. They're really able to bring about consensus without kind of being pulled into the flurry of emotions because they are so agreeable by nature. You know what? I would love to do a PhD on if I ever get the chance. And I've said this for a long time. I would love to see if you could find like a correlation between birth order and the careers that people choose. Like whether they are analytical careers or creative careers, what kind of skills are required and like chart our tendency towards certain categories of careers or professions based on like youngest middle eldest kids. I get a bunch of families with, I don't know, three, four, five siblings.

and be like, where did you end up? What are you doing? And is there like similarities? Can we find a pattern? Like, it would be so fascinating because if we were like to take the profile laid out of the middle child, like the stereotypical middle child and disregard any of the nuances, what would they be? And I feel like they'd be great at HR. They'd be a great social worker or a teacher. They'd be great in PR, public relations, even like customer service or a journalist. The journalist one in particular, I think, would be good because they can be very diplomatic and independent and maybe not stand out. If you're doing like a big scandalous story on like corruption, you can be a little bit secretive, like we said before, a little bit sly. Definitely going off track here, but, you know,

if the elders are quite dominant, the youngest is a bit of tension seeking and charismatic and the middle chart is cooperative and is a little bit like sneaky, where does that kind of lead them in terms of their career? Obviously, it's probably unlikely, A, that I'm ever going to do that study, but B, that if I were to do that study, I would find anything concrete because with something like career, personality of which personality is only mildly informed by birth order, like, that's only a small contribution. You have so many other things. But that's like the thing with psychology, right? Even if you can't have one answer, it can give you a clue, it can give you hints. And so although other factors like finances, like even gender roles or your values or your

dreams and your hobbies, that is also going to contribute to a career choice, much like personality, I would just find it really fascinating, like if we could just find something like research for research's sake. moving on though one thing that adult middle children do speak about a lot though is growing into an adult and finally realizing how overlooked they may have been as a child especially in a dysfunctional family dynamic in those dynamics when everybody is absolutely focused on themselves it is chaotic it is confusing it is wild it is unmanageable maybe it's a little bit toxic. Someone always has to lose out. And because the middle child made less of a fuss,

maybe it was always you. The resentment over those experiences can definitely grow over time, even if you were like, oh no, you know, there was never a problem. Maybe you turn 25, 26, 27. Maybe you start considering how you would raise your own kids and you were like, I don't think I would want them to feel the way that I did. I wouldn't want my child to, to feel like no one paid attention to them. I didn't, I don't want them to feel like they have to make adjustments for everyone else. Those moments can really push you into a place of introspection and anger. That's the big one. Anger that comes up years later is not uncommon. There can also be resentment, you know, not just towards your parents, your parents are normally going to be the first

wants to get that, but also your siblings. Like, why, why did you, why were you treated like you were special? Why were you the golden child? Why, why couldn't I have been the golden child? Why did I just have to blend in? Why did you guys get to stand out? Why did you guys get spoiled? Why did you guys get to have more of a say as much as children, I guess, do have a say? That's the really interesting anger. And I would also say grief. and sadness sometimes that comes with being aware of how your past and your childhood and the role you played has shaped who you are as an adult and has maybe left a bit of an emotional mark on your personality. I think this is something that we do just need to come to terms with.

There's no changing it. And hopefully we can release that bitterness for yourself. You know, that's something that you have to carry. You might feel bitter, angry to. someone else, but they're not carrying that feeling you are. It becomes your burden as much as you might feel that your parents or your siblings deserve to feel guilty or bad or you deserve recognition. Inevitably, that's going to take up more space in your mind than in their mind. And it can also lead to some pretty heavy thoughts, you know, thinking, you know, why wasn't I given more space in the family? Thinking, is it because I'm unlovable? Is it because I'm, boring is because of who I am, thinking, you know, is it because my parents didn't love me as much?

Now, that is what resentment loves to do. Resentment takes any thought you have and bundles it in with all the confusion and sometimes the hurt and the anger and it just makes it bigger and bigger and bigger, especially when you don't call out those thoughts, especially when you don't think about what another explanation could be. And maybe there isn't one. We're going to get to that in a second. What I need you to remember is three things. Three things, if you're feeling this type of way about who you are as a middle child, you are allowed to feel frustrated by the differential treatment between you and your siblings. That is okay, that is normal, to feel upset about it.

To feel maybe even jealous. You can feel sad for the experiences that you didn't feel like you got to have, because that was your childhood too, those were your opportunities as well. However, that cannot dictate the rest of your life story. Secondly, if it's any consolation, I think middle children honestly rock. Like, they are normally some of the best people I've ever met. You have some of the best traits, you know, compared to eldest children and youngest children, I will say the middle child has fewer negative traits and fewer idiosyncrasies than most. So if it's any consolation, and it doesn't have to be, I do think that you're probably pretty remarkable and you do get a good deal in terms

of how other people see you and how easy it is to get along with you and how fun you typically are and sociable. Finally, this final reminder, birth order is not everything. There is not one thing that defines someone fully. And family position is not deterministic. It is not a magic ball. It certainly is not something that will solely define you for all of the years to come. You can heal the parts of you that you feel you don't like because of where you are in the family. And you can also heal the parts of you that were resentful by engaging in some reparenting,

reparenting yourself. So reparenting, we mentioned it at the top of this section. It is a therapeutic approach that involves nurturing and healing ourselves and our childhood selves by providing the care, the validation, the support and the attention that you may have felt was lacking in childhood. So for middle children who often feel very overlooked or like caught up in family dynamics, reparenting is particularly powerful. And it's particularly powerful when you provide yourself with the attention, like I said before, that you maybe didn't receive or when you allow yourself to be in control and to call the shots. And you don't always have to be the cooperative one.

You don't always have to be the one who says yes. You know, in terms of how we do that, how we enact reparenting, make a big deal of yourself. Make a big deal of your achievements. Be allowed in like celebrating who you are and what you've achieved and what you're doing. in a way that perhaps you didn't as a child. You know, have the big birthday parties if that's what you want. Just literally speak out loud to yourself. Wow, I'm so proud of what I'm doing. What I'm doing right now is a big deal. I'm making an impact that is visible. I'm impressive. Remember, you are the parent now. So what you always wanted to hear as a middle child, but that you didn't

receive is now something that you can provide yourself. Another way to re-parent yourself as the middle child is to not always be the one in the middle. Consciously make the decision to be the one on the outside, not be the one who has to mediate. If your siblings are fighting or your roommates or your parents or your parents and your siblings, whoever it is, you don't have to fix it even if every fiber in your body is screaming to get involved. You don't have to allow any of that to take up mental real estate. You don't have to think about what the best thing is to say to make both people happy. Just let people be messy. Let them have their problems. That also involves having strong boundaries. If there is a pattern of like two of your siblings or two people you know continuously

fighting and continuously getting you involved, just you really at some point you're to say, I'm sorry, that's not my job anymore. To mediate your conflicts, that is not my job. That is not all I'm worth, you guys can stay angry at each other because you chose to be angry at each other, not because I didn't help, not because I wasn't there, this is your choice, these are your actions, this isn't on me. I think that's a hard one to learn, especially when you do have that instinct to tend to want to fix things and resolve the conflict, but you're prioritizing yourself now. That's the whole deal. That's the whole goal. That's what we're after. Prioritizing yourself, even when you feel selfish. One final beautiful way to re-parent is to focus on what makes you

special in the family and also in your life. You know, look at each member, look at each member of your family, notice how they're different, why they're different, their strengths, their weaknesses, and do the same for yourself. You have an identity in the family. You are probably the best at a lot of things and you do deserve praise and you do deserve appreciation and you do deserve appreciation and attention for all of that and you deserve to take up space in your family and to say, this is what I want, and I'm proud of myself, and I'm doing great things. And you can definitely bring that up with your family. Bring it up, be like, I really want to be appreciated more.

I want you guys to see what I'm doing. I don't want to be the one who always has to cooperate. I don't want to be the one in the middle. You can also choose not to do that. I think that is totally up to you if you think the response from your parents or from your siblings is not going to be a positive one. whatever is going to be best for you because I think that often the middle child is always forced to accommodate what's going to be best for others. We want to flip that script. What is best for you

now? As an adult, as someone who is independent and free, what are you going to keep doing to make sure that you get what you need from your life? You get to have a say. You get to do what you want to do. You don't have to be the mediator. You get to be as social, as introverted as whatever it is that you want. How are you going to make that happen? I really do have a lot of love for my middle children. I think that they're pretty amazing. As an elder's daughter, I'm always trying to impress my middle sister. Like, I'm always trying to be like, hey, do you like me? Now that we're a little bit older, like, do you still think I'm cool? And she's just so laid back. And I'm like, fuck, I'm really jealous. I'm really jealous of that. So you get a lot to be grateful for, a lot to be grateful for,

sorry. So I really hope that you learned something from this episode. Thank you for being patient with me. I know a lot of you have requested it over the last year and here you go. Hopefully it's everything that you wanted from it. Hopefully there was some cool facts that you can take away into conversations and say, hey, maybe I'm the way I am because of this and this is the study that tells me that and whatever, whatever it is. So thank you for listening. Make sure that if you haven't already, you leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you are listening, make sure that you are following along. And if you want to pre-order my book, the link will be in the description of this episode. Thank you to all of those of you who have already done so.

It really made my week to see you all getting behind it. If you have episode suggestions, we also love to hear them. This was an episode suggestion. So I do love hearing from you about topics that we haven't yet covered. You can DM me at That Psychology Podcast. and also follow us over there. And until next time, be kind, stay safe, be gentle with yourself,

and we will talk very, very soon. Hey, what's good, y'all? You're listening to Learn the Hardway with your favorite therapist and host, Kear Games. This space is about black men's experiences, having honest conversations that it's really not safe to have anywhere, but you're having them with a licensed professional who knows what he's doing.

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