Just about every news outlet in Christendom is carrying the news this morning that oldest children are the smartest – or so a study suggests.
So how does that play out in Doperdom? Among my own family (I’m number 2), I’d probably give the nod to number 3, the man of parts, one of which is a doctoral degree. Among my own children, I’m less sure. Maybe number 2? They’re good at different things, so it’s hard to tell. I do know that at one time, I had the eldest do an online version of the Wonderlic test, and she managed a better score than most professional football players. However, I think of number 2 as being more cerebral. And number three shows promise, though she’s too small to make a good comparison.
Well the results are slightly skewed. If you have several children in your family, and one is separated by more then 7 years, that child is technically raised as an only child in psychological development terms, thus giving them the 1st child syndrome if I may call it that…
Well, I have more academic degrees, but my (younger) brother has a job that is probably much more complex than mine and with much more responsibility.
The jury’s out on my two kids. They have different abilities but both scored high enough on recent tests to get into the gifted and talented programs at their schools.
No. My older sister (who is the oldest) has a lot of strengths and she’s better at a lot of things having to do with social savvy and intuition. But when it comes to raw book smarts, she was not the tops in our family.
I am the second of five, and by every objective measure would be considered the smartest of our brood, although my older brother is no slouch. Of my two children the oldest tested with a slightly higher IQ, although her younger brother seems smarter and may be so (in this case it’s like comparing a BMW with a Mercedes, neither is a bad option).
No, I think me and my younger sister are pretty close in terms of smarts. It’s hard to measure though since she’s still in high school. She gets better grades than I did but I have more sense. That’s probably because I’m older, though.
I’m the oldest of three, and yes. The study concerned IQ anyway, and IQ tests back me up on this point even if the three of us argue about who’s best at everyting else.
I don’t think so. I would hesitate to call myself smarter than my younger brother, although we’re good at different things, so it’s hard to tell. Our parents are both secondborns and, I suspect, probably smarter than their siblings, although again it’s hard to tell.
It sounds like the differences are miniscule anyway; I mean, can you really tell the difference between someone with an IQ of 103 and someone with an IQ of 100?
As I read it, the study is about males, so the female part story isn’t in yet, not to mention the interaction between sexes in a family. It’s all about the eldest boy.
Also, there is often an issue of abdication. Sometimes an oldest child, for whatever reason, does not play the role of (for want of a better term) senior child. Death is only the obvious case; a child may be disabled, emotionally withdrawn or physically or temporally separated from the rest of the sibship.
And, while I have heard that firstborn men tend to be found in positions of “power” more often than would be expected statistically, this study pretty much says that firstborn males test better… not that they are smarter. Some people suck at tests and some just don’t care about them enough to do well.
So, to get to the OP, no.
The middle child is the smartest.
SiXSwordS = ickle baby, idn’t he cyooot. (A bit daft though!)
By higher education and general smartness, I would say my oldest sister is the smartest and she was easily the best student.
By standardized testing, like SAT, CAT, IQ testing, it was I and I am the youngest of four.
For my kids, it appears my daughter is smarter, she has a really inquisitive nature and is getting straight A’s, my son is bright but it is hard to tell how bright as he suffers from ADHD and he is only 7.
I would bet on my daughter, but I might be surprised in a few years. I think my family would have been surprised with me at age 7. I had speech problems and was behind in reading. I only excelled in math. It wasn’t until 5th grade that my abilities really started showing outside of math.
I think it is tough to judge the intelligence of young kids.
In my Mom’s & Dad’s families they are both the oldest and both appear to be the smartest. My wife is the oldest in her family and all three of them are exceptionally bright. I am not sure which is the brightest. The youngest brother has the least education and is finacially doing the best. Again, they are all very bright.
I am the youngest of 4. We all have “above-average” IQ’s, but mine (supposedly) is the highest. My oldest brother is…uhmmm…not the brightest bulb on the tree, regardless of the fact that he supposedly has an Iq just below “gifted” while my next sibling (also a brother) is very intelligent (think genius-level). My sister? I have trouble believing that she even got a positive score on her IQ test, but is supposedly “above-average” while mine is “upper genius” level. I’ve always been one to skew the curve, though.
