A question to Dopers who are the 2nd of 3 children.
Did you left left out? Did you get less attention?
Do you think it’s a bad idea to have 3 children because of this?
Do you have any suggestions as to how to make the middle child feel more special?
A question to Dopers who are the 2nd of 3 children.
I’m the 3rd of 4…but I think I can answer these too. If not, well, you can ignore my answers. 
Did you left left out? Did you get less attention? I did occasionally feel left out, although I don’t really think I got less attention than the others. Not now anyway - at the time, I’m sure I felt like the others got far more attention.
Do you think it’s a bad idea to have 3 children because of this?
No, not at all. I don’t think 4 are a bad idea either. Despite the struggles, I wouldn’t give up any of my siblings. We fought for each other and with each other, and we had great times.
**Do you have any suggestions as to how to make the middle child feel more special? **
Make sure that time is spent alone with that child. The youngest gets a lot of attention because they are the baby, and the oldest is always the first to do things. Take the kid out for lunch or dinner with just Mom or Dad one or two nights a month, and let him/her pick the restaurant, or go to the zoo or a museum or pack a picnic lunch and go spend the day in the park, something where there are no siblings to distract mom.
Encourage activities that the other siblings are not involved in, or if they are both interested in, say soccer, make sure they are on different teams. Yeah, maybe it means a little more driving for one or the other, but that middle child gets to know that when you’re at the game cheering, that you’re cheering for him, not for his big sister or brother.
Just my thoughts.
autz, how did you know what I’m worrying about at the moment?!
I’m about to have my third child, and have been worried about the effect on my daughter (who will be in the middle). I think we will be able to avoid “middle child syndrome” to a certain extent, though, because it looks like she’s going to be the only girl, and there is five years between her and the baby, so she’s enjoyed all that time being the youngest.
But I’m going to keep an eye on this thread anyway.
Oldest child of two here, so I have no personal experience in this matter. However, my good friend Jules is the middle child of three (she has an older sister and a younger brother), and is vocally anti-three child families. She has attempted to extract promises from everyone she knows that they will not subject their second child to Middle Child Syndrome.
Also, my hairdresser was recently telling me the horror stories about growing up as the middle child in her family. She claims that the other two have albums full of photographs of themselves, but there are scarcely any photos of her as a baby, and that her parents forked out $20000 on a wedding for her sister, and then told her that she’d better elope as they weren’t doing it twice and that her sister had cleaned them out!
I think there’s too much attention put on Middle Child Syndrome, and that it makes middle children think they’re having a hard time that the others don’t have. I have some nasty Oldest Child stories that a middle child would never have to deal with. I’m sure there are youngest child who feel badly done by too. It’s just that there’s a catch phrase telling middle children that they’re getting a raw deal, and so that magnifies any of the normal crappy things that we all go through, no matter what our order of birth is.
Only children get the worst rap of the bunch, IMHO. they’re supposedly all spoiled little brats bent on getting our way and becoming President someday.
I think Middle Child Syndrome definitely exists (friend of mine is a textbook example, middle of three girls, older and younger sister both geniuses so what does my friend do to get attention? Goes out and gets pregnant.) but, out of the people I know, I don’t see it so much in families where the middle child is the only child of their particular gender.
Say we have a family where:
Kid #1 is a boy.
Kid #2 is a girl.
Kid #3 is a boy.
Let’s say there are 3 years in between all of them.
Kid #1 gets to be special because he’s the nug nug firstborn son.
Kid #2 gets to be special because she’s the only daughter.
Kid #3 gets to be special because he’s the baby of the family.
I would think that MCS would be more prominent in families where all 3 kids are the same sex.
But what do I know, I’m a spoiled only child
I’m the 2nd of 3 children. But my case is different. My sister is a bitchy so-called rebel who gets whatever she wants. My brother on the other hand, has autism, a mental disorder.
Did you left left out? Did you get less attention?
I sure did. I was also blamed all the time over what I couldn’t possibly have done. I still hold this grudge. One day my mom stormed in and started yelling accusing me of breaking her lipstick. I told her I didn’t do it and she’s like 'Well you wouldn’t expect your sister to do something like that? Look at her! She’s responsible unlike you. Of course nothing would matter, even though my sister had lipstick all over her hands, shirt and pants, and in her mouth. I was left out too but I guess it’s just because they can’t ignore my brother or my sister.
Do you think it’s a bad idea to have 3 children because of this? No not at all. It depends on the attitude of the parents and the situation. It’s a matter of preference between the parent and the child. My sister was the favorite so she probably thinks having 3 children or more is great. I don’t because I get less attention. If I got the most attention it wouldn’t matter.
Do you have any suggestions as to how to make the middle child feel more special? Yes I do. Don’t IGNORE your child or blame them for everything. The oldest and youngest have sort of subtitles. The oldest makes the family proud, first born, best genes (in my family’s case) while the youngest is the family’s trooper. I think it’s true what they say. I’m not a social butterfly and I’m quiet because I don’t get attention often. But it may just be a stereotype so don’t quote me and go crazy on me. I’m only 14.Almost…Oh, and don’t lock your child in the closet with a porcelain doll. I still get nightmates.
I agree with WV_Woman , because my family is the inverse of her situation. I’m the oldest (girl), my brother is in the middle, and my sister the youngest. We each got a spectacular amount of parental attention. Doesn’t hurt that we’re all hams.
Thanks for your input. We already have 3 kids (boy, boy, girl) and my husband is pushing hard for one more. He has many reasons, but the middle child sydrome is one.
I feel that my second child gets overlooked, although I really try to compensate for this.
I’m the second of 4 children (all girls), and it just seems to me that 4 is a fairer number than 3. I guess I’m a middle child in a way, but with 4 children it doesn’t seem so asymetrical.
Just rambling.
i’m 2nd of 3.
never heard of the middle child syndrome.
never felt left out. no less attention.
it’s good to be the middle one. coz i can play with both.
if you create a distinction based on what number the child is, i don’t think you’re gonna help the child. it shouldn’t matter.
My Offspring (the spoiled brat only child) declared just yesterday that she would like to have three children. I concurred, saying that way everyone gets to have their own personal birth order syndrome.
There were five of us. Do three of us get to have middle child syndrome, or only the one in the very middle? If the oldest and the youngest get their syndromes and the middle gets to hog middle child syndrome, we get left out completely! Hey, Dave, this is soooo unfair!
Sorry, autz, pushed the button before I got a chance to get serious. What I was going for was the question of whether, since you already have three, adding another to make four may make for “symmetry”, but how does it give the middle children the opportunity for more parental attention? Or does the “middle child syndrome” depend as much on the sibling interaction as the parental input? Is the idea that the neighboring sibling, also neglected, will make up for the lack? Doesn’t sound like an improvement to me, but maybe there’s an idea I’m missing. Ideally, of course, the parents see each child as an individual rather than a slot in the birth order. If not having one “middle child” helps them do that, it might be good.
I’m with xash. This whole “birth order” stuff is just a bunch of new age crap to give people something else to blame rather than take responsibilty for their own behavior. I had a friend whose wife was into all that junk psychology. She had a “test” to see what your birth order was and what it meant. She tried on herself, her husband, and me. The results were wrong for each of us.
If it is of any use, I’m the 4th of 5 and middle male. I’m also the only one in family who hasn’t screwed up his life.
Here’s an observation I’ve made among family and friends:
Kids from families with 3 kids tend to be less selfish than those where it’s just 2 kids. IMHO.
I babysat quite a bit as a teenager and I noticed that, when I was watching 2 kids, they spent quite a bit of time declaring “that’s MINE.” Didn’t matter if it was something as simple as a notebook … if I’d pick it up I’d get a look and “that’s MINE.”
Nobody is saying it wasn’t yours, kid, lighten up.
I never had this happen with families of 3, though. (Could just be a coincidence.)
Only children never have to share, thus I didn’t, so I’m baffled by the whole “that’s mine” thing. You’d think kids with 2 siblings would spend more time defending their turf than a kid with just 1 sibling.
Anyone ever notice that with 2 siblings, one is usually a little angel and the other is a little *#&%?
Middle child checking in; second of two boys, and I have a younger sister. I suppose I was subject to some oddness–my brother and sister always got new clothes whereas I only got hand-me-downs. My brother, being the older child, always got away with more–by the time he was a teenager, he was getting in trouble with the cops. My sister, meanwhile, was getting away with less, in the sense that she was a very unmotivated child and hardly did anything as a kid. Me, I could never get away with either of those–I was always expected to be on my best behavior, always involved in activities, etc.
Oh yeah–I think I got plenty of attention as it was–I tended to be pretty whiny about being the middle child. In retrospect, I think most of my MCS complaining was really brought on by myself.
Echoing some of MrBlueSky’s comments–I seem to be the only successful one thus far as well. My brother is still working some office position and is going nowhere fast. My sister, while a good college student, still isn’t applying herself and will likely have a nearly blank resume after she graduates. Me–I’ve traveled around the world and am currently finishing up law school. Maybe this is what happens when the oldest is allowed to run rampant and the youngest gets the baby treatment.
It’s not automatically a given that the middle child will suffer in any way. That is largely up to the parents to determine.
As the fourth of five (hello, SparrowHawk, older sister and second in birth order), I am, to a degree, a middle child. But our mother was smart enough to treat us all as individuals and make us all feel special in some way. I never really felt starved for attention, or as if I were invisible, or felt any need to really act up to get noticed.
As SparrowHawk has also mentioned, her Offspring is an only child. Any problems? No, she’s a delightful child, not spoiled at all. And look at other situations, with only two children (I swear, my family is a little mini-sociological lab experiment). My own two children are eight years apart. What kind of weirdness is going on when you’re looking at colleges for one kid and playing Tooth Fairy for the other? And what about my brother’s kids? They were born only eleven months apart. Traumas? Identity crises? Nah. They’re both great kids.
My point is, things like Middle Child Syndrome do exist, but it’s not a hard and fast rule that they MUST exist. Your job, as a parent, is to understand what might happen and be a good parent and work to make sure it doesn’t happen, or doesn’t happen to the extent that it might. There is more at work here than merely birth order, IMO. Individual personalities and the day-to-day effort of parenting are more important, I believe.
Another middle child checking in (2nd of 3 boys). There were only 2 years difference between my older brother and myself, and my parents weren’t that well off when I was young. As a result, I got most of my older brother’s hand-me-down clothes, toys, etc. I didn’t get much that was bought just for me until I got bigger than he was. My younger brother was 7 years younger, so he got all new stuff (the old stuff had long since been given away by the time he showed up).
As a teen, I got dumped on because of the way my older brother acted during his teenage years. “You can’t go out at night because your brother always abused the curfew” type of thing. He also got a car and his college education pretty much paid for. When it was my turn, the folks had spent everything on him, so I had to fend for myself. As a result, I am now a fiercely independent SOB.
My wife was the oldest of 3 kids. When we started having children she insisted that we have an even number. Her argument was that with 3 kids you will always have 2 ganging up on the other one. The alliances will vary from time to time, but one child will always be the “odd man out”. As it turned out, we had a daughter first and then a son, so we stopped there and life is pretty good right now.
2nd child of 3 girls, almost exactly 2 1/2 years between each one. Doesn’t get any more middle than me!
I don’t think it’s a bad thing to be a middle child. I had the benefits of having an older and a younger sibling. Sure there was some jealousy / rivalry, but I never felt like my parents favored me less. I might have accused them of it a few times, but I think that’s all normal kid “the world should revolve around me” sentiment. I ended up being the most laid back, and was more “social” than either of my sisters in school.
I think a big benefit of being a middle child is that you learn to get along with and deal with all types of people. I learned to deal with the bossiness and the crying for mom;) . As a result, I feel like I’m a pretty good judge of character.
I guess there were a few times when I just wished I could be the first / last do do something, but my parents encouraged me to do my own thing. I tried out some things my sisters did and also found my own niche, with sports and later, theatre. If you want a middle child to feel special, encourage him/her to do something that neither of his siblings can do, and that he/she is good at. My parents told me how they were proud of me for my acheivements, and made it a point to say, “your sisters couldn’t do that, it’s something you’ve always been good at.” Not to foster feelings of superiority, but to make me feel special, and it worked.
I also have the benefit of being closer to both my sisters than they are to each other.
The downside? Well, I did have to share a room the longest…:mad:
But I did have the fun part of being the little sister and the big sister. I could watch and learn, or show and teach, and be looked up to. I was a little (ok quite a bit) more rebellious than them though, but what do you expect when both your sisters are valedictorian? (I use that excuse for everything:D ).
There is no reason for any child to feel left out regardless of birth order, if you give your kids love and attention they will all be fine, with different benefits for each. I for one would not trade my place in the family.
I am the fourth child of seven. So that puts me pretty much right in the middle. However, for the most part I grew up with 2 older and 2 younger siblings.
Did you left left out? Did you get less attention?
I didn’t really feel left out. My older siblings seemed to take up a lot of the parenting duties for the younger ones and as I got older started taking on some of the role model things for the younger siblings.
I know I got less parental attention but it didn’t make a difference because I always had siblings who could take up the slack.
Do you think it’s a bad idea to have 3 children because of this?
I don’t think it is a bad idea. There are a few times that I think it would be a bad idea though. I personally don’t think anyone should have a child if they aren’t able to financially support the child. I also think that the children should be planned to be of an age so they are not so that none of the siblings are so far apart that they won’t have at least one playmate nor so close together that they wind up being in the same grade in school. This would place birthing every 2-4 years with 4 years kind of stretching it. We were all roughly every 3 years apart with the eldest two being closer together and the younger two being much farther apart.
On a more practical note I would want to have all the kids out of the house within the same few years. I wouldn’t want to have to take care of one child or another over a 30-40ish year span of time like my mother has been. My eldest sibling is in her mid thirties and my youngest sibling is nearing his teens.
Do you have any suggestions as to how to make the middle child feel more special?
There are a lot of things. If there are only three children I would suggest that they get an alternate day with one of the parents to themselves. So if the father has the child one day then the mother should have the child the next time it comes up on rotation. This should really be for all of the children. That day should be spent doing things that the child likes to do. As the children get older and more independant then it should slow down based on what the child likes to do as well. No one likes a clingy parent.