Kurt R.A. Giambastiani

I’ve never given much credence to results of “studies” on human social patterns. We’re just too complicated to fit into neat little boxes. However, the other day I learned of one such study which so accurately described me, I had to give it a closer look.

I mention this here because this is the sort of thing that can be used to add depth to the histories of families and characters in my writing.

The study was about birth order and the “middle child syndrome.” Now, “birth order” is not new to me; I heard about it a long time ago but never paid it any attention because, frankly, my family situation doesn’t really fit any common form.

I have an older sister and two younger half-brothers (my father remarried after my mother’s death). The situation of having two different mothers, combined with the fact that my sister left home while my kid brothers were still infants, created a rather unusual dynamic for me, where first I was the youngest, then (briefly) the middle child, and then the eldest child in the household. How (I reasoned) could any generic, broad brush-stroke study on birth order possibly have any relevance to my unique situation? And how could anything dealing with a “middle child syndrome” describe me, when I was only “in the middle” for a year or two?

Quite a lot, as it turns out.

Middle children are often the “invisible” ones–a word I have often used to describe myself within my family. Middle children learn patience, focus, independence and the art of compromise; they are idealistic, loyal, and comfortable with isolation. They work hard to be loved and respected by their family, but do not feel particularly close with their parents or siblings. While I don’t tick all the boxes of the “middle child” (e.g., I never wanted a large, boisterous family of my own), the description fit me so closely that it made me wonder why…how…could I be a “middle child” when I was in the middle for such a brief period?

And then I saw the flaw in my thinking. I was only looking at the household, and had been ignoring the ongoing dynamic of child-rearing. Just as a parent is still a parent after their child leaves home, so too was I a “middle child” even after my sister left. She wasn’t living with us in the house, but she was still part of our dynamic. She was still eldest, she was still part of the family, and she still took up parental resources and attention, albeit from a distance.

This led me to a different understanding of family dynamics and how they might apply to the characters in my writing. Before, I only considered the snapshot of the present, i.e., how the family looked now. This ignores the history and the future of the family, both of which affect its members. A middle child will remain a middle child, even after the eldest leaves home. Even should the eldest child die, the memory of that eldest child will live on. The middle child, the eldest child, the “baby of the family” will always be thus, and will know that they will always be thus. It will not change. My father was a middle child even though his younger brother died in his youth. He is still a middle child, even though his eldest brother has passed away. He–and I–both fit the mold very well, because we have been in that mold all our lives.

I do not know if I grew to fit the mold, or if it compressed me into its shape (though based on the pressure I felt growing up, I suspect the latter is more accurate). Either way, I am who I am, and I will take this new knowledge with me when I build my next literary family.

k