Читать книгу Birth Order & You - Dr. Ronald W. Richardson & Lois A. Richardson - Страница 15

All marriages are happy. It’s the living together afterward that causes all the trouble.

Raymond Hill

Your birth order and gender affect primarily your social behavior — how you relate to other people in your life. They affect the kind of spouse you are, the kind of parent you are, the kind of employer or employee you are, and the kind of friend you are. Some people, because of their gender and birth order, will have more trouble than others at work, some will have more difficulty being a parent, and some will have more conflict in their relationships with the opposite sex. This is good to be aware of, especially when deciding on a career, choosing a mate, having a child, or working on difficulties you may be having in these areas.

You learn early how to be a social being. A newborn develops a relationship first with parents and then with siblings. The way the child learns to relate to these significant people sets the pattern for how the adult will relate to other significant people in life.

The overall tenor of the family sets the framework. A family with a basically optimistic or benign approach to life provides a different framework for the children than that of a family with a hostile or angry approach to life. The oldest child in an easygoing, fun-loving family is likely to be the most serious, responsible child in that family, but a much looser, happier person than an oldest child in a rigid, serious family. The youngest child in both those families is likely to be less responsible and more helpless, but the one from the happy family will be more playful and carefree, while the one from the serious family may be quiet or even depressed.

Within the family framework, too, children can create very different pictures for themselves as shown by Jeremy and Wylie in chapter 1. Birth order is one of the lenses through which children develop a view of themselves and the world, and create their story or identity.