parentification & eldest daughter syndrome
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Okay, I'm excited about this episode. More so I wanted to talk about parentification. So then I came across birth order theory and I was thinking, oh wow, this is really interesting. And it's a theory that supports that the...

order in which you were born is indicative of how you will behave as a person in your adult life or it is the cause or the reason as to why you are the way you are. The research that I did, there was so much conflicting opinions and research that I actually don't even know the conclusion that I came to. But a lot of professionals, a lot of therapists do support the idea that birth order has a huge significance on your personality and your characteristic traits and everything like that. And they use that in their

treatment. Whereas on the other hand, a lot of people disregard it, have debunked it and say that it doesn't count at all. And the reason they say this is because, first of all, the research is really hard to do because you can't rely on people to be 100% honest in how they portray their own personality. And then also to do with loads of variables and different factors that would contribute to how you are as a person and

what kind of personality that you have. The only research that I came across that was 100% accurate was that for older siblings or first born siblings have scored slightly higher in their IQ than their younger siblings. But that is also not indicative of intelligence because there are a load of things

And a lot of ways you can quantify intelligence. It's not just your IQ level. Your IQ level is just how you process information. But there's loads of other different types of intelligence. But it's still an interesting topic. And I wanted to talk about it because I do think there is a significance in the order in which you were born that has an effect on your relationship with other people or how you process things in life. But maybe not necessarily...

personality traits because it feels a bit when I was reading about it

it's too vague and that's the general consensus of all the research but also just from my own opinion and how I have interpreted the research I do think that the order in which you're born determines your personality traits is just a bit too vague because there are so many other things that influence you like your environment your ethnicity your education the relationship with your parents your gender so many things but I do still think the order in which you're born does have a slight impact on

your behaviours or your personality but it's not the be all and end all like if you were a middle child you're going to be overlooked or you're going to be ambitious or a younger child is going to be spoiled they're obviously all stereotypes but they are so common that we can't ignore them at the same time this is going to be a little bit anecdotal as well because I can only speak from my own experience because I

I'm not a therapist, but I also have done research on birth order theory and parentification. So this is what I found and I'm going to talk about it now. So basically Adler was the first person to come up with this thing called the birth order theory and he used it on his patients.

but there was actually no research or evidence to back up his theory. So then obviously, and this was back in the 1920s or early 1900s. And then obviously since then, loads of people have come together to do different studies and different levels of research on his theory. Some of it has been true. Some of it's been false. You can still use it, but there's a reason why we haven't completely disregarded it as well. It's still relevant, I think. He used it along with other information to assess different people's lifestyles. There's

two different types of positions when it comes to birth order theory. So number one is the ordinal position. I do think a lot of research was based off of this, solely based off this. So that's just literally the order in which you were born. And then there's psychological position. So that's the role the child adopts in his or her interactions with others. So even if you were, say,

the second born but you took the role as like the oldest born or you were parentified then that would have a different impact on the outcome of your personality. And these are all the different variables that I found. So Carlson Watts and Mariachi did research in 2006 and said that age differences greater than five years can often place children into

distinct subgroups that confound strict ordinal positions. So for example, when you're five, you go to school. Adler focus a lot on this term called dethronement. So say you're the firstborn and you basically get treated like an only child. You're getting 100% attention from your parents, but then a younger sibling gets born and the attention is getting shifted onto that person. So that is called dethronement. It's like not disregard for you, but it's also kind of

your attention is getting diluted, but from another person that you're also related to. So automatically you're putting yourself up in competition against this person. And then sometimes that can end in taking responsibility or feeling stressed on behalf of your younger sibling. So anyway, but for example, if you are age five and you start to go to school, that has less of a, detournement has less of an impact on you because you're going to school anyway. It's not going to have as much impact as say you are a two-year-old

at home with your parents, and then a sibling gets born, and then all of a sudden you're not an only child anymore. You get to see it firsthand how much attention is being brought to another sibling because you're there to witness it 24 hours a day. Whereas when you're going to school, you're getting distracted by other things and you're more involved in your environment and your personality is gonna be more influenced by the other people around you as well. And then obviously another thing is that a newborn and a five-year-old

their cognitive development are vastly different. Like a newborn has just come into the world, a five-year-old can usually walk and talk and hopefully wipe their own arse. So there are going to be

huge differences there. Less of a dependent. But the other variables that cause skews in the research with the birth order theory are if one child has a mental or physical disability. So that's like if you've heard the phenomenon the glass child. Often the glass child will take the role of like a parentified middle child whereas

the child, even if they're a firstborn or if they're the youngest, they will usually get the experience of an only child or say a firstborn son. If your parents are very, if they still carry like strong gender roles or gender stereotypes, usually the firstborn son will be getting the most attention.

And then another thing that impacts the research is the death of a child. Gender, and that's only if your parents model strong sex roles. An older brother followed by a younger sister, which was my experience. I have an older brother. So this, for example, is why this is my little anecdote. This is why birth order theory doesn't really make sense in my family. Because I have an older brother that a lot of people don't know about.

Exactly. I have an older brother who's six years older than me. So he had a completely different experience to, say, me and all my sisters. The reason there is such a huge gap is because my mom had undiagnosed health issues. And then once she went on medication, they were trying for another baby for ages. And then once she went on medication...

I came along. So I was like the miracle child. My brother was already starting in school, but he would have experienced dethronement because I came in and I was also like, oh my God, the first born girl. So that would have caused, I'd say, a bit of friction between me and my brother is what I'm guessing. But also I'm a first born daughter and my parents, I wouldn't say they did model strong sex roles, but for example, like my mom doesn't really believe in sexism. She doesn't think it's a thing. And in her family growing up, a lot of the

men were idolized. She grew up with six brothers and she was the oldest of 10. She would have been obviously immediately parentified. She was probably changing nappies when she was three. So I'd say she would have carried that on into her own parenting. And then when I became an older sister to my younger two sisters, it was kind of expected of me to take on the role of an older sister who

which in her eyes was normal because that's what she experienced as a child. And I'm not like blaming her for that at all. It's just like what she knew and what she was doing was best. And it's hard to like break out of those habits. Another thing that skews the research is blended families. I'm also part of a blended family. I have a younger sister who is eight. There's 18 years between me and her. So she's getting the experience sort of of an only child while

while also having four older siblings and then having a two-year-old niece, well, a one-and-a-half-year-old niece who she lives with. So it's all... I know that's going to impact her because she's kind of getting the experience of being an older sibling except her parents aren't taking any attention away from her. She's not really experiencing dethronement but she does have to kind of share her things a little bit and also be...

aware of the fact that there's a child or a toddler running around the house. But anyway, so there was a study done then by Sulaway in 1996. So these are all a bit outdated, but this is to do with the characteristic traits. And these are more stereo types. But I'd say a lot of people can relate to this. It is sort of like your star sign, but they're all a bit vague and they could be applied to anyone. So just take what resonates with you. So the firstborn was seen as

more achievement-oriented, antagonistic, anxious, assertive, conforming, extroverted, fearful, identified with parents, jealous, neurotic, organized, planful, responsible, self-confident, and traditional, affiliate under stress, and are more likely to take on leadership roles. Then later-born children were seen as more adventurous, altruistic, cooperative, easygoing, empathic,

And then in a study done by Healy and Ellis in 2007, And then Hartshorn in 2009 carried out research that found that people are more likely to form close platonic and romantic relationships with other people of the same birth order.

Now that's interesting. In fairness, in my own experience, I've only ever gone out with one... I've gone out with two... three guys that were the youngest men. So as you can imagine, that was a fucking nightmare. And then I've gone out with one...

who was the oldest brother in his family, but he was still a boy. So, and his parents did, his parents were an exemplar of stereotypical gender roles, I would say in my own opinion, in my experience of them. Now we were only together for about two years, but that's what I observe, out of my own observations, that's what I am presuming. And I wouldn't say, and he has his own issues as well, but I wouldn't say he's the most, he would follow in with all those characteristic traits. Yeah.

whatsoever. It was still the same experience as going out with the younger, the youngest boy in the family. Then there was a survey carried out of 196 people which was just opinion based and it was asking people what characteristic traits do you think each birth order has. So people were thought that firstborns are the most intelligent, responsible, obedient, stable, least emotional and least creative. Then only children are the most disagreeable. Middleborns are the most

There was another study done on career choices based off your birth order. So firstborns were most likely to become accountants, lawyers, architects, police officers, blah,

surgeons, professors or astronauts. And also a fun fact I found is the first 16 astronauts were either oldest or first born men and then later born were more likely to become firefighters, teachers, musicians, photographers, social workers or a stuntman. I don't know why. I didn't realise that was a common career. There's a lot of these things I can relate to.

Except for the fact that I was a first born girl. There is a lot of my childhood or big blocks or chunks of time that I can't remember, which I think is fair enough. Probably just because I'm getting older. I haven't slept enough. I do have clear memories. Core memories of number one was in my first family home. I remember nappies being on a low shelf so I could reach them. I remember pulling up tights on my little sister and getting her to jump on the bed so I could pull them up.

I remember carrying my sister on my hip and dropping her on her head, which was obviously more traumatic for her than it was for me.

But I do remember a feeling and anytime I look back on, we have old family videos, I do remember being extremely anxious all the time. And that, I don't know if that was because I felt emotionally responsible for my younger siblings, but I do remember feeling a sort of resentment towards them, which always makes me really, really upset because...

The way I look at my siblings now, I completely idolise them. They're my favourite people in the world. I admire them so much. They're always going to be the people that I look up to and I love them with all my heart. They're literally my soulmates. But I do remember...

when I was a child, being unnecessarily mean, not wanting them to play with me, wanting them to leave me alone. You know, kicking them out of my bedroom if I had friends over, running away from them when they just wanted to play with me. Obviously, I was only a child. Like, I was literally seven or eight. But looking back now, it's one of my biggest regrets of being mean to my younger siblings because they obviously just loved me and wanted to spend time with me. But it was like I was a drained mother being like, please leave me alone.

And both my parents worked all the time. It was a lot of just like me and my siblings. I do have great memories though of my older brother. He was so good at like getting us to play together. And now he would make us like physically fight each other. But I think that gave me thick skin. It made me resilient. But he was so good at like creating games. And if we had our cousins over, he'd always like make up these games and we'd always be playing something. So I definitely do have positive memories from my childhood. But there definitely was an aspect of it where I was...

slightly parentified and that's not the fault of my parents like they both had to work to provide for us and support us but obviously with their absence of them being at work I just took on that role automatically rather than them sort of expecting it of me the only time I actually have a clear memory or felt as if it was an expectation was only when I was a teenager and that was after my parents divorce and then I had to move I had to move out and then I felt a

I had older sibling guilt and then I presume the sibling that's under me took on my role. So I looked up the signs of a parentified child and this is what I found. So these are the signs of a parentified child. You grew up feeling like you had to be responsible. You have trouble with play or letting loose. You like to feel in control. You're pulled into arguments or issues between caregivers. You felt like you were given responsibilities that were not appropriate for someone your age.

often compliments for being so good or so responsible, may feel that being self-reliant is better than trying to trust others. Don't really remember being a kid. Parents had trouble caring for themselves or others and place the responsibility on you. Often find yourself becoming a caregiver for others. Being a caregiver feels good even when you are sacrificing parts of yourself.

heightened sense of empathy and an ability to more closely connect with others. Feel like you need to be a peacemaker. Feel like your efforts aren't appreciated. I would say now in hindsight and retrospectively looking back that when I moved out of that environment where I felt like I was parentified when I was 18, I do feel like I rebelled because that was kind of when I was dropping out of college.

moving around, going out a lot, partying a lot, being irresponsible. And it was almost as if I was acting like a child because I never got the opportunity to fully surrender to being a child when I was younger. A lot of therapists would say to do inner child healing, to like heal from a parentification or parentified child.

which I could do a whole episode on because I feel like I've done really well now because I wanted to heal that part of me before I had a baby. But I do think that sort of work is ongoing and forever. But I had to do a lot of like healing my relationship with my parents, talking to myself when I was a child, also forgiving myself for how I've behaved or acted because I do hold a lot of shame against myself from how I behaved between like 18 to 23, 24. It was just impulsive behavior.

The only way I could describe it is I acted like a child. Now looking back on it, I'm obviously healing from that a lot. It was like I almost needed to get it out of my system. So I'm going to read your experiences now anyway. Someone said,

Could be all eldest children, but I think particularly daughters in that position are treated like a second mother and have the same responsibilities. I have had three younger siblings since I was seven and I've never felt like a cute child that could make mistakes. I was the example for my siblings and as a result acted like an adult. Going into adulthood, I felt like I've carried that anxiety of being responsible and well-behaved and have an extreme phobia of disappointing others. Another hot take is the youngest child can be more entitled slash confident slash spoiled slash immature as adults.

obviously depending on how they were raised and if they can recognize their behavior and grow out of it I also do think because we already have this instilled and deeply ingrained in us because I feel like every single person has that perspective or opinion that the youngest child is spoiled or entitled or irresponsible and we tend to baby them as a result of that and I do think that stereotype is almost harming them in a way because we just assume and I know I just did it there when I was talking about

well I just think boys have a completely different upbringing to girls now that's changing as time goes on because we're becoming more aware of how we treat different genders and how it affects them in adulthood so we're trying to

raise genders in the same way this is why like birth order theory attachment theory and child psychology should be made more accessible to parents and like you should do a course we should be doing mandatory courses before we're allowed to get pregnant I don't know how that hasn't how like society hasn't evolved in a way where it's like men won't ejaculate until they have completed a child psychology course

Do you know what I mean? Or should we be the other way round where like our tubes are tied until we complete this course and then they get untied. Or just like be taught in schools because we should all be taking part in like the upbringing of children regardless of where their parents are not because children who aren't getting loved at home or getting loved at school or getting loved at, you know, their extracurricular activities or in their friends' houses, they're going to have a different safe space. So I just think it would be great if all these conversations are

information could be made more accessible to people. But I do think that that stereotype against, and probably youngest children would agree with me if there's any youngest children watching this, that a lot of people, and older, I mean only kids as well, because only children I think have a bad rep

that people see them as selfish or entitled or spoiled because they got 100% they've never had to share anything they've gotten 100% attention from their parents they might have been sheltered their whole lives or had had everything handed to them because they're not in competition with other siblings but I do think that stereotype is harming them if people are going to treat you in that way then the same thing with the youngest sibling if people a

assume that you're going to be entitled and irresponsible people are going to act or treat you that way and they're going to baby you

So maybe then you're going to have the assumption that everyone's going to look after things for you because you've been treated like that. Because anyway, maybe it's the chicken or the egg. Anyway, that's just my two cents on it. Someone said, I'm the oldest of three sisters and we're all really close, even though I am seven and eight years older than both my sisters. I don't think it's the average oldest, middle, youngest child dynamic due to one father being an arse. But now that it's just us ladies, it's lush. I feel like I've got quite a good perspective on things being as I'm the only adult.

However, being the oldest and a surrogate parent figure, I'm quite outgoing and sociable and value loyalty above everything and be quite a yes person if I feel that it will protect them if they ask my opinions. My middle sister is very shy and struggles with self-esteem, but is very outwardly loving to the few she's close with and is all around a very empathetic

and sensitive person, but also very quick-witted and probably the most honest out of the three of us. My youngest sister comes across very outgoing and sociable and funny, which she absolutely is, but also the most stressed wee person. Here we go. I've gotten the opinion now of a youngest sibling. As the youngest, I was usually the scapegoat for all problems when I was really young. At the time, this was always about silly slash trivial kid things, but as I got older, the patterns stayed the same, even when the issue at hand was more serious. My family all hang up on me anytime, anything... What?!

Oh my god, that's horrible!

That's so mean. In my family, it was more we would take turns on which sibling we were going to slag. And like my parents were taking part in this as well. It would be sort of a thing where if you said something and we would hold it against you for the rest of your life, if you said something like cringy or embarrassing or funny, yeah, we would all take turns and like one sibling would get ripped to shreds by the rest of the siblings and our parents would take part, which was like extra sore. It was sort of like twisting the knife.

but they loved it. My parents were real slag, a slaggy, it was a real slaggy family so you couldn't be too sensitive. But all of us obviously were like we were children so we'd always end up in tears and having tantrums over it. There were 10 years between me and my brother and

They were 24 when they had me and 34 when they had him. So while we have the same parents, we were raised by completely different people. It's strange to see since they were a lot more mature for him. They cared about school and bedtimes and getting him to places on time, but they have less time and energy to play and explore like they did with me. That's so interesting. I was there first, so I feel I was a bit more magical for them and it's been much more practical for him. I think that has really impacted our personality.

There's limitations to how much you can see...

yourself in an honest way. I could say I have these XYZ characteristic traits. Like, you know, when people go around being like, I'm so empathetic and it would literally be the biggest bitch of all time. And you're going, how could you think that you're empathetic when they're only actually thinking about their own feelings? It's like they could recognize their own emotions and own feelings. So they think that they're empathetic, but it's actually just them experiencing themselves

Or they're people being like, I'm so generous, even though they're literally the stingiest people on the planet. So I'm really conscious of the fact that I could think one thing of myself, even though it's actually the complete opposite or how other people see me. So I'm a bit apprehensive about identifying myself with any of these characteristic traits. But I would like to think of myself and especially in terms of my daughter personally.

That I have matured a lot. In regards. But I can only compare myself. To my past self. I don't know what I'm going to be like in the future. And I presume I'm going to get more and more mature. As time goes on. But I know I can only be as mature. As a 26 year old can be. And because I am living at home. Sometimes I can slip back into those old habits. Of being like. Acting like a teenager. Because your parents. Well more so because I get treated like that. By being around my parents. Because.

Obviously your parents want to guide you. They immediately... They want to boss you around and tell you what to do because they are your caregivers. They want to emotionally...

sort of shelter you in a way. So I suppose being around them, there is probably limitations to my maturity at the moment. It's hard to navigate or find a balance for me in my head because, well, there's a lot of things influencing this, obviously, because I do think I was slightly parentified. No, it wasn't the worst. Like, I don't think that I was, I don't think it was the worst. I think in the parentification spectrum, I was definitely at the lesser end of it. I don't think it was that bad.

And because there are people whose parents literally are absent or have no parents at all who are expected to look after their younger siblings. Like, for example, my mom, who was the oldest of 10 siblings. Obviously, that was a lot more traumatic for her. So I'm not going to say the two are comparable, but I would say I am on the spectrum of parentification. And that was just my experience as a child. But there are loads of determining factors that are influencing my parenting.

and the way that I parent. Because I am very conscious of the fact that I'm still sort of growing up over always growing up, I'm trying to be a mature, responsible adult for my daughter. And that's like put a lot of pressure on me in terms of decision making. And especially because I'm co-parenting and I'm the default parent, a lot of that is...

I can't rely on anyone else. You know, sometimes you could consult with the partner about making a decision. Like, for example, what school she's going to go to or a different sort of parenting style. How are we going to get her to stop hitting? How are we going to get her to have manners?

I do feel solely responsible for that, even though I do have like my village, I have my sisters, I have my, all her grandparents are very involved. So I do have a lot of guidance in that sense, but I do feel very responsible in terms of her upbringing because I'm the default parent.

And because I'm the oldest sister, I already felt sort of an element of that responsibility when I was a bit younger. Even though it wasn't really expected of me, like my parents would have actually given out to me if I was telling my siblings what to do. Even though there was like... It was hard for me to navigate that as a child because...

there was a certain element of responsibility put on me definitely of looking like for example i had to bring them home from school but i wasn't like as a child going my parents should be doing this i was just thinking this is what normal siblings do and my brother was in secondary school at that time because he's much older than us so that's why i feel like i had a different experience to my older brother but um but then when it came to like disciplining my younger siblings

I would take it too far, if you know what I mean. And it wasn't my responsibility to discipline them. But I felt like it was because I was doing all these other things, like making them lunch when we got home, making sure that they did their homework, trying to be a positive role model for them. Being expected, definitely was expected of being a positive role model, which I really felt in my teenage years. And I was more reprimanded or felt the consequences of acting out, I would say, more than my siblings did. Because they would use, they would, my parents would say,

you're supposed to be an example for your siblings. So I feel like I would get punished more than them. But that is also could be influenced by the fact that

when your parents move on to the youngest and youngest, when they keep going younger and younger, they like run out of steam or something, or they're learning from their past experiences. So they get more lenient with the younger siblings. So there is a bit of that as well, because I know my parents were a bit stricter on my older brother than they were on me as well, more academically, whereas morally, I think they were stricter on me and how I behaved in society as a whole and as a person, rather than

as well as academically. But it was more expected of me than it was of my brother. Like, for example, and this is not something I'm holding resentments for, but it is just an example. My brother was able to have his girlfriend sleep over in his bedroom, whereas when I started getting boyfriends, even when I was at the same age as my brother having girlfriends, they weren't allowed in my bedroom. Does that make sense?

and they would never be allowed to sleep over. So that was the huge difference in the upbringing and I could see those differences and I was thinking, is that because of our gender or what the fuck is going on? Because it didn't make any sense but it was actually because they expected to be a positive role model or example for my younger siblings. So there, yeah, there are huge differences there.

But that all of this then is like impacting how I parent my daughter. But yeah, going back to that, I am trying to have to strike a balance between because there's a lot of pressure on my responsibility and my role as a default parent, even though it is alleviated by the support of my family. But all the decision making is...

solely relying on me but I also need to keep that playful side of me because I found myself when she was first born I was behaving in a completely different way to my actual character and who I am as a person because I expected a lot of people well a lot of people were expecting a lot of things of me and I think when you become a mother everyone is expecting you to be

like the Madonna whore complex where everyone's expecting you to be this pristine princess. You can't have anything wrong with you. You can't complain. You have to have everything together. You have to be able to make all the decisions you can. You have to know everything. You can't ask questions. You have to act mature constantly. You have to dress a certain way. A lot of that I did carry into my motherhood and my parenthood experience where I do act a lot differently to how I did before I had her. But I do think it's very important to keep in touch with your playful side

to alleviate that stress of being a parent because, and my mom was saying this as well to me, that she is so happy

and content as a child. Like she barely has any tantrums. She's so loved. She gets so much attention. But that is because me and her dad are very relaxed. I do have a lot of stress, but because I have so much support around me, there's like, I don't need to project any of that onto her. So she's not experiencing that for me at all because we have that support behind us. This isn't even about birth order theory anymore. But I was very conscious of that because when I was

I was so stressed and that made me act out as a child and that made that was what made me so mean to my younger siblings and I've seen that in patterns with parents as well when they're extra stressed obviously they can't be happy and playful with their children 100% of the time that's totally understandable like it

there's fucking stressful times but I am very conscious of that in my adulthood now that you do need to be in touch with your playful side be in touch with your inner child and that to some people can be perceived as acting immature for example like me dressing in the way that where I want to like dopamine dressing or dressing in the way that I always have before I had a child is what keeps me in touch with myself and my identity whereas when I was

in the depth, in the trenches of my postpartum depression and I was dressing like how I thought everyone expected me to. I was dressing like an adult. I was losing touch with myself. I was losing touch with my inner child and I was falling away from that and it was extra, extra stressful. But I also have this repeated mantra in my head that everything is going to work out. Just as stressful as it gets, just keep telling yourself everything is going to work out. Everything is going to work out in my favor. And that just kind of

takes the pressure off a little bit, especially due to the fact that, well, I'm saving for a house at the moment, but there are a lot of decisions, big decisions that I have to make. And there's a lot of risk that I'm taking as well because I'm not staying in Dublin. So I'm moving to a completely new town, which is a huge decision. I have to decide on what schools I think are the best, the connection to Dublin that it has, proximity between me and her dad, the surrounding community,

There's loads of things that I have to take into account and that is like obviously putting a lot of stress and pressure on me. That extra stress and pressure is going to affect how the way that I parent. So I have to be able to alleviate some of that by...

you know, acting like, acting out my inner child. And that's the way that I cope with it. 'Cause you can lose yourself in that. I'm the oldest girl and both my little sisters have learning difficulties, so I'm also a glass child. And I think in my late teens, I had to really reevaluate the relationship we had because I felt like I was constantly being a nagging parent when I should be a fun big sister.

Yeah.

being away from my victim complex mum and no emotion dad. Love them both though. It's fair enough. Where it's completely my responsibility to fix the relationship because I'm older and the one who was the parent role and not able to be fully myself. But it's definitely hard work. My parents were so strict on my older sister that they were much less strict on me as I learned

There was no need. It definitely made me more happy-go-lucky and at ease. I was free to make my own decisions a lot of the time. They made a lot of decisions for my sister that were safe, so she is a lot less likely to take risks, etc. That's a hard word to say. And my younger brother then is the riskiest of us all because my parents had little slash no influence on the decisions he made. I love this one. I'm a triplet.

And the youngest of the three of us. We were all born a minute apart by C-section. And even though we're all the same age, in our 20s, for some reason, I took on the role of the older sister since childhood. I wonder why this is. My sisters will agree with me. I think it's to do with anxiety since childhood and the need for control. But I've always acted as the oldest, looking after everyone, even though technically I'm the youngest.

It's weird how it worked out, but I love my sisters more than anything in the world and would do anything for them. They are my moon and stars. Aw, that's so sweet. I'm the middle child, but oldest girl. I definitely fit both stereotypes. I'm always cleaning up and supporting my mom. I think it taught me that I need to be useful to be worth affection or attention. So true. I don't like to burden others and always take care of my own problems. I am definitely the favorite child in some ways, but I do think my birth order has hugely affected my personality still.

I also rarely get to choose my own activities and always had to compromise. I'm still so bad at making choices, especially when my others, when others are involved.

Jesus, that's huge differences.

Oh my god!

Ugly... What?! Ugly and useless, etc.

I'm now a hyper independent 20 something year old. Oh, my God, that is so horrible. Jesus fucking Christ. Now, I will say in the research that I did, there was so much on the first born child.

And it was really telling because in familial situations, it's always said that the middle child is overlooked. And like the less research was, the least amount of research was done on middle-born children, which is so funny. Sorry, I wanted to include a little study or example of dethronement. I forgot to talk about it when I was talking about dethronement. But, you know,

you know, it's the thing that often firstborn children are felt when a younger sibling is born. So Adler treated a man who had a difficulty swallowing and this was in 1937 but he uncovered that the only way he could regain his parents' attention was by medical necessity. So that's why he...

it developed then in his later years as to why he, he probably was like faking choking to get, to get his parents' attention. And I've said this, I've talked about this story before on my TikTok, but I, when I was seven, I pretended my appendix burst after watching that movie. Is it called Madeline? You know, the one where she's in a,

boarding school and then her appendix burst. So I'm like A class acting like 100% so good. Obviously because my mom literally brought me to Temple Street and my dad took a day off work and bought me new pajamas. Are you fucking serious? Like obviously I'm going to continue doing this. My conniving as a child. But then when

I was actually sick, I would feel like I had to overprove myself and like overact the fact that I was sick because I was scared that people were going to think that I was lying. So I do regret doing that. And it was a big fuck up on my part because then I was scared that my appendix actually was going to burst and then no one was going to believe me. And then I was going to die because you're going to, you can die from your appendix bursting. Now, thankfully my hand, my appendix hasn't burst. Touch wood has never burst. Now I said I would do a whole episode where

on inner child healing but I will say the top three things that helped me

with any issues from my childhood because I did go through a huge phase and I do think this is really normal. It's a normal transition if you've had a difficult relationship with your parents or you've had a slightly tumultuous relationship with one or more parents that you will go through a phase of like anger and deep resentment. And I'm not a person that wants to be beefing, especially because I love my family so much. I am such a family orientated person that after I had my child, I went through such a huge transition

shift in perspective where I was it was almost as if I was getting smothered by rage and that wasn't that was only affecting me and it's something that you just have to get on with as an adult and obviously I want my daughter to have a relationship she has such a good relationship with her grandparents I want her to have a relationship with her grandparents but I had to do a lot of work myself to get over it and that's not as well that's

I think after I had a baby, having a structure, now obviously the newborn phase doesn't really count because they don't really have a routine, but having a routine because I was following her lead and you'll know when you start getting involved in like nap times and all and how much it actually affects their mood and their sleep and everything else, you realize how important structure and routine actually is, especially if you're a parentified baby.

you sort of have to like treat yourself like a child so that you act like an adult. It's like treating yourself with the compassion and love that you would for a child, but you're doing it for yourself. It's not that you're like babying yourself and excusing bad behavior, but it's more so like the love and the practice

things that you would do for a child you should do for yourself. Having a structured routine and following that for my daughter, like for example, I value like her nap times, for example. I value her nap time so much because I've gotten so much better at reading because I know like her nap time will be time for myself. So I can, it's like,

I can plan that section of the day off to do whatever I want where I can give my undivided attention to because when I'm looking after her I like to be able to be fully present and not do other things at the same time. I think I was trying to juggle that a little bit at the start like editing while I was looking after her and it's not nice and I don't want her to be able to see me on a screen but like having that bit of nap time

in the day making sure to go outside every day like even going to the playground bringing her for a walk and I think now that she's a toddler and she can like interact with me more she can hold my hand and walk around it's a lot easier to like take part in the structure and the routine and you can see the actual positive effects that it has on her and then obviously having three square meals a day looking at nutrition making sure that she's eating the right foods that then

is going to affect how I'm eating as well. So these are all real important things and it might seem obvious to most people but they are not things that I was doing for myself and sort of in a way where I wasn't treating myself with respect before I had a baby or before I got pregnant because I wasn't thinking about myself as someone who deserved to be treated well or looked after. Then another thing is being able to play. I mean the only...

I'd say one of my biggest toxic attributes or thought processes was that I was only able to have fun if I was drunk or like getting drunk.

And this is obviously my early 20s and like teenage years. So I started drinking very young. I was 12 or 13. And that to me was like, this is me playing. But because I was rebelling, that was the only time I wasn't being responsible or like looking after someone. I was doing the complete opposite. I wasn't even looking after myself in that instance. So now actually knowing what play is and being able to relax and explore with my daughter and see the world differently.

through her perspective and through her eyes has really helped get in touch with your inner child and also just look after myself and alleviate stress. And then the third most important thing, I think, which is the only thing I've never done consistent exercise in my life other than when I was like dancing when I was a 10 year old.

And that was only once a week. And I wouldn't classify that really as vigorous exercise. But only recently, like in the last few months, I've started running, doing yoga all the time, Pilates, to the point where I'm actually breaking a sweat and like releasing the endorphins. It's had such a positive impact on me. That's indescribable. Like it's completely invaluable, the benefits that exercising gives you. And I feel so annoying that I'm turning into that type of person now. But honestly...

going for a run especially if you're a person who has repressed anger and rage like I said after I gave birth I experienced well that's a hormonal shift as well most mothers experience that like the postpartum rage is fucking horrible especially because as women we're expected to not really express rage or anger we're always trying to calm down and relax or it was like when other women

but when men do it it's more normalised and accepted like Kyle punching walls you know that meme but when girls do it it's like unladylike ungraceful it's almost disturbing if you see like a woman expressing anger or rage even though it's like a complete normal emotion and it's probably the only emotion that we haven't tackled yet as like

human race we don't know what we were supposed to do with our anger or rage or use it in a positive way vigorous exercises in now I don't do weightlifting or anything but if you're if you're doing like kickboxing boxing class but going for runs for me a really really positive way of releasing anger and releasing rage from my body because it's like I store all of that in my chest and

And then when I go to bed at night, it's like my heart is racing because I have all this unspent energy, which is what anger and rage is, how it manifests in my body. So that's... And then there's, because of my birth trauma, there's a lot of, like, tenderness and emotion stored in my womb and my pelvis area. Yoga helps with that as well. So it all helps release that out of my body. And that's not even...

That's like a free outlet. Like you don't need to pay for therapy to do that. Because I know therapy isn't accessible for everyone. But obviously talk therapy is like the best cure for anything. Having an unbiased opinion. Being able to talk to anyone. Being able to talk full stop. Like talk to a friend. Talk to a parent. Talk to someone you trust. But anyway, yeah. I'm going to leave it here. I'd love to know any more birth order theories that you have. And if you think it's affected you as an adult. I loved recording this episode. It was actually really...

Really good. Okay. Bye. Love you.