What a weekend it was! Saturday April 26 2014 was a very popular day for special events. Hailey's prom--boy was she gorgeous! I hope she had a memorable time. My cousin's firstborn had her First Communion Saturday AND Colleen and Jermaine's New York reception was held in Kingston.
It was nice to see Marguerite and Gregory. Gregory tells me he's now married! Angela and Bill looked very relaxed and were ably assisted by Patty and Stephanie. Cousin Jim was there with Andrew. Jim took on the photography duties. I met Jermaine and Jalen assisted Colleen with the "big reveal" of their new baby's gender--it's a girl!!! They had a cake made colored to reflect the gender of their baby and Jalen cut it open for us all to see a nice bright pink color. That was lots of fun.
I sat with Bob, Cheryl and Brad, Scott and Linda. Linda and I talked lots about retirement and upcoming wedding plans but we also talked some about her relationship with her siblings when you were all younger and how that seemed to somewhat be dependent upon where you fell in the birth order. Linda noted that she regrets that she missed much of Jean's and Pat's younger school year lives due to the difference in their ages.
It's kind of funny this should come up because I'd been debating using birth order as a topic for a post. This seems to be a nice segue! I think every high school senior has to do some kind of major research paper and mine was about the effect of birth order on personality. (Do you remember what yours was?) As the high school librarian, I've seen many many senior research topics come and go, but there was always the Big Three: abortion, death penalty and child abuse. I would sigh inwardly when students approached looking for resources on these because, after a while, it's pretty ho-hum. Then there would be those that chose some aspect of a current trend of the time and it would be a challenge to find enough different ways to attack the gas crisis or the shuttle explosion to satisfy the number of students interested in pursuing such.
But sometimes there were topics that were interesting, timeless and rare. Cryogenics is one that I remember. I like to think birth order and personality fell into that category for the sake of the teacher that had to read the paper. I believe that assignment achieved its purpose as I did learn a great deal about the research process with that paper. And every now and then, I see it in the news again. This was true recently when I came across this link on MSN about birth order. Of course, I read it. I especially liked that it addressed potential relationship issues when, say for example, a firstborn marries a middle child.
I have to say it seems I am a classic firstborn. The article says: "Oldest females, on the other hand, are more likely to be bossy, confident and aggressive than their younger sisters." My sisters would likely agree though I don't know about the confident part. As for the firstborn relationship with a middle child (not naming any names here) the article notes: "If you're the middle child, use your natural ability to compromise to
decide what you're cool with leaving to your capable firstborn spouse,
and what you'd prefer to control." He calls it compromise. I call it a survival technique.
Linda's observations about feeling as though she missed out on some of her younger siblings school day lives points to another birth order phenomenon. Family memories and stories about the same event can vary greatly depending upon point of view. The oldest child has a range of memories and stories about a certain period on the family's life that are not the same as the younger children have. Older children sometimes "lose out" on a set of experiences because they were away from home or dealing with their own families. We often realize that the older children hold memories that the younger children do not but we forget the younger children have memories the older children cannot have either. In life, there seems to be great balance and this is a good example.
So preserve those memories by sharing them with those you love.
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