More friends around me are having a second child, and I've noticed (my own observation, not a scientific sample, don't @ me) a pattern.
Firstborns tend to be a bit blunt, a bit naive. Not naive in the intellectual sense β the kind that can't read a room, doesn't compete, doesn't schmooze. Also stubborn. Sometimes I watch them and feel anxious on their behalf.
Second children are completely different. From early on they know when to smile, when to be good, when to burrow into Mommy's arms. Want something? They'll get there by going around corners. A friend says her second child could read her mood at age two β she sighs, and the kid immediately runs over and clings to her leg.
There's an old saying: the firstborn is naive, the second is sharp.
The firstborn was loved completely. In those first years, they were the only child β everything was theirs, every bit of attention pointed at them. They didn't need to compete, read faces, or scheme. In their head, the spot of "the most loved" carried an inborn, taken-for-granted certainty. Not so the second child. The moment they're born, there's already someone bigger and stronger standing ahead of them. Love is finite β you have to grab it, perform for it, fight for it. EQ gets forged exactly this way.
Writing this, I suddenly thought of myself.
I'm an only child. By rights, I should have had that complete love too. But where I grew up, favoring sons over daughters ran deep. From when I was small, relatives and friends would tease me: "What if your parents have a little brother for you?" And I, tiny as I was, would answer with a sharpness that didn't belong to my age, viciously: "Then I'll throw him away."
Even now, people still bring it up and tell it as a joke.
They find it funny, think the kid had a wicked tongue. But really β I was that alert. I'd learned to strike first.
Who doesn't want to be loved completely?