[MUSIC].
There are over 70 million middle children in the United States right now.
We're talking about over 70 million Americans with both older and
younger siblings.
But, if you watch a lot of movies and television.
And I do.
>> [LAUGH].
>> You'd think all middle children are exactly the same.
Take for example, Jan Brady of the Brady Bunch,
always angrily complaining about her perfect sister, Marcia.
Or Malcolm in the Middle, who's parents always forget to pick him up from school.
Ron Weasley,
lost in a sea of red-haired siblings, drowning in oversized hand-me-downs.
Or sniveling Edith from Downton Abbey [LAUGH],
always angry, coveting everything our sisters achieve.
Again and again, middle children are depicted as neglected ignored,
low in self-esteem, starving for attention.
And this has to come from some basis in reality.
After all, our country's most famous middle child right now would have to be
Kim Kardashian, and who is more starving for attention than her?
>> [LAUGH].
>> But, I'm a middle child and both my parents are middle children.
So, I've always been fascinated at where this perception of middle children
comes from.
Society hands us this view of birth order, this spectrum.
You have dominant eldest children on one end and
beloved youngest children on the other.
Us, middle children, are just lost somewhere in between.
But the more I thought about it, the more wrong I've realized that world view is.
Today, we'll start off by looking at birth order research,
to understand where this perception of middle children comes from.
Then, we'll separately analyze the role of older sibling and younger sibling.
Before finally, bringing it all together to try to define what
it means to live from the middle, whether you have siblings or not.
[BLANK_AUDIO].
So, let's start with the data.
Researchers have done a great job explaining the characteristics of
firstborns and lastborns.
So, who here is the oldest child in their family?
A firstborn?
Wow. >> [LAUGH].
>> So, you guys have it made.
>> [LAUGH] >> You will, you'll earn 1%
more income than your younger siblings and have fewer illnesses too.
Over 60% of CEO's, Ivy League graduates and
US Presidents are first born in their family.
And as if this wasn't all enough.
Statistically speaking,
your parents take way more photos of you than your younger siblings.
>> [LAUGH].
>> So, you got a great head start in the Instagram game.
>> [LAUGH].
>> Now, who here is the youngest child in their family, the baby?
[BLANK_AUDIO].
You guys have it pretty good too, I'd say.
You got more of lenient punishments for
the same behavior compared to your siblings.
>> [LAUGH].
>> You are more likely to protest for more positive social change.
And you have the highest self-esteem of any birth order.
>> [LAUGH].
>> So congratulations, although apparently you guys do not need the ego boost.
>> [LAUGH].
>> So, where does that leave us middles?
[BLANK_AUDIO].
A study out of Cornell talked to mothers and
found that regardless of how many children they have, mothers tend to turn to their
firstborn child in moments of crisis when they need advice.
But they feel the most emotionally connected to their youngest child.
Middle children just didn't factor in heavily to their answer to either
question.
>> [LAUGH].
>> Professor Catherine Salmon ran a similar series of studies.
In one, she asked undergraduates, who of all people you know are you closest to?
What one person?
64% of firstborn children and
39% of lastborn children named a parent as that one person.
Only 10% of middle children did.
Middle children have a fundamentally different attachment style to their
parents.
And it's lead researchers to coin the term Middle Child Syndrome, which refers to
the tendency of middle children to struggle to find a role for themselves in
their family, and as a result, a role for themselves in the world.
Middle children have the lowest self-esteem of any birth order,
although I'd imagine having a syndrome named after us isn't helping things.
>> [LAUGH].
>> Why do I wanna speak out on behalf of middle children?
Because I think part of the reason Middle Child Syndrome exists
is because it's not something we talk about or think about.
Not part of any conversation.
I've had discussions with about a dozen middle children in the last few weeks.
And I've been struck by how difficult it is for us to define our role in our
family, and how it shaped us, even though we know it did.
[BLANK_AUDIO].
It comes back to this fundamental question.
What does it mean to live from the middle?
And I think to understand that, we first need to understand separately, the role of
older sibling and a younger sibling, because they are very, very different.
[BLANK_AUDIO].
So, I grew up looking up to my older brother, Josh.
He's two years older than me, and a classic firstborn.
He's ambitious, he's driven,
he's high-achieving, responsible, a bit neurotic.
>> [LAUGH].
>> As a short cut for
my own decision making process, I used to just copy the things he did.
But trying to be not too Jan Brady about it.
>> [LAUGH].
>> I tried to define myself by doing the same things as him, but
with my own spin, differently, hopefully better.
If he played tennis, I played tennis.
If he did highschool newspaper, I did too.
Sometimes, we even dress the same.
>> [LAUGH].
>> Having an older sibling gives you something to prove.
Someone to emulate.
But differentiate from.
[BLANK_AUDIO].
On the other hand, being an older brother to Brett, who's three years younger,
gave me someone to approve.
Someone to mentor.
Like many youngest children, Brett is artistic and creative.
He is an inspiring graphic designer.
[BLANK_AUDIO].
My mom would often want me to spend more time with Brett growing up, so
I played video games with him, never letting him win of course.
I teach him how to use a computer program or help him with his Math homework.
Sometimes, pretending to be annoyed, but always so
happy that someone needed my help and was willing to take it.
[BLANK_AUDIO].
So, I think in my relationship with Josh, my relationship with Brett and
how different they are.
And I think of this spectrum, this world view we're given about birth order.
Ambitious Josh on one end, creative Brett on the other,
me supposedly lost somewhere in between.
But that wasn't my experience as a middle child.
[BLANK_AUDIO].
Being a middle child isn't about being lost between two roles.
It's about being firmly planted,
planted on both ends of the spectrum at the same time.
To have experienced being older and younger.
To know what it feels like to be the top dog and the underdog.
And when you think about that perception of being the middle child,
it unlocks amazing and unique qualities.
[BLANK_AUDIO].
Middle children, from a young age, understand though,
what it feels like to be in a role of authority and a role of inferiority.
And because of that, research has shown that middle children are great
negotiators, great mediators, great peace keepers.
They're comfortable with ambiguity.
[BLANK_AUDIO].
Similarly, middle children don't have the responsibility of the first born or
the attention of the last born, so they're free to chart their own path.
They measure high in measures of independence.
An NYU study compared middle born CEOs to firstborn CEOs, and
found that middle born CEOs tend to be change makers.
They're used to setting their own expectations so,
they're not afraid to do things differently to experiment.
This may explain Kim Kardashian's unique approach to business.
>> [LAUGH] >> So you,
you may be thinking, kind of, these are qualities we all can relate to.
And, I think you're right.
There are only 70 million middle children in the United States, but
there's 300 million of us who are used to living from the middle,
because that's what we're all doing.
[BLANK_AUDIO].
At business schools, we're taught to value traits that come naturally to firstborns.
To wanna be at the head of the pack.
To report to no one.
To give a view from the top.
But life isn't business school.
>> [LAUGH].
>> We're not either first years, who have endless questions, or second years,
who know everything.
>> [LAUGH].
>> We're somewhere in between.
We're between our board and our employees.
Between our managers and our reports.
We can be between our family and our career.
Or our ego and our insecurity.
Instead of aspiring to make power plays, or
step on anyone who gets in our way, we can aspire to take root firmly in the middle.
Because being a middle means having the humility to take advice from others, but
the confidence to know you have a voice, that you have worth.
[BLANK_AUDIO].
A few years ago, my dad underwent an extensive brain surgery.
It was the scariest day of my life, but in his road to full recovery,
it brought my family closer together.
This picture was taken a few months later.
[BLANK_AUDIO].
My dad had spent a few nights in the hospital afterwards and
preferred to not spend them alone.
So, I volunteered to camp out in the chair next to his bed.
Napping, chatting, watching TV.
He'd ask for help getting up out of bed.
And then, a few minutes later, give me advice,
remind me to take care of my mom the next few weeks cuz it'd be tough on her.
[BLANK_AUDIO].
I would interrogate a doctor, on his behalf.
Only an hour after after having my dad proofread an email for
me that I might write my boss.
The nights were filled with these moments where our parent-child
relationship was completely inverted, yet somehow it felt exactly the same.
Each of us sometimes acting older, sometimes acting younger, but
always feeling comfortable in either role.
[BLANK_AUDIO].
I think those nights at [UNKNOWN] General Hospital with my dad at 4 a.m were two
middle children at their best.
Looking up and looking down at the very same time.
And it's moments like these that make me realize the view from the middle,
it's not so bad.
[BLANK_AUDIO].
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE].
[MUSIC].