Everybody knows that firstborns are natural leaders, middle children are rebels and the baby of the family is spoiled yet confident. At least, that’s what received wisdom tells us. But is any of it true? And where did this idea come from in the first place? In the 1930s the Austrian psychotherapist Alfred Adler was the first to study birth order and its effect on personality. He believed that “every difficulty of development is caused by rivalry and lack of cooperation in the family”. According to Adler, an only child never has to compete for their parents’ attention and is never “replaced” by other siblings. Similarly, the oldest child receives most of the parents’ attention and is likely to feel responsible towards their younger siblings, which is reflected in their perfectionism, hard-working attitude and conscientiousness. In this episode of the One On One Podcast with host Uchechukwu Ajuzieogu, we take a dive into the world of the first born, the role, responsibility, pros and cons of being in this societal narrative construct.