Which birth order is the SMARTEST, the oldest child or the only child? Why? Why not?
Logical, analytical answers please. All disparaging comments regarding only children will be deleted.
I'm pretty sure being the oldest or only child has absolutely no effect on one's intelligence.
In most societies, the oldest boy got the most food and resources because he was the heir. If there were several children, the oldest boy got the most, then the other boys, girls last.
If there were only girls, the oldest girl got the most because she was the one to inherit property and get married. So she received the best food, education and investment.
And for most of history, lack of nutrition and healthcare were the main causes of mental impairment - so the ones who were best fed and educated were the smartest.
Only children are known as the smartest of all birth orders. Only children interact primarily w/adults who have more experience, education, & knowledge than mere siblings. Because of family size, only children have access to parents in terms of communication that children w/siblings will never have. Only children also have monies for books & other intellectual paraphernalia which puts them ahead academically & intellectually. Only children also are exposed to myriad cultural activities which positively impact on their education.
W/oldest children, their intelligence & smartness is solely dependent upon family size. Oldest children in small families(2 children per household) are oftentimes treated as only children. Such children are given individualized parental attention & they primarily interact w/their parents. Because of this interaction w/their parents, they are advanced intellectually, academically, & mentally. Like only children, oldest children in small families have monies for books & other intellectual paraphernalia, not to mention monies for cultural & intellectual activities.
However, oldest children in large families aren't so smart. In fact, they are intellectually immature because their primary interactors are younger siblings. Dr. Zajonc , a social psychologist, indicated that the more children in a household, the more intellectually immature & backwards children are. Oldest children in large families don't have time to devote to their OWN intellectual & mental development as they are forced to raise younger siblings so as a result, their intellectual & academic development suffer. As their parents don't communicate nor interact w/them, except to have them raise & parent siblings, their adult interaction is very sparse so they act just as childish as their younger siblings & aren't as mature as oldest children in small families nor only children. To aid in the intellectual backwardness of oldest children in large families, there are no books nor any type of intellectual paraphernalia in the homes of large families. As reiterated before, large families place little or no emphasis on book intelligence & academic achievement as small families DO. Parents of large families really DON'T care if their children achieve in school or not, that is the LEAST of their concerns as opposed to parents in small families who place PARAMOUNT IMPORTANCE on their children's academic achievement.
by Grace Marguerite Williams 6 years ago
I believe that the oldest child in a family have the toughest and roughest path to go. He/she was automatically dethroned upon the birth/births of a successive sibling/siblings. He/she is often held to a higher and stricter standard than his/her younger siblings, ...
by Grace Marguerite Williams 9 years ago
What makes the oldest child the UNHAPPIEST of all birth orders and why?
by nanderson500 4 years ago
Would you rather be the oldest child, in the middle, or the youngest?
by Penny Godfirnon 6 years ago
If your were the oldest child in your family were you given huge responsibilities?Were you given responsibilites beyond your years and were you able to accomplish them or did you suffer from failing your parents!
by jagandelight 6 years ago
Do you think an only child is better off more than they are with siblings?
by Jessie Watson 6 years ago
We already know that children can suffer from a full range of learning and mental disabilities if they have not received physical or emotional contact before the age of 5. Since 2017, there is more mounting evidence to support that birth order has some effect on the expression of intelligence in...
Copyright © 2025 The Arena Media Brands, LLC and respective content providers on this website. HubPages® is a registered trademark of The Arena Platform, Inc. Other product and company names shown may be trademarks of their respective owners. The Arena Media Brands, LLC and respective content providers to this website may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website.
Copyright © 2025 Maven Media Brands, LLC and respective owners.
As a user in the EEA, your approval is needed on a few things. To provide a better website experience, hubpages.com uses cookies (and other similar technologies) and may collect, process, and share personal data. Please choose which areas of our service you consent to our doing so.
For more information on managing or withdrawing consents and how we handle data, visit our Privacy Policy at: https://corp.maven.io/privacy-policy
Show DetailsNecessary | |
---|---|
HubPages Device ID | This is used to identify particular browsers or devices when the access the service, and is used for security reasons. |
Login | This is necessary to sign in to the HubPages Service. |
Google Recaptcha | This is used to prevent bots and spam. (Privacy Policy) |
Akismet | This is used to detect comment spam. (Privacy Policy) |
HubPages Google Analytics | This is used to provide data on traffic to our website, all personally identifyable data is anonymized. (Privacy Policy) |
HubPages Traffic Pixel | This is used to collect data on traffic to articles and other pages on our site. Unless you are signed in to a HubPages account, all personally identifiable information is anonymized. |
Amazon Web Services | This is a cloud services platform that we used to host our service. (Privacy Policy) |
Cloudflare | This is a cloud CDN service that we use to efficiently deliver files required for our service to operate such as javascript, cascading style sheets, images, and videos. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Hosted Libraries | Javascript software libraries such as jQuery are loaded at endpoints on the googleapis.com or gstatic.com domains, for performance and efficiency reasons. (Privacy Policy) |
Features | |
---|---|
Google Custom Search | This is feature allows you to search the site. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Maps | Some articles have Google Maps embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Charts | This is used to display charts and graphs on articles and the author center. (Privacy Policy) |
Google AdSense Host API | This service allows you to sign up for or associate a Google AdSense account with HubPages, so that you can earn money from ads on your articles. No data is shared unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Google YouTube | Some articles have YouTube videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Vimeo | Some articles have Vimeo videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Paypal | This is used for a registered author who enrolls in the HubPages Earnings program and requests to be paid via PayPal. No data is shared with Paypal unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Facebook Login | You can use this to streamline signing up for, or signing in to your Hubpages account. No data is shared with Facebook unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Maven | This supports the Maven widget and search functionality. (Privacy Policy) |
Marketing | |
---|---|
Google AdSense | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Google DoubleClick | Google provides ad serving technology and runs an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Index Exchange | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Sovrn | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Facebook Ads | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Amazon Unified Ad Marketplace | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
AppNexus | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Openx | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Rubicon Project | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
TripleLift | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Say Media | We partner with Say Media to deliver ad campaigns on our sites. (Privacy Policy) |
Remarketing Pixels | We may use remarketing pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to advertise the HubPages Service to people that have visited our sites. |
Conversion Tracking Pixels | We may use conversion tracking pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to identify when an advertisement has successfully resulted in the desired action, such as signing up for the HubPages Service or publishing an article on the HubPages Service. |
Statistics | |
---|---|
Author Google Analytics | This is used to provide traffic data and reports to the authors of articles on the HubPages Service. (Privacy Policy) |
Comscore | ComScore is a media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises, media and advertising agencies, and publishers. Non-consent will result in ComScore only processing obfuscated personal data. (Privacy Policy) |
Amazon Tracking Pixel | Some articles display amazon products as part of the Amazon Affiliate program, this pixel provides traffic statistics for those products (Privacy Policy) |
Clicksco | This is a data management platform studying reader behavior (Privacy Policy) |