#32 The parenting pattern I didn't know I was repeating
How a rough morning cracked open a deeper truth about love, legacy, and birth order
🎧 Listen here ⬆️
(sorry for the pause at 3 mins — apparently saying “cereal” accidentally activates Siri, and it took me a bit to turn it off!)
📖 Read below ⬇️
With Mother’s Day just behind us, it feels like the right moment to reflect: on the love we give our children, the patterns we carry from our own upbringing, and the kind of childhood we’re shaping for our kids.
One pattern I keep coming back to (my ‘Roman empire’ if you will) is the way birth order shapes the roles we take on in our families — particularly the expectations placed on older versus younger siblings. Firstborns are often expected to be responsible and obedient, while younger children tend to be seen as strong-willed or ‘difficult’.
This is a generalisation, of course, and there will no doubt be exceptions. But it’s a dynamic I’ve seen play out time and time again — not just in my own family as the eldest of two daughters, but across countless other families, at school pick-up, and in conversations with friends, colleagues, and patients. I’ve come to realise that my experience wasn’t unique, and it wasn’t about my parents getting it wrong. They loved us deeply. Yet, like many parents of their generation, they were influenced by the norms and expectations of their time.
What shocked me was discovering I was carrying those same old patterns into my own parenting—without even knowing it.
This realisation hit me recently, on one of those mornings when everything feels like a struggle. Our eldest, almost seven, slipped into the day in his usual way — fully immersed in his own world, ticking things off his mental checklist with quiet focus. His younger brother, though, woke up in a foul mood. His eyes were barely open and already he was furious at the world.
“I want Daaa-ddyyyy! Mummy go away!” His little face scrunched up with the effort of showing just how mad he was.
I took a deep breath, trying not to let the rejection sting — especially after bearing the brunt of this reaction three days in a row. “Sorry, kiddo. Dad’s at work. It’s Mummy-and-kids day!”
Cue a guttural “Nooooooo!” and a full-force four-year-old meltdown.
From there, everything unravelled. The cereal was wrong. The socks were wrong. The toothpaste was too spicy. Every step felt like dragging cement. I did my best to stay calm, reminding myself: he’s little, he’s overtired, he’s a good kid deep down. I repeated a line from parenting psychologist Dr Becky Kennedy: “He’s not giving me a hard time, he’s having a hard time.” But by the time we were ready to leave, I was overstimulated and flat-out done.
And then, just as I opened the car door and breathed a sigh that we finally made it out the door, our eldest climbed into the front seat and started rummaging around for a toy. He wasn’t yelling or arguing. He just… wasn’t doing what I needed him to do. And in that moment, I snapped.
“Sit down right now!” My voice was sharper than I intended, and I saw the shift in his face straight away. Confusion. Hurt. Shock. That beautiful openness in his big brown eyes that so closely resemble my dad’s clouded over.
I regretted it instantly. Why was I taking all my frustration out on him — the one who’d patiently got ready while I dealt with meltdown after meltdown — only to snap the moment he (barely) stepped out of line?
Then it hit me. I expected him to be the ‘easy’ child. The one who held it together. I expected more from him, simply because he was older.
I was doing to him what had been done to me.
As the eldest, I grew up with that same expectation. It was woven into every rule, every reaction, every expectation. I was the ‘good one’. The responsible one. I learned early that being obedient, helpful and easy earned not only peace, but also approval and love. And the older I got, the deeper that belief settled in. It turned into an inner critic that still, to this day, tells me to keep it together, be productive, don’t make a fuss, don’t make a mistake, stay in control. And that moment with Az made me realise how easy it is to fall into this pattern.
It’s a hard truth to face: seeing the same dynamic from both sides. As a daughter, I know how unfair those pressures felt. As a parent, I now see why it happens — how stress and overwhelm can make us lean on the more cooperative child, forgetting they’re just a kid too.
And what about the other side? The child who is labelled ‘difficult’ when they push back or have a harder time navigating their emotions? I’ve come to see how damaging these labels can be — how it makes them feel constantly wrong, as if their struggles need fixing, not understanding and compassion. Over time, this can erode their self-esteem and leave them feeling like they’re not loved or accepted for who they are.
To be clear, this is not about blaming our parents or dwelling on the past. Parenting is hard — REALLY hard — and most parents love their kids and are just trying to do their best with the tools and knowledge they have at the time. It’s about recognising how easily certain dynamics and expectations are passed down, often without us even realising it. What matters is pausing to notice what we’ve inherited — and choosing, with intention, what we want to carry forward and what we’re ready to leave behind.
That morning in the car was a lightbulb moment for me.
It made me realise I want to do things differently. I need to catch myself when I slip into old patterns, and offer more grace and compassion — to my kids, myself, and my parents, who I understand more deeply now since becoming a parent myself. I want to break the cycle of placing different expectations on children based on birth order, and to not allow labels to define their worth or place in our family. Ultimately, I want my children to feel free to express the full range of their emotions without fear of judgment or punishment.
As Mother’s Day reminds us, it’s not just about the love we give, but the legacy we leave. Reflecting on this journey is an ongoing process. But more and more, I’m learning that the goal of parenting isn’t perfection. It’s creating a space where each of our kids feels equally loved, equally accepted, and equally free to be messy, imperfect, and wholly themselves — a place where they feel seen and valued for who they truly are.
I’d love to hear from you!
Do you think birth order plays a role in parenting?
Have you ever noticed how birth order or childhood patterns shape your own upbringing or the way you raise your children?
Are there any intergenerational cycles you’re actively working to break?
Share your thoughts in the comments below. Every conversation helps us learn and grow as parents, and as people.
Thanks so much for reading!
Until next time,
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I was number 5 of 6 children, but my oldest 2 sibs were 15 and 16, the next I line was 8 when I was born. The 4th was 15 months old at my birth. And the last sib arrived 20 years after the first. Of, the three youngest I was the middle sib, of a 3 sibling unit. And we fit the dynamics of an easy/responsible child, a challenging child and the favored baby of the family.
I tried very hard not to recreate the pattern, and yet to some degree I was not successful. My eldest was in a class all the way through school that was comprised of eldest or only children. My middle child had Down syndrome and multiple serious co-occuring medical conditions, not all of them associated with DS. My youngest was in a class of younger siblings of the kids in my eldest daughter's class.
We could see birth order dynamics operating in the teachers as well.
Ruhie, as the eldest daughter in my own family this read was so relatable. Though my parents claim to have parented my brother and I the same way, I was definitely expected to be the “good” one and this bred resentment since my temperament isn’t “easy” 😂 In saying this, you’ve given me so much to think about in terms of the expectations I place on my own daughter and why I get triggered when she’s being “difficult”. Thanks for writing this!