The essay "How Your Birth Order Influences Your Life Adjustment" written by Lucille K. Forer and "Born for Each Other?" written by Pamela Withers tell slightly different aspects of influences birth order gives in life. They disclose the effects birth order give in life. They disclose the effects of birth order on the characteristics of each person in the family. In these essays, Forer and Withers explain about the characteristics of only child, and those explanations seem to be reasonable.
The first aspect of only child Forer mentioned is that first children often have more opportunity to learn from and make relationship with their parents in comparison to second or third. If there are siblings the care from the parents should be distributed. However, only child can monopolize the care and attention of family members.
The second aspect appears in second to the last paragraph of Forer's essay saying that only child tries to learn how to manage and care himself when there is no help from others including their parents. As an only child, I strongly agree with this statement because this unlimited care from parents sometimes can become an obstacle against learning to care myself without any help. As growing up into adult, only child tends to put effort on learning to manage living by himself.
Withers also come up with an aspect of only child. The author tells that they tend to expect something from others instead of giving. If there are siblings, the children have more opportunity to learn how to give but in the case of only child, he receives and doesn't really have chance to give others. This is true for me. Sometimes I feel that I'm not that good at giving something to others.
These three points are the main statements authors made in their essay about only child and I agree with those opinions. Each of them applies to my characteristics. It is not logical to say that the hole characteristics are influenced by birth order. But I can't deny the fact that part of them are influenced by birth order, the relationship of me and my parents.
Hi I'm Christina Woo from your class!
ReplyDeleteI have enjoyed reading your writing. What was interesting to me was that your point of view was slightly different from mine. I found it very well organized. Your vocabulary was easy to understand. Your topic sentence is clear enough for readers to understand. Including your own stories also made your writing stronger.
Few things that I want to point out is that it would have been much better if your personal examples had a little more details. I also found a spelling error. Overall, I really enjoyed reading your writing. Thanks for sharing!
sorry but can you tell where spelling error is? I cannot find it...
DeleteIt's in the second last sentence. 'whole' characteristics. I think you're missing the "W". :) Please let me know if I'm mistaken! Thanks!!!
ReplyDeletethankyou for replying^^
ReplyDeleteThe essay “How Your Birth Order Influences Your Life Adjustment” written by Lucille K. Forer and “Born for Each Other?” written by Pamela Withers tell slightly different aspects of influences birth order gives in life. They disclose the effects of birth order on the characteristics of each person in the family. In these essays, Forer and Withers explain about the characteristics of only child, and those explanations seem to be reasonable.
ReplyDeleteThe first aspect of only child Forer mentioned is that first children often have more opportunity to learn from and make relationship with their parents in comparison to second or third. If there are siblings the care from the parents should be distributed. However, only child can monopolize the care and attention of family members. In my case, I’m living in a nuclear family with only 3 people, my parents and me. This makes it natural for parents to focus on their only child and care him every time. The process of being cared directly from parents every day gave opportunity to learn their characteristics and methods of solving problems they face. This is connected with Wither’s essay in the part where the author says that “the only child picks up characteristics of same-sex parent’s birth order.” As an only child, and as a boy, father played with me a lot. Even though he was really busy working he shared time with me playing lego when I was in elementary and playing sports together nowadays. Sharing time together makes his child learn more about him by imitating his characteristics.
The second aspect appears in second to the last paragraph of Forer’s essay saying that only child tries to learn how to manage and care himself when there is no help from others including their parents. As an only child, I strongly agree with this statement because this unlimited care from parents sometimes can become an obstacle against learning to care myself without any help. As growing up into adult, only child tends to put effort on learning to manage living by himself. Only child sometimes can be really dependent on their parents at first. But most of the onlies struggles to be independent and finally succeeds. Being independent from parents can be separated into two parts. One is mental and another is financial independence. I think I’m free in mental parts from parents because now I can schedule my own life and decide about many problems by myself unlike the time when I was in high school. But in the part of financial independence I think I should try harder to get my own job.
Withers also come up with an aspect of only child. The author tells that they tend to expect something from others instead of giving. If there are siblings, the children have more opportunity to learn how to give but in the case of only child, he receives and doesn’t really have chance to give others. This is true for me. Sometimes I feel that I’m not that good at giving something to others. Though it is rare, I even hear the word ‘selfish’ from my parents. To give means more than giving an object, it also means giving care or considering other’s situations. As an only child, I feel that these characteristics are lacking from me and I also feel that I need improvement.
These three points are the main statements authors made in their essay about only child and I agree with those opinions. Discussing about the two essays gave the opportunity to compare my personal situations with the authors’ opinion and think about parts that I could improve. Also it gave the chance to have an extended thinking about the influence birth order gives on a person. It is not logical to say that the whole characteristics are influenced by birth order, the relationship between me and my parents. But I can’t deny the fact that part of them is influenced because some of the aspects discussed earlier apply well with me, though not perfectly applied.
Sungtae Kim
Deletesecond draft