How Siblings Shape Us

New York Times

11-05-2025

Happy Mother's Day. The cover story in today's Times Magazine begins with an idea: While parents work hard to mold their offspring, those offspring just as often mold each other. Susan Dominus, who has written many moving pieces about children and families, looks at a growing field of research to see how kids' personalities 'spill over' onto their siblings. It's not always the way you'd think.
As the father of three boys (and as a sibling myself), I was rapt. You should read the story. In today's newsletter, I ask Susan a few questions about her findings.
What got you interested in this story?
My older brother was extremely influential in my own life. When I was 14, and he was home on a break from college, he talked me into starting a school newspaper. He somehow knew before I did (and definitely before my parents did) what kind of work I would love doing. When I started interviewing people about the way their families influenced their lives, I was struck by how often siblings played a pivotal role in their careers — in making an introduction, giving a key piece of advice, setting the bar high.
You tell the story of several high-achieving families. But the phenomenon isn't necessarily strongest among the privileged, is it?
Not at all. If anything, research suggests that what's known as the 'sibling spillover effect' (a measure of how much siblings influence each other, especially academically) is more powerful in disadvantaged families. In those families, the bond can be more influential — the siblings spend a lot of time together, either because their parents are so busy working, or because the family doesn't have the resources to spend on tons of extracurriculars.
My kids have wildly different personalities. Tell me what the research shows about birth-order psychology — the idea that your place among siblings shapes you?
Most personality researchers will tell you that the qualities we associate with birth order don't hold up in the best-conducted studies with the widest samples. Oldest children are not, for example, the most conscientious. They likely just seem that way because, as children, they were always the farthest along developmentally. Compared with the general population — and even compared with their own siblings at the same age — the oldest children are not unusually diligent or responsible.
As a first child, I reject this finding.
As the youngest child, I embrace it.
But why does some research say that more competitive athletes are younger siblings?
First-born children — who enjoy a brief window as only children, with plenty of enrichment — have a cognitive edge over their younger siblings, the research consistently shows. (The studies also compare them to their siblings when they reach the same age.) Some researchers theorize that younger children naturally gravitate toward a niche like sports to find a domain that they can conquer and call their own.
One thing that freaked me out is that even attentive, well-meaning parents are sometimes poor judges of their own kids.
Parents can make assessments about which of their children is the 'academic' one — assessments that are not, in fact, accurate — that affect the grades their kids get and the extracurricular choices those kids make. The sibling they've decided is academically better then increasingly outstrips the others.
I will endeavor to withhold judgment!
Good luck with that!
In addition to sibling relationships, you get into genetic determinants in your new book, 'The Family Dynamic,' from which this story is adapted. What can genes tell us?
The binary idea of genes versus the environment is too simplistic. People's genetic inclinations elicit responses from the world that in turn shape their personalities and outcomes. And people's genetic influences also likely lead them to certain environments — if available to them — that reinforce their natural leanings. Where do parenting choices fit into all of that? The answer is: less than most parents probably think.
I recommend you read Susan's story about siblings and how they shape each other.
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You had a lot of growth during the pandemic when everyone was stuck on their apps. You go public in 2021, ring the bell, baby on your hip, and the very next year user growth starts to slow down. What do you think was happening?
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