How Siblings Shape Us – The New York Times

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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THE SUNDAY DEBATE

The Real ID Act, enacted in 2005 in response to the Sept. 11 attacks, finally took effect this week. Is Real ID still necessary?

Yes. It standardizes the identification process across the country, making the ID system more secure. “There are no kind of bad actors issuing those ID cards, and the system is not penetrated by bad actors,” Magdalena Krajewska, political science at Wingate University, said in an interview on WBUR’s On Point.

No. It impedes Americans’ right to travel within the U.S., creating a barrier for air travel that does not exist for trains or cars. “Those who comply with Real ID can access all modes of transportation, whereas those who don’t or can’t comply are restricted to radically slower modes of travel,” Patrick Eddington of the Cato Institute writes for MSNBC.

FROM OPINION

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BOOKS OF THE WEEK

Chances are, you’ve already heard of “James” by Percival Everett, which won a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction on Monday. This lively and surprising reimagining of “Huckleberry Finn” also landed a National Book Award and the Kirkus Prize; was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award; and was named one of the 10 Best Books of 2024 by the Book Review. In other words, it’s the “Oppenheimer” of the book world, with good reason.

The winner of the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction is also one to keep on your radar. Benjamin Nathans’s “To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause” chronicles the Soviet dissident movement, dating it back to the death of Stalin and the rise of Khrushchev in the 1950s. Based on more than two decades of research into K.G.B. case files, unpublished diaries and private correspondence, the book illuminates a powerful legacy.

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THE INTERVIEW

This week’s subject for The Interview is the founder of Bumble, Whitney Wolfe Herd, who, after a year away, has returned to run the company she created. It’s a difficult time for the dating app industry, a difficult time for human connection, and a difficult time for women in tech. We talked about all of it.

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?

My opinion is that I ran this company for the first several years as a quality over quantity approach. A telephone provider came to us early on. They said, “We love your brand, we want to put your app preprogrammed on all of our phones and when people buy our phones, your app will be on the home screen, and you’re going to get millions of free downloads.” I said, “Thank you so much but no thank you.” Nobody could understand what in the world I was doing, and I said it’s the wrong way to grow.

This is not a social network, this is a double-sided marketplace. One person gets on and they have to see someone that is relevant to them. You’re not going to walk down the streets of New York City and want to meet every single person you pass. Why would you assume that someone would want to do that on an app? What happened was, in the pandemic and throughout other chapters, growth was king. It was hailed as the end all be all.

You’re talking about the expectations from investors as one of the reasons this was a difficult period, but Gen Z grew up with the apps, and the data says they are very much over them. Seventy-nine percent report dating-app fatigue.

I think the reason Gen Z has abandoned the apps is because they’re getting on the apps and they’re not seeing who they want to see and they’re feeling two things, which I take full accountability for at Bumble. They’re feeling rejected and they’re feeling judged.

In this week’s Five Weeknight Dishes newsletter, Emily Weinstein suggests making pork chops with jammy-mustard glaze, a rich butter paneer, and a sheet-pan salmon and broccoli that’s perfect for a busy evening.

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