Taking a closer look at my firstborn

My son and I are in the bookstore. (We love the bookstore.) He is happily wandering the aisles when he comes across an entire shelf of Goosebumps books. "Mom, I am going to need a few minutes to check these out," he says.

As I walk to another aisle, I notice that the section of the store he now belongs to is labeled as "Intermediate Youth." I swell with pride for a moment, to think about my good reader and how smart he is.

But of course he is smart. He is my firstborn.

There are a lot of studies that show our firstborn children are smart. Of course they are: They have the full attention of their parents, their Mothers probably took better care of themselves as it was a first pregnancy and they have lots of opportunities to model adult behaviors.

And this is where I have to stop, because I only have a firstborn child. There is no second born to compare him to.

But there is me. I am a second born child, a so-called baby of the family. Do I see myself in that role? Not really. I am pretty smart (I'd like to think) and not always up for entertaining people (really more of a homebody), so I am not sure I fit the mold.

But I will agree to this: Children who get a lot of parental attention are smart - no matter what their birth order is. (Also: Thanks, Mom!)

Are you a firstborn child? Tell me in the comments.