Backstory: Birth Order - Only Child

Birth Order has acceptions but studies have shown that in most cases the order of an individual's birth in a family provides accurate information about personality, career choices and psychological implications. While the order is influenced by the distance between siblings' births and other family dynamics, this information is quite compelling and can be used to create characterization for the main characters in your novels.

Only Child
An only child tends to be similar to the first born, except he will benefit from not experiencing sibling rivalry and will often receive many advantages such as travel, education and cultural opportunities than other individuals with siblings. Although an only child is sometimes thought of as spoiled, this is more often not true. An only child has spent more time with adults and has learned adult behavior and strong language skills. But this special situation leaves the individual with some unique problems.
• constant pressure to succeed
• pressure to be perfect
• fear of failure
• does not take criticism well
• aware he is different from others
• miss the fun and playfulness of childhood
• unusual responsibility to parents, especially during holidays and special occasions or in their old age

Positive Traits:
• confident
• articulate
• imaginative
• perfectionist

Career and Only Child
Good traits of an only child that ties into career building skills are:
• achievement-oriented
• experiencing success in many avenues of life
• broad experiences in travel and culture
• ability to deal with adult serious situations

Chosen careers can be influenced by the family background. The careers tend to be similar to both the first born or youngest with higher incomes than many and lean toward professional, needing college degrees.

Having the full spectrum of birth order and dysfunctional family dynamics, you will create interesting characters that experience compelling conflicts based on their strengths and weaknesses.