His older sister, Kristianne, grew up
to become an accountant.)
“What few people realize is that
middle children are actually more
likely to effect change in the world
successfully than any other birth
order,” says psychologist Catherine
Salmon, a leading expert on middle
children. “As is so often the case
with middles, they’re perennially
underestimated.”
That’s why, even though I’m a
middle myself, my mourning for the
disappearance of middles isn’t self-
ish. I’m thinking instead of the world
left behind—a world of fewer diplo-
mats. A world without as many hardy
types whose upbringing gives them
a knack for empathy. Jennifer Gar-
ner, when asked about raising kids in
Hollywood, once referred to her own
essential middle-childness. “I am the
model middle child,” she explained. “I
am patient, and I like to take care of
everyone. Being called nice is a com-
pliment. It’s not a boring way to de-
scribe me.” Patient. Caring. Nice. Even
boring. Doesn’t it feel like those are
qualities we need more of right now?
These qualities, of course, won’t
disappear entirely. But as families
continue to shrink and the number
of middle children dwindles, there
is real reason to fear. Because the
irony is that the strengths associated
with middle children come not from
parental nurturing but from parental
inattention. That means these virtues
are especially difficult to cultivate in
other kids. The secret power of mid-
dles, says Salmon, “points away from
the notion that successful parenting is
all about time and attention.” In advo-
cating for middles, Salmon is also pro-
moting the idea that today’s culture
of overparenting is actually hindering
the development of classic middle-
child merits in all children, because
middles are forged in benign neglect.
It’s hard to imagine a world without
so many of the middle children we
know. There’s Nelson Mandela and Su-
san B. Anthony and David Letterman
and Charles Darwin and Charlotte and
Emily Brontë and Martin Luther King
Jr. You could no doubt make lists of
firstborns and last-borns and only chil-
dren whom it would be just as hard to
imagine the world without. But we’ve
never had a problem celebrating the
Marcias and the Cindys. Maybe it’s
time for Jan to have her day.
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enough to have its own word: nugrybauti.
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