THE GARAGE SALE – OR WHY WAS HE BORN FIRST!
Do the number of children and the order in which they are born into a family affect their personalities in a significant way?
Many variables influence personality development, but how do we explain two male siblings, born only eleven months apart, made by the same two parents and raised in the same house at the same time being as dissimilar as night and day?
In his book “Born to Rebel,” Frank Sulloway suggests that birth order does, indeed, have strong and consistent effects on the Big Five personality traits: Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism. Sulloway argues that firstborns are more conscientious, more socially dominant, less agreeable, and less open to new ideas compared to laterborns.
That being said, allow me to share one of my favorite family stories. I call it “The Garage Sale”
One year, when the boys were around 6 and 7 years old, (or, if it was during that magic month, they were both around 6 years old) we had decided as a family to clean house and get rid of a lot of those “hadda havums” that had become “no longer neededs.” For weeks, the dust flew and tears were shed as we began the separation and grieving process for all of those old toys, gadgets, doohickeys and favorite old articles of clothing that had once been so dear. Price labels, specially prepared with a code delineating the owner of each item so that said owner would receive his just dues, were lovingly placed on the treasures that were about to be the focus of our first annual garage sale.
At last, the big day dawned, bright and beautiful, perfect weather for the event. Our garage had been transformed into a mini marketplace. Two clothing racks displayed out of date or outgrown fashions. Long tables, card tables and shelves (some of them even being sacrificed for the good of the cause) were resplendent with ridiculously underpriced artifacts of our family history. All four of us had on our aprons of camel colored corduroy, handmade with remnants from pants I had sewn for the kids. (Waste not, want not, I always say.) Each apron had separate pockets for paper money, coins and paper and pencil to keep track of whose items were sold and for how much. And at the center of it all was the newly purchased grey, metal cash box that has served well for many garage sales since and probably still holds some of the same coins left over from that spectacular sale so many years ago. (Wal-Mart was not operating back then, but had they been – they would have been terrified by our competition.)
The excitement was electric. Neighbors, friends, and strangers started to descend upon our display looking for bargains and newfound treasures. The artifacts on the clothing racks, tables and shelves slowly disappeared until, as the sun set on our sale; all but two boxes of miscellaneous memories were now entrusted to new owners.
The family, weary but eager to assess our efforts, sat at the round kitchen table and tallied up the profits. The boys had pulled in a whopping $42 and $36 dollars, respectively. That was a lot of cash for a 7 year old when you could still purchase a matchbox car or a gallon of gas for a dollar! So, plans were made. A shopping trip to the local Kmart was planned for the following weekend.
It seemed like an eternity to the boys, but finally it was shopping day. Transformers, Matchbox Cars, Lego Sets and the like flew off the shelves and were sucked into shopping carts as though pulled by some unseen electromagnet. Higher math skills were applied and practiced as we “guestimated” the total cost of each cart’s contents, making sure we stayed below their magic numbers of 42 and 36. The younger of the pair was eager to be first in line, so he pulled his shopping cart into the check-out lane and began stacking his selection of new treasures onto the counter. The cash register began to sing a merry tune and the finale was a respectful amount just below his $36 limit. He could barely contain his excitement as he reached in and pulled the crumpled up wad of earnings out of his pocket. What joy, what rapture!
From behind me, I felt a little tug on my jacket. A pensive little voice said, ” Mom, does this mean I have to pay for my own stuff?” “Why, of course honey,” I replied. “That was the idea.” “Really mom, aren’t you going to pay for it?” “Not this time babe. You earned it and you can spend it on anything you want.”
Behind those sea blue eyes I could see the wheels turning and after a few moments of serious thought, he said, “Okay, I’ll be right back.” Off went he went, cart in tow, and in a few minutes he returned with an empty cart. He had decided that, if the money had to come from his own pocket, he didn’t really need all those toys after all. From Kmart we went directly to the Savings and Loan, where he opened up his first bank account with $42.
It must be birth order. Right?
patlawrencemusings 