A study out today in the Economic Journal proves something that we eldest have known all along: parents are stricter with first-born kids. I'll take "tell me something I didn't know" for $1000, Alex.
My favorite paragraph of the article:
According to the authors' theory, parents have an incentive to punish their first-born child if that child engages in risky behaviors in order to discourage such behavior by younger siblings. This usually works with first-born children, who recognize that their parents are likely to be tougher on their transgressions and, as a result, are deterred in their rebellions. However, this deterrence motive for parents seems to wane as their younger children reach adolescence and parents lose the energy and motivation to follow through with their threatened punishments.
Well, I'll be. This also explains why my three (younger) siblings are all perfect--they were scared to death of what mom and dad would do if they screwed up!
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