生活小发现：出生时间和出生顺序是否真的决定命运？

简单晃

　　记得念初一时，一位同时教我和弟弟英语的老师曾很困惑地问我：“你和你弟怎么那么不同?简直一个天，一个地。你读书那么认真，又不好动，你弟却活蹦 乱跳的，整天玩，一点都不喜欢读书。”回到家把话转给妈妈听，弟弟倒在一旁机灵地插话：“那不就好咯，我们家文武双全嘛。”哈哈，听来好像也很有道理。

　　从没想过出生顺序还能与个性、命运搭上关系，直到读到这篇文章，嘿嘿，有意思。文章还讲到一个现象，国外的父母往往对第一个孩子投资最大，花的心血最多。而在国内，似乎家里最疼爱的多半还是最小的那个哦……

　　——Lavender

　　It could not have been easy being Elliott Roosevelt. If the alcohol wasn’t getting him, the morphine was. If it wasn’t the morphine, it was the struggle with depression. Then, of course, there were the constant comparisons with big brother Teddy who later became President at age 42.

　　当艾略特·罗斯福一点儿也不容易。不是酗酒，就是吗啡成瘾;走得出吗啡魔爪，又逃不开抑郁症的折磨;当然，更不要说，几乎所有人都拿他和他哥哥泰迪(昵称，实为西奥多·罗斯福)作比较，后者在42岁时成为美国总统。

　　Elliott Roosevelt was not the only younger sibling of an eventual President to cause his family heartaches—or at least headaches. There was Roger Clinton and his year in jail on a cocaine conviction. And there is Neil Bush, younger sib of both a President and a Governor, implicated in the savings-and-loan scandals of the 1980s。

　　在美国总统的家史中，艾略特·罗斯福并不是唯一一个让总统家族心痛、或者至少是头痛的“总统弟弟”。还有克林顿总统的弟弟罗杰·克林顿，因涉及可卡因交易被判入狱，以及有位总统哥哥及州长哥哥的尼尔·布什，在上世纪80年代牵连多起储蓄贷款丑闻。

　　It can’t be easy being a runt in a litter that includes a President. But it couldn’t have been easy being Billy Ripken either, an unexceptional major league 4)infielder craning his neck for notice while the press swarmed around Hall of Famer and elder brother Cal. And you may have never heard of Tisa Farrow, an actress of no particular note beyond her work in the 1979 horror film Zombie, but odds are you’ve heard of her sister Mia。

　　在走出一位总统的家庭里做一个小萝卜头肯定不容易，但要做比利·瑞普肯一定也不容易。他是美国一主要职业棒球队中的一名普通内场手，他那已进入 棒球名人堂的哥哥卡尔·瑞普肯总被媒体包围得水泄不通，而他却得努力伸长脖子招人注意。或许你从没听说过蒂莎·法罗，这位女演员除了在1979年出演过恐 怖电影《僵尸》之外就没什么特别值得一提的，但你很可能听说过她的姐姐米娅·法罗。

　　Of all the things that shape who we are, few seem more arbitrary than the sequence in which we and our siblings pop out of the womb. Maybe it’s your genes that make you a gifted athlete, your training that makes you an accomplished actress, an accident of brain chemistry that makes you a drunk instead of a President. But in family after family, case study after case study, the simple roll of the birth-date dice has an odd and arbitrary power all its own。

　　在所有塑造我们成为现在这个样子的因素中，几乎没什么比我们和我们的兄弟姐妹从娘胎里钻出来的顺序更随意的了。或许是你的基因决定你成为一名出 色的运动员，或许是艰苦的训练决定你成为一名有造诣的演员，或许脑内意外发生的化学反应让你成为一个酒鬼，而不是总统，但一个又一个家庭、一个又一个案例 的研究结果显示，单单是出生的顺序就对个人的命运有着一种不寻常而独断的影响。

　　In June 2008, a group of Norwegian researchers released a study showing that firstborns are generally smarter than any siblings who come along later, enjoying on average a three-point IQ advantage over the next eldest—probably a result of the intellectual boost that comes from mentoring younger siblings and helping them in day-to-day tasks. The second child, in turn, is a point ahead of the third. While three points might not seem like much, the effect can be enormous. “In many families,” says psychologist Frank Sulloway, the man who has for decades been seen as the U.S.’s leading authority on birth order, “the firstborn is going to get into Harvard and the second-born isn’t。”

　　2008年6月，一群挪威研究人员公布的一项研究表明，家中第一个出生的孩子大体要比晚出生的孩子聪明，他们的智商平均比第二个孩子高出3点 ——这很可能是因为他们每天要管教以及帮助弟弟妹妹应付日常生活和学习，而第二个孩子的平均智商依次比第三个孩子高出1点。智商高出3点也许看上去并不 多，但影响却很大。心理学家弗兰克·苏洛威(几十年来在美国研究出生顺序的顶尖权威人士)说：“对于很多家庭来说，这意味着第一个孩子能进哈佛大学，第二个则不能”。

　　The differences don’t stop there. Studies in the Philippines show that later-born siblings tend to be shorter and weigh less than earlier-borns. Younger siblings are less likely to be vaccinated than older ones, with last-borns getting immunized sometimes at only half the rate of firstborns. Eldest siblings are also disproportionately represented in high-paying professions. Younger siblings, by contrast, are 10)looser cannons and less educated, but statistically likelier to live the exhilarating life of an artist or a comedian, an adventurer, entrepreneur or firefighter. And middle children? Well, they can be a puzzle—even to researchers。

　　差别还不止于此。菲律宾国内的研究显示，家庭里晚出生的孩子在身高和体重方面都劣于早出生的孩子。他们也往往没像早出生的孩子那样接受疫苗接 种，有时候最后一个孩子获得的免疫力只有第一个孩子的一半。在高收入人群中，长子或长女的比率明显大。相比之下，弟弟妹妹们多半“不羁”，受教育程度较 低。但从统计学的角度看，弟弟妹妹们更有可能成为艺术家或者喜剧演员、冒险家、企业家或者消防员，过着自己喜欢的生活。至于排行中间的孩子，就算对研究人 员来说，也还是谜团一个。

龙龙他妈

原来如此！！！嗯，好好学习！！！

快乐无忧

好好学习，天天向上！

故事0501

来看一看。

我是谁

小时候我们老师也说过类似的话：怎么你和你哥哥的表现那么不同，简直不像一家人？