A Statement of a First-Born Child: “Born first and Wants to Stay First!” (An Auto-ethnographic Study)

The focus of this study is to examine the characteristics possessed by a first- born child and the way the first- born child deals with life in a day to day basis based on birth order. It also looks at culture and other social contexts in determining life decisions and stories of a first-born child. Furthermore, it looks upon the idea of sibling competition and rivalry and how siblings play a very big role in a first-born’s life. The information is acquired through the method of self-narrative, and interview with family members were also conducted in order to test validity as well as reliability of data obtained. The results show that a first- born child experiences a period of “dethronement” when siblings are born and that has an impact on the child’s life as well as both her personality and behaviour. Several characteristics that were seen to be present were that she possessed a leadership trait, bossy, dominant, nurturing, and people pleaser.