The Pecking Order

[houseelf]

The Pecking Order: Which Siblings Succeed and Why, by Dalton Conley

This book is a fascinating study of why children raised in the same home by the same parents take such widely divergent socioeconomic trajectories in life. He uses statistical and sociobiological data to support his theories about what makes the difference between outcomes. This is a book that makes one examine their own childhood and their childrearing. Absolutely fascinating.

Kelly

[BonBon]

I got this book out of the library over a month ago and ended up having to return it without reading it. (I always go to the library with delusions of how much time I actually have to read )

Thanks, Kelly, I am going to get it out again. It sounds like necessary reading.

I'm definitely going to check this out. I just had a discussion about this topic with my neighbor yesterday! It always amazes me how different my husband and his sister are!

My DH and his sister are night and day -- to the point that people comment and wonder how they could have grown up in the same family. I don't have a good answer -- besides "switched at birth". Sounds like interesting reading! I'm going to add it to my library list right now.

[Rapunzel]

I think that is a book I would be interested in reading. In my family (4 siblings) and my husband's (5 surviving siblings total) I see many shared traits that seem to have resulted in wildly divergent personalities.

I wonder if it goes into the "seventh son of a seventh son" mythology?

Jennifer

[fluffhead]

OK, so I've had this book in the bathroom for the past several weeks and have been perusing it. I don't get it - he jettisons the birth order theory, but then most of those anecdotes just show that the main determinant of success is basically coincidence!
I mean, the stories are all about how one sibling gets out of the house before a major family disaster, and the other one is left to pick up the pieces, or how one sister has a bad accident, and gets all the mother's attention, and the other is estranged, etc etc.
So the point is that there's no way to control what happens? Or is the lesson that we should recognize that random occurences can severely impact our children's futures, and we should try to adjust for that?
Any thoughts?
(overall, I liked the stories, but found most of the rest of the book kind of long-winded)

Ok, this book is going back to the library unfinished so this is a weak review. The unfinished status isn't entirely a comment on the quality of the book but rather on my time to read. I agree with Fluffhead that it is long-winded.

I found the sub title of this book misleading (The Pecking Order: Which Siblings Succeed and Why). I don't think it really gives the why on a broad basis -- but it does for individual cases. I didn't get what I wanted out of this book -- an understanding of why my life is so different from my sibling or for my DH and his sibling. And I don't mean different in that sort of rich and varied wonderful way but different in that I hope my children don't turn out like them and if I could identify ways to prevent it I would.

But, I think that my expectation is unreasonable. Reading this makes me realize that there are many reasons for differences in siblings beyond the simple explanation of genetics or birth order. He disproves some of these theories but doesn't really offer up any concrete theories of his own. I think he has found several suitable sources of data and unique but solid ways to examine it (he could be more upfront about some of his assumptions and biases in analysis, IMO).