What if most of your life is based on something that can't be controlled or chosen? This thing that affects most of life is birth order. Everyone is born into a certain position in their family, be it the oldest, the youngest, or anywhere in between. This order influences how parents treat children. The older ones are usually the guinea pigs being experimented on, while the younger ones are usually the most spoiled and seem to have the most freedom. Birth order affects not only the raising of a child and that child's responsibility in the family, but it greatly affects career choice. Actual and Psychological Birth People who study how birth order affects career focus on two types of births, actual birth and psychological birth. Actual birth is the birth order in which children come into the world. This order usually includes oldest, middle, and youngest. Psychological birth refers to the meaning the child feels he or she has for his or her family (Murphy, 6). To better understand psychological birth, an example is that of the middle child, who usually has a rather low psychological birth. “Often middle children have nothing about them that makes them feel special and worthy of their family's attention” (Collins, 4) This psychological birth is low because most middle children do not feel important to their family due to the lack of attention they receive. Psychological birth influences the characteristics of a child more than actual birth, due to the feelings that are imposed on him, making him feel insecure (Murphy, 6). However, a combination of real and psychological birth order effects play an important role in shaping the child throughout the rest of his life...middle of the paper...gets good at finding equal ground between two people or negotiate. Furthermore, they usually do not tend to have the same responsibility as the eldest child, and when they do, they tend to try to step out of their role or responsibility (Collins, 4). Because middle children are good at maintaining order, they usually have jobs such as law enforcement, teaching, and personal care (Mantell). Younger children tend to be irresponsible and lazy because they were spoiled growing up. They also always try to impress their parents by trying to be different from their older siblings (Stossel). Younger children also have great artistic abilities, so they usually pursue creative jobs such as artists or sales and marketing (Mantell). Creativity comes from trying to think of ways to impress their parents while they are young.