Devorah clearly recalls her introduction to her husband’s family: “At our vort my future mother-in-law went around introducing my 23-year-old chassan to people as her baby. He was the youngest of six with his older siblings all long married so she really viewed him as a child. To me the oldest of two it was the weirdest thing I’d ever heard.”

Devorah claims that her husband didn’t outgrow the “baby” label until he was well into his 40s. Even to this day the deeply-ingrained memories of being overlooked and treated as a child still affect him.

It’s difficult for anyone to let go of long-held self images but especially so for the family baby. Many lastborns will testify to being spoiled and mollycoddled as children which led them to develop unique personality traits and a sometimes envied sometimes unenviable position in the family dynamic. However while parents and older siblings are responsible for the way they treat the youngest child ultimately it is the lastborn himself who must make the most of his position in the family and the personality traits it triggers.

The Carefree Youngest

In contrast to the straitlaced personality typical of firstborns lastborns have a reputation for being laid-back and fun loving. And for good reason explains Dr. Kevin Leman author of the popular Birth Order Book: Why You Are the Way You Are. Since parents are classically more relaxed about matters like bedtime chores and homework with their younger children lastborns tend to take life less seriously than their older siblings. After all if the adults in their lives don’t care what time they go to bed why should they?

This laissez faire approach to childrearing — often a symptom of beleaguered parents — has potential downsides according to Mrs. Dina Friedman of Ramat Beit Shemesh who teaches a popular series of teleconferenced parenting classes called Chanoch Lnaar. Youngest children sometimes have to cope with parents who are burned-out or overwhelmed with many different obligations. They may experience more loneliness than other children.

Devorah’s husband Baruch recalls sitting at the top of the stairs as a youngster long after he’d been sent to bed wishing he was part of conversation downstairs. Later when he was a teenager his siblings had all moved out of the house while he was left alone with his parents and his elderly grandmother who required attention and care. “When I finally left to yeshivah I never went home during bein hazmanim if I could help it ” he says. “I went to my older siblings instead.” He craved the action and the camaraderie he would find there. 

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