11 Women On What People Get Wrong About Being The Youngest Sibling

I'm a sucker for a good pop-psychology quiz. I'll spend hours deep-diving into my Co-Star chart, justifying all my problems with "I'm a Virgo, babe!", and subjecting all my friends to extensive Myers-Briggs testing. (Fun fact: more than half of them are INFPs.) And of course, I love guessing people's birth order, even if I've only known them for 20 minutes.

It's not hard to fall into this little guessing game. We're constantly told that our traits are intrinsically linked to our birth order. You know the ones. Eldest children are the definition of successful — they're goal-oriented, perfectionists, and are usually worthy stand-ins as a second mum. Middle children are often seen to be alienated, competitive, and neglected, with many identifying with "middle child syndrome".

But like many birth order stereotypes, there's a problem with how we view the youngest child. Youngest children are often seen as the bratty, fun-loving, freewheeling siblings who get away with everything.
They're seen to have less responsibility. They're needy and coddled. They're spoilt, because they're always the centre of attention. They have it easy. They're sexy (...okay, I might have made that last one up).

In an effort to banish the stereotypes, we asked eleven Australian women what they wish other people knew about being the youngest child — and we found that many are actually overcompensating, overlooked and overshadowed.