Learn 20+ words to talk about personality & character in English
Did you know that depending on what order you were born, you and your brothers and sisters have predictable personalities? In this lesson, I will teach you about birth order, which is the theory that if you were born first, second, or last, you will have certain positive and negative traits. For example, are you a “mama’s boy“? Or maybe you are the type to be jealous for attention. If you were born last, it may be that you are a daredevil and a bit manipulative. The middle child tends to feels inadequate and competitive. Watch the lesson, and do the quiz at to learn the vocabulary associated with birth order. In the process, you will also learn a lot about yourself!
TRANSCRIPT
It’s a beautiful day in the neighbourhood. I’m Ronnie. I’m not Mr. Rogers. I’m going to teach you something today that’s I think kind of interesting, and I would like to know your opinion; if you agree or disagree with this theory. This is a psychological theory. Let’s dive into your brain. Delicious.
There’s been many studies done on what we call “birth order“. So, “birth order“ means if you were born first, second, or third. We also call it, like, the middle-baby syndrome. I’ve just made that up. But if you’re... if you’re the middle kid, you have disadvantages; there’s TV shows about it, called Malcolm in the Middle. There’s been so many things, so much research done about this, and I’m just going to share this with you, and you can learn some vocabulary, and you can learn something about yourself, and if you are a parent you can maybe learn something about your children. Why are they so crazy? Why are those little devils doing that? Or why is my child an angel? So, this is called “birth order“.
And the first thing I want to teach you is few slang words in regard to parenting. So, one of them is called a “mama’s boy“. You probably have this in your language. “Mama’s boy“ is a boy who always depends on their mother. So, a mama’s boy will never really become fully independent. His mother will always do his laundry; cook his dinner, and lunch, and breakfast; and basically never, ever grow up. So, you don’t actually want to produce a mama’s boy and you don’t actually want to be a mama’s boy because, in the future, it will cause problems in relationships because no one can ever replace your mother and... oh, so the trauma begins. So, “mama’s boy“ are boys who depend too much on their mothers. So, mamas, stop babying your son. Make him do the cooking and the laundry. Relax. Take a bubble bath. Eat some bonbons. Let that kid do the washing up.
Okay, the other one is a new sensation called “helicopter parenting“. So, in our society, because it has become more dangerous, parents now have to actually walk their children to school. When I was a child, I got to go to school by myself-yay-and cross the road, and I survived. But, again, our society is getting more dangerous, depending on where you live. Now parents must walk the kids to school and pick them up. So, this obviously would interfere with having a job and properly maybe a life. So, “helicopter parenting“ means that the parents watch the children too much.
Before it was called being “overprotective“. So, if you have an overprotective mother or father, they’re always watching what you’re doing, they’re always worried, and it’s really annoying because you want your freedom. So, helicopter parenting is just being overprotective about your children. Of course, it’s your natural instinct to protect your children, but sometimes it gets too much.
Another example of this is for children’s birthday parties. When I was a child, I would go to my friend’s birthday party by myself, maybe my mother and father would drop me off, and I would play for a couple of hours, eat some cake, go home. Now the parents actually go to the kids’ birthday parties. You guys just want cake. I get it. Good idea. Yeah. “I’m protecting my children.“ You’re protecting your stomach from the cake. Okay, I get it. So, this is parent... helicopter parenting. Negative, positive? You decide.
So, let’s start with the “first born“; your very first baby. So, you are really excited for the very first baby but you are also very, very, very nervous because you want the baby to survive. So, as a parent, the first baby you don’t know what to do, of course; you’ve never done this before. So, you have very strict rules and everything is crazy. If the baby is sick: “Oh my god! It’s an emergency!“ That’s normal.
So, what the effect of this is: The first born are always going to have the most strict parents and the most strict rules. Okay? And that’s wonderful. The baby grows up, then-doo-doo-doo-doo-surprise - you have another child. So, what happens is with the birth of the second child, the first born is going to learn really, really positive things. The child is going to learn to nurture and love-hopefully-his or her baby brother or sister. […]