I am an only child and this has affected me more than I can explain. For lack of predecessors, I was the guinea pig for all of my parents' experiences. Every decision or mistake I made was on me from the start and I always had my parents' full attention. This is both a good and a bad thing. On the positive side, every accomplishment in my life has been amplified and every effort has been fully supported. On the other hand, every mistake, failure, bad decision and judgment was like a permanent mark in my existence. Say no to plagiarism. Get a custom essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get the original essayMy lack of family members, even extended family, has changed the way I act around groups of people. I never had an example to follow and I never had to set an example for anyone. It gave me a strange feeling of isolation that I learned to embrace. I find comfort in solidarity and often feel nervous around people. Comparing myself to the birth order characteristics chart, I find many similarities and a few significant differences. I am certainly a perfectionist, often experiencing significant emotional breakdowns whenever a deadline approaches and a project is imperfect or incomplete. I am extremely organized and borderline OCD. This helps sometimes, but it's mostly annoying. I am a “driver” who will do almost anything to achieve a goal if I am determined to do so. I am logical and erudite. I spend most of my time alone listening to music or reading. On the other hand, I'm the opposite of self-confidence. I need the approval of others and often find myself working too hard or changing myself just so that one person will have a better opinion of me. I also don't make lists unless I have to pack for a trip. Even then, I record things in a very sporadic way that makes sense to me, but to almost no one else. Many variables affected my birth order characteristics. I am an only child and I am adopted. I have a cousin who is four years older than me. My family is extremely small, consisting of a father and mother, two aunts, two uncles, three cousins, and a grandmother and grandfather. (until last year) An aunt and uncle live in Colorado with their 20 year old daughters, two of my cousins. Needless to say, they haven't affected my life dramatically. Many of the expectations my parents had of me were based on my cousin being practically perfect, giving me some traits of a last born, but not enough to be considered. My mother is a middle child, born second of three. Her brother was born four years before her and her sister seven years late. Although birth order normally resets after five or six years, it is evident that my mother has adopted the characteristics of a middle, or even eldest, child. My mother wanted a little sister for her sixth birthday, and when she was seven, my grandmother was expecting a little girl. After Missy was born, my mother welcomed her as if she were her own daughter. My grandmother often told me stories about having to send my mother shopping to get her to leave the baby alone. This significantly affected his personality and completely upended the birth order. Mom was the youngest child in seven years. His older brother, Chuck, was by far the craziest in the family, earning a few years of military school at the age of twenty. My mother learned from her mistakes and took on the role of perfect daughter by.