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Author: Nocturna

Aug 21st 2011 at 11:29:45 PM

^^In terms of examples, I was going through the first series/books/etc that popped into my head. And, actually, out of the 40 families mentioned in my examples list, 24 are girls only (whether only child or all-girls); of the rest, 13 are boys-as-oldest (although in my examples I ignored instances where it was all boys, as that automatically requires a boy to be eldest), and 3 have the sister as the eldest. So yeah, it's not exactly "all fictional families have boys as the eldest".

Also, it's possibly worth noting that five of the books/book series on my list (plus a few of the Disney movies) are from before the middle of the 20th century; I honestly wouldn't be surprised if boys-as-firstborn was more prevalent before independent women were a common occurrence.

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@[=CommanderPanda=]: "Caretaker" might not be the best word to use under Son point B, as it generally indicates guardianship or a parent-like level of responsibility (at least in my experience), but I think you've summed up the mentioned ideas nicely otherwise.

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On a different note, do you think that it might be worth expanding this trope (or starting a separate trope) to cover the way family dynamics are treated in fiction? More-or-less like what's proposed above, but also covering girls-as-elder-over-brothers and the roles of younger siblings (or is that way too broad)?