You're as surprised as she is when you hear yourself say, "Promise me your firstborn child, then".
Her own mother passed before my mother was married and had me, her firstborn, and then my sister and brother.
I don't imagine your friend handed you a shopping list when she invited you to play your part in the life of her firstborn, so if you've bought your godchild's affection then surely you only have yourself to blame?
As part of the generation that might name their firstborns Hermione or Harry, and then be willing sell off said firstborn for the prospect of an eighth Potter tale, it can be hard to remain discerning.
Up pops the question: "What did Parkinson [he of the law] say was the only reason men go into local politics?" I, obviously, suggest "selfless duty"; my firstborn suggests "overweening power", and then Jeremy Paxman gives us the real answer: "unhappy marriage".
The only family members who had been permitted to see Bhutto in the hours before he died were his daughter Benazir, his firstborn and favorite child, who was then in her twenties, and his wife, Nusrat.
When the birth of Roose's heir was announced, and he kindly told Ramsay he'd always be his firstborn, and Ramsay thanked him, and then a torso was stabbed, I thought, Oh great!
Then suddenly, without your firstborn's choice, knowledge or input, a stranger -- the new sibling -- is introduced into his/her world.
As a freshman at Cambridge, Idle played a weatherman in a skit called "BBC BC," written by the older Cleese: "Over the whole of Egypt, plague followed by floods, followed by frogs, and then death of all the firstborn -- sorry about that, Egypt".
If parents do not differentially invest in offspring and if resources do not change over time, then we would predict that firstborns and lastborns will be more successful than middleborns which, because of competition, necessarily receive less care (see Figure 1a).
