the unprejudiced observer -- innate parenting?

[Rosemary Hyde]

The research on effects of birth order on life experience for children
corroborates strongly how much parenting skills are learned, although the
nurturing response, especially in mothers, has also a hormonal component.
Parents do things with first children that they know are not necessary by
the time subsequent children appear. This learning of parenting skill has a
significant and documented result in the birth order effects that have been
shown to influence most children.

Rosemary C. Hyde