It totally was my experience of being a firstborn. My mother went through a stage of insisting I stay in my own garden, which meant I missed out on lots of stuff the other kids were doing. My younger brothers roamed all over the fields that surrounded us (though having said that they were much less likely to do what they were told than I was)
Anyway, I'm not denying your specific experience. It all depends on the time and the place and the parents, and those can all be different. I'm not even denying that firstborns may be treated a little differently than later children. What I am denying is that firstborn risk consciousness can explain a major societal shift in childrearing attitudes. In general, firstborn children 50 years ago were given much more personal freedom than even later children today, despite the fact that "GenX" was a smaller generation in population with few siblings.
