Are Wednesday's Children Full of Woe? Children's Differences in Personality Are Independent of Day of Birth

Abstract

IntroductionNursery rhymes, which are rich in literary devices, benefit children's language learning. Less is known about the influence that nursery rhymes' messages may have on children's development. We focused on “Monday's Child,” a popular nursery rhyme that alleges children's day of the week of birth forecasts their differences in personality and physical traits.MethodsData came from E‐Risk, a UK population representative, longitudinal cohort study of 2232 same‐sex twin children (with 93% retention). We used linear regression models to test whether the day of the week of birth predicted personality and physical traits at ages 5–18 years.ResultsBeing born on Monday through Saturday did not predict children's personality and physical traits as implied by the “Monday's Child” rhyme. Being born on Sunday was also not associated with children's traits across measures. These results were unchanged after covariate adjustment (i.e., children's sex, birthweight, and socioeconomic status).ConclusionWe showed that children's differences in personality and physical traits are independent of their day of the week of birth. These findings suggest that nursery rhymes' messages are unlikely to influence children's development, at least those conveyed by “Monday's Child”.