It might not be your fault! (a little psychology for everyone)

Just as the political environment a newly elected president enters into can influence his overal policy and public opinion success, so too can the circumstances of your birth -- especially if you're born in the winter?

I am not only a winter baby, but also adopted and originally born to an unmarried, less affluent 18 year old, so this study hits home for me. I've always joked that my Dec. 15th birthday makes me a "spring break baby" (count backwards 9 months...), but I had never considered the implications of that in terms of how many others might be in precisely the same position. It turns out that data shows that winter babies tend to be born to unmarried, poor women, although the article points to prom as a possible culprit.

The Malcolm Gladwell book "Outliers" discusses a similar point -- how circumstances can influence success (I recommend it), and points out that when you're born during the year can influence how good you'll be at sports and in school due to cut off dates for grade and team rules. I hadn't thought about it before, but the same ideas could possibly apply to how good a political leader one might be? I conducted some breif research and found that among the Presidents since JFK, only two presidents are born in the winter months. Reagan and...wait for it....Carter. The article also suggests that those born in the winter are sometimes young for thier grade due to cut offs, so perhaps being young makes you less of a leader among peers. Additionally, since winter babies tend to be less academically successful, I motion to give any of us winter babies some sort of handicap for grading -- it's only fair right?

Anyway, I thought this was really interesting, and although not directly related to politics, there's always room for a little psychology and sociology, right?