OU on the BBC: Child of Our Time 2010 - The triplets' story

Production team

As you would expect with triplets there are lots of issues to discuss and think about. If you have been a parent yourself you can appreciate the huge demands of having to care for three babies when you only have one pair of hands. You can also appreciate the mother’s need for a routine to be able to get through feeds and bedtime.

But it is also clear that after two years of sleepless nights the toll of looking after the triplets is beginning to show. What is reassuring, though, is that through the mother’'s perseverance, good sense and enjoyment of family life, things do become a bit easier as the triplets become older and start school.

A strong theme in the programme about Phoebe, Mabel and Alice is the differences between them. This is evident even though they were born at approximately the same time, had similar experiences in their family and had the same mother and father. However, very soon after birth we hear their mother describing Phoebe as being “quiet as a mouse", and eventually we see that she is quieter than her sisters when at school.

The newborn Mabel is described as a "cheeky little monkey" and a bit lazy in her sucking; later she is described as the one who gets her way by screaming. Alice is described as the sensible newborn, and she is later voted by her classmates to be on the school council.

One quick interpretation of this could be that the triplets’ mother is very perceptive and that our personalities are "fixed" at birth. However, most researchers are a bit more cautious about drawing this conclusion. Although there are differences in temperament from birth, there is uncertainty about the extent to which these differences continue into later life.

There is more certainty among researchers that our personality and temperament are a result of a complex set of influences. For example, the way we are treated can have a big influence on us. If your mother and, through her, other members of the family have certain expectations about your personality and how you will behave, then this could contribute to a self-fulfilling prophecy.

So although we might initially interpret the programme as showing that genetics and inborn dispositions make the later child, we have to be cautious about drawing this conclusion. Child development is the result of many different influences and the reactions of those around us also play an important part.

To discover more about some of the things that can have an impact on how children grow up, read about the influence of temperament on development.

Child of Our Time 2010 in more depth: