A common argument among siblings is who’s older, whether it be used as an excuse to get a better seat in the car or getting to stay up later.
The debate can become even more heated when dealing with multiples, where only minutes separates the children’s ages. One triplet recently took to TikTok to film her and her siblings’ reactions to hearing their birth order for the first time.
“POV you’re a triplet and your parents waited to tell you birth order until your 18th birthday,” text across the screen read.
The clip has music playing in the background as the triplets sit next to each other in anticipation, with Wright on the left end, Janie in the middle, and Luke on the right end. The video then captured the moment they learn, with each of the triplets seen with a shocked expression on their face and the video ending in a big group hug. However, it is never revealed to the viewers what their birth order actually is.
Despite the cliffhanger, the video went on to receive more than 20 million views, with many commenters praising the idea of keeping birth order a secret.
“Avoids the ‘well I’m older!’ argument growing up, I love that,” one comment read.
“This is so wholesome,” another commenter agreed.
Other commenters were either parents of twins and triplets or a multiple themselves, who had no idea how the parents were able to avoid their children constantly “bugging” them to pry the answer out of them.
“I have twins and triplets - I’m so tired I can’t imagine how I’d keep it a secret,” one parent wrote in the comments.
Another commenter agreed, writing: “How’d you go so long without knowing I be bugging my mom already hearing the story 10x.”
“I’m a twin and I can’t imagine my childhood without reminding my brother I’m one minute older!” a third commenter pointed out.
Many commenters were begging to hear the actual birth order, which was later revealed in a follow-up video.
According to the TikToker, Wright is the oldest triplet, while Luke was second, and the only girl, Janie, is the youngest.
According to an interview with Today with the triplets’ parents, Stewart Hilbert and Clay Hilbert, and their daughter Janie, the decision to keep the birth order a secret was actually an idea that came from their older son, Clayton.
“He was also definitely precocious, a rule follower and very literal,” the mother told the outlet. They assumed Clayton would want the oldest child to get fed first and wanted to avoid some of the sibling stereotypes to sink in.
“We just didn’t want to play his game, and we were like, alright, let’s just keep it a secret. It’ll be fun. They won’t have to subscribe to any of the stereotypes of oldest, middle, youngest, all that.”
Although they did admit that keeping the secret became more difficult as the children got older, Janie revealed she even went to extreme lengths to find out the birth order on her own.
“We tried to figure it out for so long. We begged and begged. They wouldn’t crack,” Janie recalled to Today.
“I remember being in third or fourth grade, and my friends and I would sneak up to our attic and try and go through and find something [but] my parents were so careful and strategic about it,” she added. “They had every little piece of information written and all about our childhood, all about how we acted. And in none of those books was the order.”
But their parents did give them one clue. They put the triplets birth order in their family group chat. “I was so excited to try to tell them that it was in front of them the whole time,” Clay said.
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