Experience of people who have siblings - how have you felt about the size of your family of origin?

[angelko24]

@sisi I’m the oldest. 17 months later my sister was (surprise!) born. She was 2 years 3 months when my brother was born. My dad worked alot so it was mostly my sahm taking care of us. I fought alot with my sister but played alot with her too. My brother was more of a play thing when we were young and then as we got older he had different interests and I don’t remember playing with him loads . We all get on very well as adults.

When I was 17 yo my dad had a baby with his new wife. We always got on well and now we text semi regularly even though we live in different countries.

Love having my siblings and couldn’t imagine life without them. Occasionally when I was younger I’d dream of being an only child and having all the attention. Also sometimes wanted more siblings (specifically an older one!) but didn’t think about it either way very much.

One downside to three and one parent working a lot was that we Never really got much “one on one” time with our parents which I think is important and I plan to do with my two.

If we had more money and I didn’t have to go back to work after maternity leave we would maybe go for a third child. As it is we are very happy with our two boys. Definitely always wanted more than one.

ETA- relationship with my mum is good! My dad sadly passed away but we also had a good relationship.

 

[sisi]

@angelko24 Thank you for answering! Having more one-on-one quality time with my girls is the one thing that I try to focus on in being happy with stopping at two. But 3 does sound so nice.

 

[karosti]

@sisi I (F) have one sister who's 2 years older. She was planned and my parents were actually going to wait a little longer to have a 2nd but they got pregnant with me. We were close growing up, had a couple classes together in high school and lived together in college. We both had some mental health concerns that took some figuring out (nothing major, but depression and ADHD) so we didn't talk much for a while but we're close again now in our 30s. I was a very very shy kid so I loved having an older sister to do things with. However, I was really very academically inclined and I think my sister felt overshadowed by me and even now is a bit competitive with me so her answer might be a bit different. I never really wanted more or fewer siblings, 2 was good for having someone to do things with but not having to share your parents with too many other people. I only have one daughter, but I'd like to have another kid. I've done a lot of thinking about how many kids I want and my own childhood experience is probably the number one reason why I'd like to have 2.

ETA: We're both really close with our mother now, and while we both speak to our dad fairly infrequently we do have good relationships with him too.

 

[473174]

@karosti Currently have 2 daughters and unsure if we will have any more so I’m glad to read this

 

[jimmyjay]

@sisi Great thread, thanks for posting and to all who responded!

 

[angelina185]

@sisi 2 siblings, upside was when I was young we played together but that stopped when I was around 8, I’m not close with either sibling. Life definitely would have been easier in my family if I was an only child. First two have five year age gap and me and middle have three year. Never wished for more, have wished to be an only child. Didn’t mind two brothers I wasn’t very girl so didn’t care for a sister. See my one brother occasionally at holidays or if my mom organizes dinner, I love him but we are super different people have nothing to really talk about. Other sibling is estranged from the whole family. We’re deciding between one and done or having two. I lean towards OAD, husband wants two. All I know is it is undeniably easier overall to have only one child so I struggle with why I should do something I know will be harder

 

[sisi]

@angelina185 Thanks for sharing! Why do you think you stopped spending time together around 8?

 

[angelina185]

@sisi We have very different personalities, but partially some of it I think is my parents fault. They really babies my middle sibling. As an adult I recognize that kids do need different things, but I think they needed to cultivate more independence in the middle kid, he was (and still is in some ways) very immature and myself and the older are and always were super independent kids. Especially in the teenage years I was very annoyed by his inability to do literally anything by himself, but there were tons of things I was expected to do by myself. In later years (I was like 26) my mom said that I was always independent and wanted to do things for myself (which was true) and he never did (also true) and they thought at some point he would just start and I was like NO you fostered independence in my for things I didn’t like to do alone or know how to do and you never did that with him and basically he never liked or knew how to do anything for himself. She basically said because I was a girl it was important to her I was independent and didn’t feel like I needed a guy but for the boys she had a more they’ll grow out of it attitude, spoiler alert they don’t. My brother’s girlfriend still very much does most things for him.

 

[sisi]

@angelina185 That's an interesting family dynamic, and the fact that the middle was babied is such a reversal of the stereotypical forgotten middle child/coddled youngest dynamic!

 

[nehuge]

@sisi I am the middle child of a family with 3 kids. My sister is 23 months older than me and my brother is 18 months younger. We were all planned, and our parents planned on my brother being the last one. My parents are both from families with three kids as well. My sister and I never got along well. As adults we don’t have much contact. We also live in different states. I’m not super close with my brother, but we see each other from time to time and enjoy each others’ company. We’re always up for helping each other out when needed. Also, my toddler absolutely loves his uncle. My brother and his wife are the ones I have listed to pick up my son from school. In some ways, I feel like as the middle child and the second girl, I was the forgotten one. My siblings got some opportunities that I did not. For example, my sister got to take violin lessons. I asked to do the same but never got to. My brother tried tons of different sports and our parents went all out every time he tried something new, always getting him all the best gear and everything. I often got my sister’s old stuff (makes sense financially, but I would have liked more stuff that was only mine). As for relationships with parents, I’ve always been so used to having at least one of my siblings around so I was never comfortable being alone with our parents. Ad an adult, I’d still rather not be alone with either of my parents (they are now divorced).
As far as my own family, I have one child and would like to have at least one more. I don’t want just one child to be responsible for our estate when my husband and I pass away. I also never want to force siblings to be close with each other, but I’d like there to be more than one child in the family because nobody understands what it is like to grow up with the same parents like siblings do. I think 3 kids would be a great number because there is a chance at least 2 of the kids will stay close to each other. I would love for them all to get along, but I’m not going to try to force it.
My husband is an only child and he is really close to his parents. I just don’t have the desire to be very close to my parents. I don’t think the relationships we choose to maintain as adults is completely dependent on the number of siblings, but I think it can be an important factor.

 

[sisi]

@nehuge Thanks for sharing! I have two girls and making my youngest into the middle child gives me pause - she loves being the baby, and I worry that she'd feel "forgotten" like you did as the middle child and second girl! But agree that 3 sounds nice because there are more opportunities for sibling relationships.

 

[mitchellh]

@sisi Family of 5! Age gaps 2 and 3 years. I'm the oldest kid. I absolutely loved it growing up! Can't imagine childhood any other way.

 

[sisi]

@mitchellh Thanks for sharing! Three sounds so ideal to me, but I think we're going to end up staying with our two, sadly. How many kids do you have, or want?

 

[jdsnyd]

@sisi I was an only child to a relatively young, hardworking single mother. I never longed for siblings growing up because the experience of an only child was all I knew.

I often whined that I was bored, as my mom was often tired or working. I had to make my own fun much of the time, and this made me very creative and independent. I was fortunate to have a rich network of very involved grandparents and cousins as well as pets, so I never felt lonely.

There was only one time in my life I wished I had a sibling, and that was during a tough situation when I was an adult. I deeply wished I had a sibling who gave a damn and would stick their neck out for me that one time. I turned to good friends and extended relatives who couldn’t or wouldn’t help. I got past it alone, but if I had family my age I could have relied on then it would have made a lot of difference to me.

Because my son won’t have a rich network of extended family like I had, I feel more urgency to have a second. My childhood would not have been nearly as rich without those extensions of my family.

 

[heatherlilly]

@sisi I have 2 siblings. A younger brother and younger sister.

Downside was that I was much older than my brother so my parents forced me to babysit without pay quite often. It made me annoyed with my parents though, not my siblings. Upside is that we always had inbuilt friends and vacations/outings were always fun because I had people to play with. Now I’m great friends with both and even though we are separated we talk in a group chat almost everyday. They are my favorite people outside my husband and kids.

All children were planned, my mom actually wanted 4 kids but she ran into fertility issues.

Me then 3 years younger than me was my sister and then my brother is 4 years younger than her.

Never wished for more or for fewer.

Nope, I liked having both a brother and sister.

My dad and I had a very strained relationship but he passed some time ago. Great relationship with my mom and siblings, I love them all tons.

I have 2 kids. I’m 95% I will stay at 2 though I sometimes really want 3. I just don’t want to worry about money and my husband really doesn’t want 3 though he said it was up to me - I’m not going to make someone begrudgingly have a kid though. That would be terrible, so 2 it is!

 

[sisi]

@heatherlilly Thanks for sharing! Yes, I would imagine being put in charge of childcare as a child would create some resentment, but it's wonderful that it didn't seep into your relationship with them and that you're close.

 

[cehughes]

@sisi My husband and I both have 1-2 siblings of opposite genders between 1-2 years apart. We don’t talk to either siblings anymore and they are not self-sufficient. Our parents are still not retired in their 70s because they have to take care of our siblings who still live with them. We are the only self-sufficient of the 2-3 kids. We both realize we will be the only ones taking care of both sets of parents and depending on how generous we are - also taking care of our siblings. Because of this we chose to be one and done. People often think “oh having a sibling = lifelong friend” and not “having a sibling = split resources and a possibility of more responsibility for the siblings depending on special needs of the other siblings.”

Growing up I was not estranged from my brother and we played together pretty well up until end of middle school - we stopped talking in high school. My husband and his two sisters on the other hand were constantly fighting. I believe this caused more stress on the parents.

 

[anna121]

@cehughes Ugh yes. My older brother has never had a job or a driver’s license, much less lived independently.

Now my mothers health is going downhill and I have a toddler and am pregnant with our second - no idea what we will do with my brother when my mom passes. She just expects me to take care of him. It’s so difficult.

 

[cehughes]

@anna121 I don’t know what we are going to do to be honest. I supported my parents financially since I graduated college including paying for their mortgage. I’m thinking of just giving my brother the house I’ve been paying for that he’s been living in for free and cutting off contact but then after he runs through the $$ wondering if I’ll just end up losing a property and back at square one.

 

[sisi]

@cehughes I'm sorry, that sounds really hard! Your siblings all have disabilities, or are there other reasons they are not able to be self-sufficient?