Siblings!

neludelu

Do you have siblings? What is your relationship like with them? I have two and we go from bff's to enemies overnight. Does your relationship with yours impact your goals for your own families?

Stankonia2014

I have one half-brother, we are eight years apart. I basically raised him because my mom wanted to sow her wild oats. We are close, but not super close, we still have more of a mother/son relationship. He calls for advice or food and I see him every once in awhile.

I do know that growing up an only child for eight years was lonely and I knew I wanted my child to have a sibling if possible.

FSUNole31

I have three sisters.  We are all really close. I really hope my children grow up to be great friends like the 4 of us have.  It wasn't always great and we had our fair share of fighting, but now we would do anything for each other. 

Editing to add:  I am 14 months younger than my older sister, 18 months older than my first youngest and 4 years older from my youngest. 

mombod

I have two older brothers. One is 5 years older, the other is 2 years older. Growing up we fought and were best friends depending on the hour. These days the one closest in age is my favorite person in the world. We get each other for sure. My oldest brother put a lot of strain on our family bc of past drug and alcohol problems and his lack of responsibility towards his daughter. I love him but hes hard to deal with, brings the drama, and is not the same person (we suspect brain damage from drug use). This is one of the reasons I would like to have a 3rd child so theres greater chance they will take care of each other.

LMMama

I have a brother that is 4 years younger and a sister that is 6 years younger. My brother lives across the country and is in the navy so I see him maybe twice a year. We do FaceTime once in a while though. My sister and I aren't very close, even though we live very close. I feel bad because I know she wants to be closer and I should make more of an effort.

I've definitely always wanted siblings for my DD. I think there is great value in them and hope to have one more kid to add to the mix as well. 

neludelu

LMMama said:

I have a brother that is 4 years younger and a sister that is 6 years younger. My brother lives across the country and is in the navy so I see him maybe twice a year. We do FaceTime once in a while though. My sister and I aren't very close, even though we live very close. I feel bad because I know she wants to be closer and I should make more of an effort.

I've definitely always wanted siblings for my DD. I think there is great value in them and hope to have one more kid to add to the mix as well. 

Why aren't you and your sister closer? Just bring nosy.

LMMama

@neludelu I don't think there is any particular reason. Maybe our age difference? When I went to college and moved out permanently she was 12. She's very involved with my DD and I see her often, but I wouldn't consider us friends. Not because of anything negative that has happened, just the way things worked out. 

hjphillips

Three siblings. Two older half siblings, then my little brother. Sister is 11 years older, older brother is 9 years older. I'm not close with either of them at all. We only even talk when we see one another at family gatherings. They moved out when I was 7 and 9, respectively, so I just don't know them well.  

My younger brother and I are 20 months apart, and he is my best friend in the entire world. I know that I can tell him anything, and he can tell me anything. We're always there for one another. That's why I'm excited that this new baby and my DD will be about 22 months apart, because I can see he chance for them to have the kind of relationship I have with my brother. 

kfry22

I have a brother who is two years younger. We are nothing a like, never have been, and are not close at all. He is the favorite of our family, something my mom openly aknowledges. My relationship with him has nothing to do with my desire to have to kids. Becuase my son and this little one will be 19 months apart, everyone keeps telling us how they will be such good friends. I don't think you can count on that happening ever, no matter how far apart or close together siblings are born. 

jc_twomamas

Siblings! I come from a huge family. There's 7 of us total, but it's complicated. The oldest four are technically my cousins, but my aunt passed away when we were all really little so my mom and dad took my cousins in with us. I was 2 so I know nothing different then to have 5 older siblings! 
We refer to one another as brother/sister. My mom and dad are "yaya and papa" to everyone's children. We're on big blended family! 

Brother: 41
Sister: 39
Sister: 37
Sister: 35 
Brother: 32
ME!: 29 
Sister: 26 

yeeeeeep. We're all pretty close, considering the spread of us. All of us girls are especially close, but I would say the youngest four of us are the closest (and my sister/cousin who is 35 lives around the corner from my mom and dad still). 

We are spread across the world from Kuwait to California to the Upper Penisula of MI. My sister/cousin in Kuwait is a teacher and comes home during the summers with her two kids and stays at our parents house. 

I would love for DS to have lots of siblings, but we will probably fall anywhere from 2 to 4 kids. He has a ton of cousins so there's no worry there! 

keniialise

I have three siblings. 
My sister is 16 years older than me and we clearly did not grow up together. We've always had a hard time connecting, until we both started having kids at the same time. Luckily she waited later in life to have kids, and I started early. 

Next is is my step brother, he's 9/10 years older than me but we did live together quiet a few different times while I was growing up. He bounced around between his parents a lot and I was lucky to have him around. Sadly when our parents separated he went his own way and we haven't ever connected again. 

My youngest sibling is just over 2.5 years older than I am and we grew up together completely. We fought like cats and dogs for most of it, but the year I entered high school he was in his senior year and we ran with the same crowd.. so we became best friends. After he graduated he started moving all over and we've never been in the same place since, but we are still close and talk/ FaceTime when we can and see each other when ever the family is together. Even though most of our years we spent fighting I wouldn't have traded him for anything, I loved having a sibling so close in age! It was super important to have that for my kids too. 

meilay

I have three younger brothers (less than 1.5 years younger, almost 3 years younger, and 7 years younger). We're not that close but I don't feel negatively about the distance. I think my brothers are much closer to each other than I am to any of them. We grew up way closer and when I left for college we grew apart. Sometimes I wish we were closer but I think I'm just too different from them now and it makes it a little tough to have more than a mostly superficial relationship. My second brother has a kid already and I think us starting this next generation is bringing us closer again. We make more time to see each other even if it's just so I can see my nephew. 

alm52386

I have 2 younger brothers. I'm 21 months older than one and 9 years older than the other. I'm not very close with either of them. Growing up the older one and I did not get a long at all! When the younger one was born I loved to help and everyone said I was like his second mother. We are planning on having 2 kids pretty close together. We'll see how they get along I guess!

Kylieslip24

I have 7 siblings, but only 1 bio brother. I have 3 step brothers from my stepdad, and 1 stepbrother and 2 stepsisters from my stepmom. My two older stepbrothers hated me growing up because they were angry about the whole divorce in general, I haven't seen or talked to them since I moved out of my parents house. My bio brother is 2.5 years younger than me and we never really got along, but we weren't really encouraged to either. I text him sometimes to check in on him and my niece, but we're not close at all. One of my little stepbrothers never really leaves his bedroom and lives more in computer games than the real world so no relationship there. And the other I haven't seen in years because he had a falling out with my dad and only my stepmom visits him now. My little stepsisters I see the most, which is still only once a year usually. They are still in high school and take it really serious so they only visit during the summer. They are planning on being doctors and scientists and have tons of extracurriculars. 
I'm really going to try hard to encourage a good relationship between my kids because I think it's really important. Dh is close to all his brothers and we're lucky to have them at least. Dd is really close to her 4 cousins on dhs side too and I love seeing them all together. I'm hoping we get to have a third baby too because I think it's really good for kids to have a few siblings. 

danij0

I have two sisters. I'm the middle. My older sister is 3 years older, my younger sister is 18 months younger. We are all super close. We have a group text and probably text everyday even just mundane stuff. My little sister and I were best friends all through school and had all the same friends. I really looked up to my older sister and did pretty much everything she did but in my own way. I like to think I'm a perfect blend of the two of them. We fought a lot (and still do sometimes) but we went through hard times together in our teen years and it really brought us together as young adults. I can't imagine life without them!

I love having siblings and will probably give this baby a sibling or two, but sometimes I think about being one and done. A few of my best friends are only children and that makes me more OK with the idea of just one.

edit to add: I'm the first to have a baby and they are very excited to be aunts!

ladylolly89

I'm the second of five; ranging in age from 31-13! I'm very close to two of my brothers and my little sister. Youngest brother, not so much.

I played with my brothers growing up; we fought a little but were always good friends for the most part.
My older brother is married with a young daughter, but they live about 7 hours away so it's been hard to get to know my niece or SIL.
My next younger brother is married with a baby boy, but thankfully they live close by and we see them often. DH and I consider them to be some of our closest friends.
 As my sister didn't come along until I was 14, my relationship with her was different than with my brothers. Though we were always very close, I helped to raise her so it was a different dynamic. Now that she is a teenager, we are great friends and she loves babsitting DS! She's thrilled that her older siblings are providing her with nieces and nephews. 

awillis13

I have 2 brothers (1 older, 1 younger).  There is a 6 year difference between my older brother and I, and almost 9 years between my younger brother and I.  My older brother and I used to fight like crazy when we were growing up, but now we have gotten past that.  I wouldn't say we are close though.  We live about 1.5 hours apart, and we live VERY different lifestyles.  It has always been important to him to have a "keeping up with the jones" lifestyle - the large house in the very affluent town and the over the top parties/holidays, etc (which is how we grew up before my parents got divorced and my dad was laid off from his senior management advertising job).

In some ways, I am glad we don't live as close to them, because DH and I probably will never be able to afford to give our kids that kind of lavish lifestyle, nor do we necessarily want to.  We are perfectly happy to have the modest house, with the modest cars, and teach our kids the value of what they have (not saying my brother doesn't, but I'm ok with my kids knowing sometimes we can't have things because they cost money we do not have).  But knowing from experience, it can be hard for a kid to see other relatives have the grand over the top celebrations for things, with excessive access to toys when you are not able to have the same thing at home.

My younger brother has special needs, and while we are closer, it is because I have more of a mother/son relationship with him.  I was basically another parent to him after my parents got divorced.  I was his after school care for a long time, and I will be his legal guardian after my parents are gone or no longer able to care for him.

I always wanted my kids to be closer in age, but life doesn't always work that way.  My son and stepson are 15 months apart, so that works out well, but we only have SS every other weekend.  There will be 5.5 years between DS and this baby.  I would've liked it to be a smaller age gap, but such is life.

silliegirlie143

I just want to say that I loved reading about everyone's sibling dynamics. There are so many different ones out there that it shows there's no one "right" way or relationship. I appreciate that because mine was always made to feel different since I was surrounded by 100% nuclear families. 

I am next-to-youngest of 6. My younger sister and I are the only full siblings of the bunch. My older (half)sister also has a half brother and two half sisters from her mom.

The older 3 sisters spent their childhoods living in and out of our house. At any given time there were between 2-5 of us living with my parents. I'm closest with my younger sister (4 yrs apart) because of our shared experiences. I'm kinda close with 2 of the 3 older sisters. I can't stand the other sister. I didn't even know about our brother until I was in college. 

We all all consider ourselves siblings. Our kids all call us Aunt and Uncle. All the kids call my dad Grandpa. As an adult I can appreciate the challenges that the adults went through to give us some sense of normal. No matter how much they tried to make us all feel close though, we naturally found our own favorites. It was great to have a huge sibling support system when we lost my Mom though. 

I want my DD to have a sibling. I don't think we will have a big family unless we decide to start adopting. 

kdanjou

I have two brothers, one is 2.5 years younger than me and the other is 9 years younger.  I am definitely closer with the youngest.  The one who is closer to my age is very difficult to get along with and we have never been close.  Usually I can't stand him but fortunately he lives across the country.  The youngest still has a lot of growing up to do so he has little moody fits sometimes but I just ignore them.

Elyse1384

I have one younger brother (2 years my junior).  My parents wanted tons of kids, but struggled with IF and sat on a wait list for over a decade before "the call".  Both my brother and I are adopted (different biological parents) and I really believe in nurture over nature.  We're a very close family and people always chuckle about how similar my brother and I are (mannerisms, sense of humor, morals, etc).  

I did meet my biological father once (he reached out through the adoption agency).  During that meeting, I also met two half biological siblings from his first marriage and his current wife was pregnant with what would be a third half biological sibling.  The two kids seemed really eager to meet me (I'm 10 years+ older than both) and I feel badly that they had that yearning as I haven't kept in contact.  It caught me off guard that he took me to meet them on our first (and only) visit.  I feel badly about not keeping up with them, but it was just a very odd situation for me at the time.  I will always appreciate that my biological parents not only opted to go through with the pregnancy rather than abort, but they selected the greatest parents a kid could hope for.  To me though, they're not my family.  It feels cold to say it, but DNA means rather little to me and it is all about who loves and supports you day in and day out.

doodleoodle

I have 3 half brothers and 2 half sisters from previous marriages. I'm by far the youngest. My closest sibling in age is 6 years older than me and the furthest in age is 19 years older. I'm not really close with any of them. I see one sister here and there, but she's so busy with her own family that we don't get together often. I'm nothing like my other siblings and I don't remember ever living with them as a child. I wish we were closer, but the age difference in combination with my family just not being close in general has prevented that.

My relationship with them has definitely impacted my decision to have two babies 19 months apart. I thought seriously about ruining my daughter with only child syndrome (definitely kidding!) and being one and done, but decided against it so that she could at least have an opportunity to form a type of bond that I never did. As PP said though having two children close in age doesn't guarantee that they'll be friends. I hope it works out though, obviously.

Mtnmommy

I'm the middle of 3 sisters. My older sister is 5 years older, and my younger sister is 2 years younger. We were all pretty close growing up. There was some abuse to myself and my older sister by our dad. But he wasn't to our younger sister. My older sister and I stayed close. We lived together as adults for a couple of years. We talk everyday. My younger sister, at 33 and married with a newborn, still lives with my parents. She got super judgmental of me and my older sister, and our choices in life. But regardless of how things ended up with my younger sister, my older sister is the person who understands me better than anyone in the world. We support each other through everything, no judgement. That said, My relationship with my sister definitely has impacted my decision for a sibling for DD. I hope my daughters will have that kind of a bond.

daniev825

I have three sisters! We fought a lot growing up but now we are best friends. They are my go to for everything! My step daughter and son are 12 years apart and i hope they can have a close relationship still. This baby and my son will be  20 months apart so I'm crossing my fingers they are close! Siblings are the best

rmarble23

I have a sister 2.5 years younger and growing up we fought like cats and dogs.  after I left for college we became much closer and now that we are married and grown up she is like my best friend.  DH has an older sister and they were the same growing up, she beat the snot outta him, now they aren't close and then there is the half brother who is 16+ years younger from mom's second marriage who is not close to either of them but is close to the niece and nephew as they are all the same age.  i feel that the relationship that DH has with his siblings accounts to his wanting to be one and done which makes me sad b/c i know what the relationship could be.  plus i wouldn't want to "ruin" my child with "only child syndrome" (j/k)

Wino0920

I am the middle of 5. I have an older sister and older brother, and a younger sister and a younger brother. My brother and I are only 10mths apart. When my mom went in for her 6wk check up, she found out she was 2 weeks pregnant with me! 

None of us talk to my younger sister. The 4 of us are very close otherwise. We talk and see each other ALL the time. 

Yes, I wanted a lot of kids because I loved it growing up and love it now. My DH is 1 of 2 and only wanted 2. We compromised with 3.

You can't guarantee they will be close, but you can still dream. 

awoodruff27

I have an older half sister and a younger brother. My sister is 10years older than me so we have never been close. I can't even remember the last time I talked to her. I haven't even met my youngest nephew. There is a bunch of other family drama that plays into that as well. 

My brother and I were never "close". We talk usually once a month or so. He is 26 and still lives at home. Where I was married and moved across the world at 20. We are just very different. 

I have hopes my girls will be best friends, but it all depends on their personalities. Only time will tell. 

beckij34

I'm the eldest of six (bio, step, & half). I'm a twin. We were born at 27 weeks. My twin passed a couple hours after she was born. My mom had me, my twin, and brother with my bio dad (passed Feb 16). My step dad (passed Jan 12) had two boys with his ex-wife. My mom and dad (step) had my little sister. My step dad raised my brother and I like we were his own. I come from a biracial household so it was funny at times seeing people's reactions to a big black guy introducing two skinny white kids as his own. I've never been extremely close to my step brothers. They grew up out of state so we didn't see each other often especially as we got older. I am close to my younger brother and we talk often. My sister and niece live with me so I see them everyday. 

Me: 34
My twin: would be 34 (passed after birth)
S-Bro: would be 32 (passed @ 28)
S-Bro: 30
B-Bro: 29
H-Sis: 22

silliegirlie143

@beckij34 THIS! You should see people's reaction when I show a picture of my siblings and they see my brother is black (I am Hispanic). They're like wait... what? Somebody's bf? Oh... he's your brother??? *followed by silence*

I actually had someone say "Oh! You mean 'brotha'..." No... I meant it when I said brother.

Cue major eye roll for people who can't get it together or filter their ignorance!!

Elyse1384

silliegirlie143 said:

@beckij34 THIS! You should see people's reaction when I show a picture of my siblings and they see my brother is black (I am Hispanic). They're like wait... what? Somebody's bf? Oh... he's your brother??? *followed by silence*

I actually had someone say "Oh! You mean 'brotha'..." No... I meant it when I said brother.

Cue major eye roll for people who can't get it together or filter their ignorance!!

WTAF!  Ugh...some people are grotesque and unacceptably ignorant.