18 yrs between kids!

Meemaleema · November 2012

We were pleasantly surprised that I was pregnant 17 1/2 years after my first. But man, that's a long time! What kind of a relationship can we expect? I'm an only child and had always wished for siblings so I can't give a fair answer to that. My 18 yr old is a boy and off to college. Not sure the sex yet. Thoughts?

Littlejen22 · November 2012

Honesty, none. My SF is 17 and 19years older than our kids and she sees them sometimes now but it is more like that cousin you rarely see. At the most you can hope for him to be like an uncle.

mrsseguin · November 2012

My half sister is 16 years older than me. We hardly lived together and we not close when I was growing up. Just in the last few years (I'm 32 and she's 48) is when we really started to develop a 'sister' relationship.

neverblushed · November 2012

It will be an unusual relationship. My advice: don't try to force anything.

Don't let the ghosts of your own childhood as a singleton play into this. Just let their relationship develop naturally. It's entirely possible that your 18 y/o, college freshman son will basically ignore, or even be embarrassed by, the new baby. After all, what this baby may most represent to him is tangible evidence that his mom is sexually active -- eewww!

But it may be different when he's a 23 y/o college graduate with a 5 year old brother or sister. A five y/o is really different from an infant. But, if you think about it, a 23 y/o is also pretty different from an 18 y/o!!

If you resist the temptation to force things, you may actually give them the gift of sibling-hood that you have wanted for them all along.

dpdw · November 2012

Well, (from my own personal experience) it won't be the typical sibling realtionship, but that's not to say that they won't have a relationship at all. I am the oldest of 5 kids. I have one sister who is a year younger, then my dad got remarried when I was 16, and I have 1/2 siblings who are 17, 18 and 24 years younger than me. I was still living with my dad when my brother was born, but left for college a month after sister #2 was born, and was graduating from college when sister #3 was born. In the first year or so, my relationship with my brother was almost like he was my kid. I felt like I babysat all the time & that I was the only one who could stop him from crying. I remember his first word, his first tooth and when he started walking. But, I still felt like the older sister and remember that I swore I would buy him beer when he was 17 (I actually never did that). When I went off to college I LOVED it when my brother and sister #2 would come to visit me. All my college friends have watched them grow up too and we still talk about my brother running up and down the halls of my freshman year dorm. When I went home during those college years, I'd spend all my time with my brother and sister #2, but after college (and after my sister #3 was born), I was focusing on my own life, so went home less and less. Now, I'm 40, my brother is 23, sister #2 is 21 and sister #3 is 16.

I've had to make an effort to re-connect with each of them. Having my own kids has helped with wanting to improve my realtionship with them and of all things, Facebook has helped a ton. I think the older ones definitely look up to me as the "older sister", but the youngest sees me as just OLD. Hell, I'm the same age as most of her classmates' parents. And even more oddly, my dad & stepmom have always discussed parenting issues with me. Because they were nearly 20 years older when the "new" ones arrived, their parenting style has changed and they don't parent my younger siblings like me & sister #1 were parented. That actually was a bone of contention for many years between me and my dad.

It's a very different dynamic, but I now cherish the realtionship I have with my brother and sister #2. It's finally a reciprocal adult relationship rather than an old-enough-to-be-your-parent-but-I'm-not-your-parent relationship. Sister #3 is a work-in-progress because she's still sees me as just an old lady. I expect when she gets older it'll get better, just like it did with the other ones.

FWIW, my stepmother is also the oldest of 5 and her two youngest brothers are 18 & 21 year younger than her. Her parents felt that their "oops" baby (baby #4) needed a sibling because they anticipated that the older ones wouldn't fill the sibling role given their age gap. So, they planned baby #5.

Oh and I forgot to mention -- prepare yourselves for all the crazy looks you'll get when you are out with the new baby and your 17 year old son (without your husband). When my dad & I would go out with the babies (without my stepmom) I got death-stares from strangers unless I told them that the baby was my brother - -and then they just looked confused! LOL!

ttcmbbaby · November 2012

My only word of advice in addition to what has already been said is to try to make the older one still feel important. It may help that you are the mom of both, but from my experience (I'm the oldest of 5 - 2 years between my brother, then dad married wife #2 had a girl and boy with 11 and 13 years between us, well he married wife #3 a few years ago and they have a son that is 4 months old now...) the older ones get left out. I am now 27 with a 7 year old myself and wife #3 takes tons of pictures for her blog with the two middle children that they see every weekend (if not more) and she always says little one with sister or little one with brother or the happy family with all them except me! My brother who is close in age cut ties from all of us, but I feel extremely excluded and I don't have a clear role. When I visit I want to be involved but when I am I feel like I'm crossing boundaries. So I mostly don't visit and I sit back and watch the "happy family" as if they are friends of mine and not my dad with his new wife and all... So just don't force it but let him know he's important too!!!

jlw2505 · December 2012

I don't see much of a relationship in the sense of siblings that are close in age. I can see more like a uncle/niece-nephew type of thing or cousins. My nephew is turning 21 next week and my girls are 4 and 6. They love each other and play when are together but I would not call them close at all and my nephew is a huge kid person (works at summer camp and stuff like that). I would talk with you son about being a role model and maybe have him plan some time each month to have a special time with his new sib (even if its just a few hours once a month). Something they can do together and they can then hopefully form a special bond but I honestly have nothing to compare it to. I have a friend who had 3 older siblings, the one closest to her age was 8 years apart and she was not very close to any of them. As adults, she is closer to them than when they were growing up. They were just in such different parts of their lives.

MissLaydie · January 2013

There will be 12 years between my son and my LO and I was wondering about that relationship too....interesting posts here...

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