Are you one of 4+ siblings?

[AdultFishcakes]

Hello

Thinking of going for #4. I’m an only child, DH one of two and we have DC 4, 2 and 1. All going well baby would arrive end next year when I’m 40.

(Under normal circumstances) we have a good mix of flexible work, and childcare, space and the financial ability to meet the costs.

If you’re a sibling from a large family I’d love to know what your experience was growing up, especially in terms of privacy, noise, major pros and major cons of being one of four or above.

Thanks

I'm the youngest of 6.
I loved it. I was spoiled by all my siblings. I also had more time with my mum as the others were at school when I was born.
We are still all close now. I see my siblings all the time.

I’m one of 7 (3 younger and 3 older brothers).
We are now grown up and rarely speak apart from the occasional friendly hello if we bump into each other.

I’m one of five, and while I had a rough childhood in so many ways, my siblings were never anything other than a support network and generally my best friends. Sure we fell out here and there, but we were a good little unit. We’re still (mostly) very close now and see each other often.
I’m slap bang in the middle.

I am the eldest of 5 and it was ok for me. My 2 sisters have 4 kids each now but the boys didn't have as many. Their kids (the 4) are fantastically well behaved and seem like very happy and loved children.

dp is number 5 out of 7 and it's had a massive long lasting emotional impact on him. He always felt he was negatively compared to his older brothers, his father left one year and his mother went to pieces trying to cope with them all and became super critical of the kids (I imagine she was depressed with hindsight). His ability to have relationships with other people was severely impacted i believe.

I find the 1:1 time mentioned so far often interesting. I don't ever remember having that. My mum claims she did it, but I doubt she could give me a specific example.
I got 1:1 time with my dad when I was 18 and he took me to look at a few unis. Oh my word was it the most boring few days of my life, I'm glad I didn't get more of that growing up!
I didn't ever crave more time with my parents, but I did crave space. I still do. I have a big house and can give each of my children their own bedroom, but I really resent sharing mine!!

My husband comes from a big family (7 children, 5 bio 2 step). I’ve been with him since 2001 and have seen everyone grow up, including young grandchildren in the mix right at the start, well before the rest of us starting having babies - there’s a load of grandkids now!

The difference in emotional availability, financial stability and distribution, and time and effort put in with each child was/is an eye opener and a bit depressing to be honest. My DH is now honest with me about how sidelined he felt during his childhood and as the oldest male had ridiculous responsibilities put on him that his sisters didn’t have. It put him off sharing his feelings and navigating a serious relationship. Luckily we’ve worked through a lot of the shit. He does love having his siblings though and doesn’t blame them for his upbringing.

We’ve got three and have talked about a fourth. Space, money and my physical and mental health all have to be taken into account - plus I’ve only just gone back to work and am loving it!

2/3 of mine have additional needs, actually all three do but one is ‘just’ having speech therapy at the moment as he has a phonological disorder and it is full on, but when I’ve had a proper nights sleep and they’re all playing together and laughing and chatting it’s easy to forget the hard bits and think that a fourth would be lovely.

Youngest of 5. Loved it. There were big gaps though. Oldest three had all left home before I was 10 so growing up it was essentially me and one brother (3 years older) but as adults we're all really close.

Parenting was a lot more hands off 50 years ago when I was a child so I suspect the pressure of parental time with each child was less of a thing but I acknowledge I had probably more attention than my older siblings.

This surprised me - I’m not from a big family but several friends are and they seem incapable of being happy spending time alone. One of them would rather go to work on her day off than spend a day at home alone.

Well, I'm far from a recluse am a socially-confident person with a lot of friends but time alone, and being able to control my own exposure to other people, and the extent to which they are in my space, is key to my adult self. It stems absolutely from not having had that luxury as a child, and not having any designated space at all (even a bed at times) that was solely mine.

Having the chance to physically be in a room by yourself was a rare luxury in my house. And one of the genuine pleasures of my grotty little student room at 18 was just the fact that it was mine alone, that no one could enter without my say so, and that if I left a half-written essay or a half-eaten Twix on my desk, for the first time in my life, it would still be there an hour later.

I was the eldest and was basically raising my younger siblings. Nappy changes, bottle feeds, it was even my responsibility to take the youngest ones to the shops when I ran my errands (from the age of 10+). They all loved it but I felt like I lost my childhood along the way.

My dh is one of six and he loved it. He is the second youngest and the older ones did look after him a lot. I don't know if they minded or not. One of his eldest sisters who has adult children likes to come on holiday with us, as she has no grandchildren yet. Four of his siblings have children, two don't, as they are single. They have a variety of family sizes 1-4. The one with one child would like more, but has infertility problems. It might make a difference that they are from a country where families of four or more are not at all unusual.

I’m one of only two and have an only child but my dad was one of six and mum was one of three.

TBH I think that if you spoke to all children in the same family you would get differing responses. So e.g. the eldest might say they were constantly put upon for childcare whereas the youngest would say it wasn’t too bad because the older kids were more independent and so their parents had more time for them.

I look at my dad and all his siblings and they are all different and when my Nan was alive it was blatantly obvious that the relationships she had with each of them was different.

Even as one of three my mum hated it. She was the middle child and always felt like the odd one out. Eldest was the eldest and the responsible one and the youngest was the baby, so there was never the time for her. Ironically my grandparents were each one of eleven and fourteen children respectively.

My DP grew up in foster care but stayed with the same family throughout his FC had four of their own children and sometimes had six or more at the same time. As it is there were four other kids who were permanent fosters so DP was generally one of eight, and he said they were very much left to their own devices and had to look after one another while his FC went to work/out doing their hobbies etc....

I'm the eldest of four and I loved it! We had such a great time together when we were little. We all get along really well now too. I've currently got one little one and I'd love to have more so that he has a similar childhood. Having three siblings is really wonderful IMO.

My OH is the oldest of four - no issues, they're a very 'ordinary' family with absolutely no drama, quite close, we both love spending time with them.

My mum is the youngest of four by quite a margin - no issues there either.

Youngest of five. Eldest DB disabled and required a lot of care. DM and DF both worked full time. DF always away for work. But when they were around we had loads of love and fun. Always went off in adventures.

My childhood was a blast, never felt like I didn't get enough attention, always had someone to play with or talk to. We are a very close family now.

DH one for two, STHM. Doesn't have much to do with his brother at all. He wishes he had what I had.

@Puckishly, I do get what you're saying. But had my Mum had less children, we wouldn't have got more attention, I would imagine she would have had more time to spend on herself which she willingly sacrificed to give us all her attention. She freely admits she never wanted to meet another man because she focused her everything on us. As an adult I can see that was detrimental to her as she is now 61 and never met anyone as she still plays a massive part in all our lives and helps us so much.

Now we're all grown up my Mum enjoys doing all the things she could have done more of years ago if she wasn't so selfless.

Even throughout lockdown, my mum came to isolate with us as I'm on chemo and the weeks I feel rough, she has taken the reins with homeschooling. My siblings completely understand why I'm getting more of her attention at the moment (for want of a better phrase) but we all understand this is a short-term sacrifice. She has given up going out for walks to shield me and my son who is also on the list, she's given up having social distance garden meets with her friends, she hasn't been inside a shop since mid-March (we locked down early) etc.

I appreciate more now from reading these posts that I have been extremely lucky and I never take her for granted. I am genuinely very sad for those who haven't experienced such a good childhood due to being part of a large family.

I'm conscious it sounds like my life was 'picture postcard' but it really wasn't of course. We had ups and downs but it's very clear my childhood was a lot easier then others.

My nightmare of an adulthood is making up for that now though 😂 (nothing to do with my kids, just my health problems)!

Best wishes with the chemo and for your recovery, @WoahBodyforrrm.

@Puckishly thanks so much. It's very much appreciated. I have a lot of fight in me and plan on seeing my kids to adulthood 💪🏼

Take care

Youngest of four, very glad it happened that way otherwise I wouldn’t exist! Have happy childhood memories, even though parents split up when I was 6, and dm had (and still has) significant mental health issues. We were quite spread out though, my siblings were 12, 10 and 6 when I was born so that may have made a difference re parental attention. Every family’s different, and despite what we do, we’re all going to fuck it up in some way (a la Philip Larkin). There’s obviously pros and cons to all family sizes, if it feels right to you I’d say go for it.

Stay strong @WoahBodyforrrm

@WoahBodyforrrm

I am one of five and I loved growing up in a big family. I always had someone to play with, or confide in. There wasn't a lot of money about but there was enough. No one went without. There was a lot of love and support and fun. My mum was a SAHM but sometimes she'd do temp work to pay for extras like school trips to France or whatever. We've all grown into productive members of society. We are still close. I've gone on to have a big family. My siblings all have between 1 and 3 children.

Personally I love the noise and chaos in a big family. But life doesn't have to be like that. I have a friend who has more children than me but her house is a well oiled machine.

Also just to add. I never had to parent my siblings and my older children do not have to take responsibility for my younger ones. Sometimes they will ask if they can do bath time, sometimes they'll ask to feed the baby but I never make them. They don't change nappies or anything like that.

Youngest of 5 and overall it was positive but two of my brothers moved out while I was still quite young, might have been more competitive for attention for my older brothers. Two of my brothers went on to have large families as well though so guess it can't have been so negative for them. I'd have had a big family too if pregnancy and childbirth didn't go so shittily for me.

I loved having lots of people around (we also often had relatives, family friends, or other people stay with us), Christmas was brilliant. We didn't all go on every holiday, sometimes one parent would take some of us and the other parent stay at home with the others which could have felt unfair but I don't remember feeling left out.

Middle one of 5. Great childhood. Still close to all but one, who I speak to occasionally but we have nothing in common and seems to have a totally different recollection of our childhood, than all the rest of us, including his twin.
We were all given time, and certainly parents were very involved.
Dad was Forces and away at times, Mum until youngest two were at senior school was a SAHM, then trained as a nurse.
We lived abroad for a long time, so Mum had help in the house, so we didn't have to do too much, although we were expected to keep our own rooms clean.

Eldest two went into the Forces, I had DS young and stayed living close to parents, they helped with DS when I divorced and did my degree.
Younger two both left home at 18, one to Uni, one to the police force.
But all came home regularly until mum died.

Only thing I missed was, I was the only girl, two elder boys, did things together and had similar interests, younger two were twins, so felt left out at times, although was very close to both parents.

Eldest of 4+.... childhood was traumatic for reasons unrelated to number of siblings however I also know we didnt get any 1:1 time, money was always very tight and i was given far too much responsibility for caring for the smaller ones ( youngest says I raised her mostly)

I do have 4 of my own and work really hard to make sure they dont experience the same upbringing. They all get 1:1 time daily even if it's 15mins after school then personal bedtime story. They all get individual help with homework and reasing in top of that. Lots of joint family too indoors and out. Myself and DH take each child for days out individually fortnightly and family days in between so I think they get plenty of individual attention. Money isnt too tight because we are careful and nobody misses out on anything because we chose to have more than 1-2. The most important thing I have learned to do is make sure when I wake them first thing to make sure I address how theyve slept etc and what their plans are for the day...and same after school / evening because I want them to know I care and they are individuals. Its exhausting tho