Are certain sacrifices worth it for more siblings as adult?

[ChitterChatter1987]

If you are part of a close family unit with
2 or 3 siblings, but there was not lots of money or house space growing up, would you say trade offs such as holidays in UK instead of abroad, sharing bedrooms,more split of parents attention etc were worthwhile sacrifices for having the benefit of more siblings as adults?

Also if you have 3 or 4 children now but these things apply, are the sacrifices worth it or do you or they feel that they miss out not having certain privelidges that more money can bring, or having to share their parents or other siblings with each other more?

@PauliesWalnuts I'm sorry for your situation. That's hard.

@Burntt that has to be so difficult to balance the dynamics; to let your daughter know that this isn't the way it should be and that you wish it was different, while still relying on her out of sheer necessity.

I think that giving her space to talk about it and to listen to her so she feels valued for herself not only her effectiveness, as it sounds like you do, will help a great deal in the long run.

[Flowers] for both of you

I think it’s a lot to do with how you parent! My mum brought us up as such a unit it was great. When 2 of my sisters moved out & the 2 of us remaining ended up with our own rooms, we still mostly slept in the bigger one so we could watch films together etc. Never felt like we missed out on anything that money could have bought us even though we were definitely skint!

I'm incredibly close to my siblings, but this is rare apparently!

This is heartbreaking 💔 I am so sorry you have been dealt such a tough hand.

Do you have many friends to socialise with?

More siblings just means less room, less parental time, less money, etc as a child. No guarantee of close relationships as an adult at all..

I do have friends, although not a “squad” as I’m pretty introvert and prefer seeing a couple of friends at a time so that it’s not overwhelming. They are really good and would never see me alone at Xmas or something like that but are now becoming empty nesters and doing the buy a dog and a campervan thing (three couples in the past year!) so I tend to see them less as they are busy at weekends. I don’t mind third wheeling every once in a while and they seem happy to have me along, but I really miss that family unit that you know has got your back.

I think it would be a callous person who wished they didn't have siblings so they could have had a bigger home a kid. Siblings are great for cousins for your own kids too

Don’t be silly. Some of us wanted fewer siblings so there was enough food, so we weren’t sleeping three to a bed, so we got anything from our parents other than ‘You’d better get on with things, because I don’t have the capacity to handle your problems’, so we didn’t spend our childhoods as mini-parents to the younger ones.

I'm one of 2 and we have no interest in each other, never did when we were kids either.

If, for the purposes of answering the OP, my imaginary 2nd sibling and I were close that would be great especially if they had a trade as I really need an electrician for a small job 😆.

I guess that's the thing.....and that was the purpose for my question as to whether lack of those things to a certain extent could cause a feeling of resentment or missing out for kids when looking back at their childhoods (or whilst experiencing them too)

I think it's good for kids to know there are limits with money and I actually think we often live in a society now where that doesn't happen enough and they can easily become materially spoilt.
However it's a shame if there is no money for any clubs, holidays, birthday parties etc even if they are done more cheaply.

We are also also quite helicopter parent like at times so wonder if our kids get abit TOO MUCH attention in some ways 😅

For us, if we did ever have another (3rd) child then we would still go on holidays (but they would be cheaper UK holidays) They would need to share a room (but only 2 in a bunk bed- eldest or opposite gender could always have own room) we would need to split our attention further (but would make sure they all got 1-1 time still and that nobody was left out) and they would still do clubs but probably cut them down to only one or two each and not too expensive ones.
We don't overdo it with presents anyway...
Tend to often get as much 2nd hand as possible and same for toys, clothes etc.
They are used to having a birthday party every year which might need to change but then lots of kids don't have that every single year anyway I suppose.

So that's the level we are talking.There wouldn't be alot of spare money for treats and luxuries but they certainly wouldn't be growing up in poverty with no attention, not enough food or lots in one bedroom as some posters sadly did.

So i was just asking the question (which many have already responsed to and i know its very circumstantial) as to how much less of those sort of things mattered to people during childhood or as adults looking back on it....and did the lack of them for the benefit of more than one sibling pay off to have someone else there through life.

Or if you have older/teen or young adult kids who this was the case for, how much it mattered to them (which might actually be most accurate as I know times have changed now as to what is seen as normal or socially acceptable)