Has anyone had a sibling interaction like this, even when they were younger?

[CharltonG]

I was a middle child of six. My older siblings were all within 4 years of each other and the closest is 4 years from me, then the closest younger sibling is 5 years younger then me, with another just 2 years after her. I was really close with my older siblings even when I was younger and always relate with them much more than the younger ones, although they often think of me as not in the same time period as them during my parents parenting phase of the time, but I share most of my fond memories with them. When they grew older we became a little more distant as I was the younger child, but once the youngest two were born I was once again a part of their section of the family and maintain good relations with them. The problem is my younger two siblings. I must preface this with the fact that I was not forgotten but treated like all of the stereotypes of my family, when younger I was spoiled a little but that stopped once there was a new baby, then I was generally forgotten by my parents as they focused on the high schoolers and babies, which makes sense but I felt hurt and left out, then once all the older siblings left I took upon myself ALL of their responsibilities all while trying to live up to their reputation (All with great academic record, clubs, and good colleges, one that got into west point.) so I was really stressed out all the time trying to excel in AP classes, while juggling working out and many extracurriculars. Now around the time my older brother closest to me (4 years) left the house my parents switched styles of parenting. When it was my older siblings (and me) we were disciplined, my dad spanked us (although the oldest, my sister, got away scott free most of the time) and I understood his reasoning behind it and it made sense to me. We also were very restricted on screen time, we had 30 minutes on the computer a week on monday morning before school, or we could watch 2 episodes on sunday night of a show like Clone Wars. We had many other rules that were similar to this but in retrospect seemed a little extreme, so when my parents switched up on me it seemed like a little bit of a betrayal. I was glad that the rules had gotten more lax over time, even when my older siblings were here, but I think that it went a little too far. During this time I was still held to many of the old standards and was expected to follow every rule created in my youth unless there was a more recent change, but my younger siblings had close to no rules, and no consequences for their actions. They would stay up till midnight watching movies and eating candy on school nights since they were about 6 years old, now this was a annoyance for the fact that I was only allowed to stay up till 9 when I turned 9, and only recently had earned the privilege of staying up so late if there was a necessity. There were many other rules like dinner etiquette that we had to follow very strictly and were thrown out the window for them, they left the table whenever they wanted and only ate what they felt like, when me and my siblings were forced to stay at the table until we ate all that we had put on our plates. My parents had a strict no sleepover policy that was enforced until I left the house, but I later found out that my younger sister had hosted many when me and my church had camping trips. If we woke up my parents during their Sunday nap, then there would be hell to pay, but they destroyed the house on the weekly often ignoring my parents exact statements in front of them, and often waking them up with little to no consequences, the worst I think they have got was time out, even as they grew up they were just sent to their room at maximum, but I had left by then and don't know as much. There are hundreds of examples that I could list, with these being some of the tamer ones, but I wanted to know if my parents were being unreasonable. I understand that they were older now and probably couldn't enforce the same rules they used to, and that my position in the family (especially the fact that I feel that my family leaves me out of things as a child that no one has super close tie to) caused me to over exaggerate things in my mind. I've talked to my older siblings to try and get these facts right, but idk, maybe I'm just crazy. I have mostly cut ties with the younger siblings, barely ever talking to them, but I wanted to make sure that I wasn't just an angry teenager that never grew out of that mindset as I grew into an adult.

I lived something similar although there are only three of us - my older brother and I were held to high standards but it seems my younger brother could get away with murder

I don't resent anyone. If anything I feel bad for my younger brother as this parenting style did him no favour. All three of us are a little less than ten years apart and people change. My parents thought they were doing the right thing, they tried to do the best they could. They're human. The reality is that no child will have the same experience growing up as their siblings as they change, their parent change and the family changes/grows. My son had a different experience in his first year of life as a (then) only child but with unexperienced, out of their depths first time parents, than my daughter with experienced but tired parents and as one of three children.

Your parents were probably tired, yes. Raising six kids must be exhausting. They also probably realized that some things are nor as important as they thought. And then they probably swang too far to the other side, went from too strict to too relaxed, but to be fair is damned hard to get the balance right.

Would you say your siblings benefitted from this somewhat lax upbringing ? Would you say they turned out as well or better than they would have with the stricter upbringing ? What about you, would you have truly benefitted from being allowed to stay up til midnight on school nights ?

How you cut ties with your younger siblings because they were subject to a different parenting regime??

It's normal for parents to be less strict with younger ones. Parents have less time and energy for them (and can feel guilty about that). It's harder to send a younger one to bed when older ones are up or tell a younger one not to watch programmes that are older siblings are watching them.

There were 4 of us and little brother easily had the laxest rules around schoolwork and diet and screen time. He has a job but he's the least together of the siblings now in terms of his balance in his lifestyle so I don't think the lax parenting did him any favours.

I don't understand why you don't talk to your younger siblings unless they're now unpleasant people.

It’s not so much that your parents switched parenting styles, it’s that they never talked to you about it or considered your side of the story. If they had treated you like a loved child they would have listened to any complaints you had and taken them on board, and done things to make you feel acknowledged. Instead they expected you to live with the injustice and shut up, which is the hard part.

This is true. Do yoi get on with your younger siblings? They may feel equally ignored but in a different way.

There are pros and cons to every position in the family, in my experience. My children have different experiences because of it. It's true that younger ones might get more leeway, but partly that's because older ones' needs mean that younger ones have to have the rules bent in order to facilitate the needs of the older ones. The older ones gets the perks of having had more parental early attention, the younger ones get it more at the other end. I know one big difference in my family is that we have more money for the younger ones as the financial situation has naturally evolved. Just how it is. I'm not sure what the gap is between the oldest and youngest in your family but say 14 years for six kids - that's a lot of time and change that is going to affect things differently over that time period. Each child is also different, so things are going to be handled differently.

I am the youngest of 4. My siblings were almost teenagers when I was born and my parents were pretty much done with parenting small children by the time I came along (unplanned). They were strict with the older 3 but I was more or less allowed to do what I wanted. I think they ran out of steam and just couldn’t be bothered any more. To this day my sister is still very resentful about all the freedom I had.

The flip side is that as I grew up my parents were never really involved in or interested in my life. They would frequently forget my birthday, didn’t care/ask about schooling or my exam results and neither of them knew which university I went to. I told them, they were just completely uninterested and didn’t retain the information. I moved to France when I was 21 and my mum famously told relatives “Eastie’s moved abroad…to Spain I think”.

Ironically (or maybe not) I was the most independent of all my siblings. Left home at 18 and never went back whereas they were still there well into their 30s.