To think that the more kids someone has the more likely they are to all get on?

[frostytimes]

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. I am one of 5 and get on well with all my siblings. Everyone I know (anecdotal I know!) who comes from a bit family is close to their siblings. People I know, including my husband, who comes from smaller sibling sets seem to either not get on with or not be close to their siblings!?
Thinking about it more as I only have two 😩
or are larger sibling sets just more likely to be trauma bonded 😂

I also think history has a habit of repeating itself, low level generational trauma if you like. I think both of my parents grew up in dysfunctional families, same for my husbands parents to some extent. Seems to have carried on. Lots of disappointment and regret. If I’m honest I struggle to feel any bond at all with my family a lot of the time, which is sad and completely mind blowing to friends who have really secure family relationships. If I had to rely on my blood relatives, I’d be pretty alone in the world. No one is really there for each other. No one chooses to spend Christmas together for example, same on my husbands side. Luckily I have a husband and a child of my own. We are both working hard to break the cycle for our child. We both have siblings but neither of us wanted to have more than one child.

I was very close to my late brother and there’s as only two of us. DH is best mates with his brother and there’s only two of them. All my friends who have 3 or 4 siblings are NC or LC with at least one

DH is one of 5 and gets on fine with his siblings but it's very distant. He phones his sister once a year for her birthday, she never calls him. That kind of level of relationship

My DH is one of 8 and he speaks to only 1 of them, there’s just my brother and I on my side and we speak everyday and see each others family’s every week

Surely you’ve been around Mumsnet enough by now to know Low Contact and No Contact - very much used on this site, some more serious reasons some not

Can you imagine being pregnant for 16 years?! That has blown my mind AND made my fanny wince in solidarity

I dont think she had a fanny left after pushing 22 out.

I have three siblings. Currently not talking to 1 of them and couldn’t be arsed making the effort to make up as she’s a nasty piece of work, constantly looking for fights. Another is a narcissist but can be fun to be around at times. Just don’t criticise and stay at arms length and you’re fine.

the other one I talk to but we’ve also had our fights in the past.

it’s exhausting!

I'm the eldest of four and get along amazingly with my three younger siblings. Of course, we've had our rough moments over these decades of being family and friends. I think it's so important to build strong bonds—mental, emotional, and physical—and to share life experiences together, learning to respect and trust each other, and forming partnerships and friendships. It's not always easy.

My parents are farmers, and both sides of my family have deep roots in working the land. They come from big families—my dad is one of seven, and my mom is one of six—and everyone gets along. I have lots of cousins, and we all enjoy each other’s company without any drama. Sure, challenges pop up now and then, but nothing major when we all pull together for the greater good.

My mum is one of 11, she's not particularly close with any of them and only ever sees two of them. One isn't liked by any of them, and the others are either constantly falling out or don't really see each other. The drama is exhausting, fortunately I live far away.

I am the youngest of 4 and don't speak to any of my siblings. To be fair one is now no longer with us and the other two I pretty much despise for different reasons.

Mum is one of 7 and she gets on with them all but 2 siblings don’t get on with each other
dad is one of 4 and he mostly gets on with them all but but again, 2 siblings don’t get on with each other ..

I am one of 2 and get on great with my sibling!

I'm the eldest of 4,the only girl and my narc mother turned me into the scapegoat (I'm 'the slag who will shag anything,steal anything and is not to be trusted' they go along with it so they dont rock the boat)

I'm nc with the lot of them-if they all dropped down dead later today,id shrug and carry on,it wouldn't affect any part of my life at all

My mother is one of 4 sisters and is very close to one sister

The other 2 have had long periods where they are super close or nc with both my mother and aunt (due to my mother's actions)

My father is the suprise baby-born 15 years after the next older sibling (his brothers where 20+ years older and at totally different stages of their lives,they where getting married and having/adopting babies/buying houses/building businesses and careers)

He was nc with his sister by the time I came along (they had a row over some innocent comment she made when my mother had a stillborn baby,long before i was born) and barely spoke to his brothers as they had fuck all in common-they where polite to each other if they saw each other but he was closer in age to their dc

Dp would have been very close with his sister,but she died in 2000

I can tell by the family set up and the way he talks about her (they where close until the day she died)

If they had fallen out,it would have upset his mum too much so they would have sat down and talked it out

He's very close to his mum (and so am i-shes our everything)

Across my extended family and friends networks I see everything from close loving bonds to toxic emotional abuse in families of all sizes.

Dh and his many siblings get on great... as long as they spend very little time in the same room

No it's more to do with family dynamics IMO. I'm one of five and we all get along fine, we don't spend lots of time together tbh though and all accept each other has their own lives. My mum was generally very forgiving, (as was my gran, who literally saw good in anyone) and brought us all up to no hold any grudges.

On my mums side her cousins all fall out regularly but go from being in each other's pockets to not speaking.

Dp's mum is one of 12 and all have fallen out with each other many times, and they seem to group together and decide to not speak to certain members of the family for whatever reason.

My husband is one of five and they all get on great- don’t think they have ever argued.

I have four kids and they adore each other. They annoy each other and bicker but nothing serious. They are fiercely defensive of each other if another kid (outside of the family) is mean to any of them 😂

No. I know loads of people daron large families who are always falling out, not speaking, etc. I don’t think number of children has anything to do with it really. It’s all about family dynamics, how you were treated as children, personality, etc.

I personally associate large to very large families with abuse and or neglect. I am aware that this is just a personal association based on my own personal experiences and biases. But based on that I would obviously answer your question with „no“…

I've always thought the opposite. The more there are the higher the chances of serious personality clashes and what I've seen is that adults with lots of siblings often pick the ones they like and don't bother with the others. It's probably easier to drop a sister if you have three others rather than dropping your only sister, though obviously that can happen too.

It's all just anecdotes though, we obviously know different people!

My mum and dad were both from families of five and all stayed reasonably close (with some issues), in fact thinking about it that’s probably the thing they had most in common. My dad’s family all went to boarding school so maybe that helped? My mum’s family didn’t at all but also didn’t really have friends outside the family.

My Mil was from a family of 4. I knew her for 25 years but never met or spoke to her two middle siblings, they’d had a terminal row years prior. It seems fairly random.

I'm one of 8. Growing up we fought like ferrets in a sack. As adults we have no relationships. Last time I saw one of my siblings was 12 years ago. The eldest left home when I was 3 and I never saw him again. That was 50 years ago.