Writer's Block: Pecking Order

[coraa]

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Oldest, by sixteen months. And... not at all, that I can tell. Everything I've read has said that eldest children are supposed to be the responsible ones, but unless my brother is hiding some really big secrets, I'm the family rebel. So I don't give it much credence.

Indeed, if I were to draw any conclusions from my sibling relationships, it would be that the biggest influence on me was having a sibling who was almost the same age as me. For as long as I can remember -- I have no memory of not having a sibling -- there's been someone else who had as much claim to my parents' attention and affection as me, someone with whom I had to negotiate, someone who I learned to fight, someone who I learned to ignore when it suited me, someone who could keep me company if I wanted it. Someone with whom I played "My Little Ponies Meet the Ninja Turtles" on the living room floor. Someone who was both my friend and my rival, and who I couldn't run away from even if I wanted to. Someone with whom I had long heated arguments about whose turn it was to use the computer. Someone who was my best ally, with whom I'd plot complicated strategies like "How to convince Dad to take us to the theme park next week" or "How to explain that, oops, we broke the CD-ROM drive." And someone who shared a lot of interests with me -- someone to go to the midnight showing of Star Trek: Nemesis with, and someone to go "OMG WORST THING EVER" with on the way home, and someone to say, "Hey, wanna stop at Wingers for buffalo wings and hot fudge?" at three AM and continue dissecting the Star Trek franchise over snacks and root beer.

Someone who was the right age to be my peer -- which sometimes meant cat-and-dog fighting, granted, but which also meant we were the right age to be friends.

I think that has a lot more to do with who I turned into than the specific order he and I were born in.

...I need to call my brother.

Comments

[eepmirva.livejournal.com]

I also have only one sibling - my sister, who is younger than me by only 12 mths (and 4 days - mom was THAT close to only having one B-day to remember!) And I can completely relate to everything you said about having close siblings! I think it's way better than having a sibling who is significantly older or younger than you! (Of course the only people who agree with me are people who have siblings close in age to themselves! :o) )

[cwendy41.livejournal.com]

I think siblings close in age don't really have that older/younger thing probably because they've had to share toys since they were really young. But if they're between 2 and 4 years apart, then it starts being evident. Also, if they're more than 4 years apart, each kid starts behaving like an only child and don't really need to share friends or toys. There are deviations though--people often think I'm an only child.

[bemusedoutsider.livejournal.com]

I see the pattern working out differently in families with odd spacing or non-spacing, but can still recognize it.

In a family with a divorced mother, the younger son was more like an only child, raised by the mother and the older son as a team with the older son in place of a father.

In my nuclear family I was the only child, but when there were other children to play with, I was always the youngest, so I have a lot of the classic 'youngest' personality. (Some of which I caught from my mother, who was the youngest among her play groups.)

With the oldest children so close in age -- what role did the boy take?