Hellobee

I come from a pretty big, blended family. I have 4 brothers and a sister – more specifically, two half brothers, a half sister, and two brothers. My oldest brother is 17 years older than me, my youngest is 2 years my junior, and my closest brother is 16m older. To say we have a big spread is a huge understatement! K and D are barely 2 years apart, but my experience with my own siblings makes me feel that the gap size doesn’t matter at all.

My parents & siblings – we are almost never all together, so this is a rare pic! 

Our family may look and sound complicated, but we have a straightforward explanation. Both of my parents grew up in the same general area and attended the same schools and church. They both went off to travel the world – my dad studied in Lebanon for a few years, and my mom joined the Army nurse corps and went to Japan. They both got married, and my mom had my oldest brother and sister (Bro1, Sis), my dad had my next oldest brother (Bro2). They then both got divorced, moved back to their hometowns, started dating, and the rest is history. They tried for several years to have a child together (my mom was over 40 at this point) and finally had my closest brother (Bro3), quickly followed by myself and my youngest brother (Bro4). This all gets complicated by the fact that Bro1 and Bro2 have literally the same name, just for random coincidence! Also, my mom’s first husband was Japanese, so many people over the course of our lives have had trouble understanding that we’re all a family – but that’s a whole other topic!

My older siblings had their own lives going on as the younger three of us grew up, and involved us to different extents depending on how close they lived at the time. Bro1 joined the Army and was deployed on and off, but whenever he was around he would always take us out to the movies, amusement parks, or just for a sleepover at his house. He’s retired from the Army now and has stayed in our general area. After college and a fun traveling nurse job, Sis eventually settled on the West coast, and now Bro3 & Bro4 have joined her there (for grad school and work, respectively). Bro2 lived primarily with his mom growing up, but now lives reasonably close to us.

Bro1, myself, Bro3, and Bro4 photobombing. Apologies for the grainy pic!

Of course, growing up with this crazy mishmash was all that I ever knew. I thought it was fun that we had older siblings to take us out and teach us new skills. I have a young memory of wondering how they could possibly be so good at coloring and trying to copy their “techniques.” My sister taught me how to wash my hair by myself, Bro1 taught me how to ride a bike, and Bro2 got me into my Weird Al Yankovic phase as a preteen. And then of course I had my two closest brothers – we fought expertly (as many siblings do!) and tended to team up two against one, but the alliances would switch daily. We helped each other with school and passed newfound insights (Santa doesn’t exist!) down the line.

It would be a reasonable guess to think that I’m closest with my two brothers who are closest in age to me, right? As an adult, that’s certainly not the case, although perhaps it will continue to change and evolve. I’ve found that now that I’m a parent, I connect better with my siblings who also have children – but maybe I only have the luxury of choice because I have so many of them! Bro1 has kids that are a bit older now, but Sis’s kids are not even a year older than K, and Bro2’s kid is younger than D. Even though we don’t keep in close contact, when Bros 3 & 4 come home for a visit we generally pick up where we left off. K reminds me a lot of the two of them, sometimes by his facial expressions or by random things he likes. I’ve blogged about K’s love for purple – Bro3’s favorite color was purple growing up as well!

Bro3 & his twin K

From how I see it, siblings (no matter the age gap) will be able to understand each other’s childhoods better than anyone else in the world. Even with our large age gap, we all know certain things about my parents (or certain things about each other!) that are invisible to the outside world, and I cherish that connection with them. We threw my mom a surprise birthday party last year (she turned 70!) and it was so fun having us all together again, and having all our kids play together. I look forward to growing old with them all, watching our kids grow up, and even just having each other as support for helping to care for my parents as they age.

All this to say, I see and hear a lot of hemming and hawing on the HB boards and among my friends about sibling spacing. I think the key ingredient is love, as cheesy as it sounds. The gap can be 8 months (just ask Mrs. Train!) or 18 years, and your kids will still contribute to each other’s lives in ways you can’t imagine or predict. One of my biggest goals as a mother is to foster K & D’s sibling relationship – even if they aren’t always close through each stage of their lives, I just hope they have a foundation to fall back on whenever they need it.

How far apart are your kids, or is age gap important to you? Is it a reflection on your own sibling situation?