| Extra large age gap between children?
Posted: 8/8/2009 10:02:15 AM | | I have 2 wonderful boys, one is 14, the other is almost 1.5. I would be interested to hear from parents who have children with large age gaps such as mine, (or have even experienced it themselves) to understand more about what the future holds, pros and cons and so forth of having that gap. I understand that every siblings relationship is different due to personalities, how they're raised, etc. However I was curious as to how the generality of age differences plays a part. In my imagination, the boys will probably hit a time in their lives when they're perhaps not as close (when my eldest leaves for higher education and my youngest is just starting primary school), however I wonder if that gap will really lessen once the eldest is say....33, and the youngest is 20? Or even older? Share your experience with me, I'd love to hear them! | |
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| Extra large age gap between children?
Posted: 8/8/2009 10:08:31 AM | | Lisa, my stepbro and I are 8 years apart. He came into our lives when he was 2 and I was 10, same as your children. In the earlier years I resented him a bit as he seemed to always "be around" whenever I had friends over.....and when I left for college I think that my parents and my little bro probably felt like a "family of 3" now that the older kids were essentially "gone". However as my brother grew and graduated, we became closer.....now that he is in his later 20's and married, there is probably the least amount of "gap" that there's ever been. I still view him as a "kid", but we talk regularly and seem to have more in common now than we ever have. .....I wondered if that's been the experience of others with a large age gap between them....... | |
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| Extra large age gap between children?
Posted: 8/8/2009 10:23:12 AM | well, I'm the oldest, and my next sister down is 7 years. We was never close, never played together as at her young age I was into playing things she couldnt understand. By the time she could, I was out of playing lol
Now I'm 30 and she's 23. We have never been close. In fact I resented her when I was younger as I always felt she was the favourite, she never got into trouble,
We speak once in a blue moon on the phone, we dotn confide or catch up, we never go out together. The only time I see her is at family gatherings.
This isnt due to anything in particular, I just dont call simply as I have nothing to say.
The funny part is though, my younger sister is 19, I see her all the time, we call, text, chat etc, she even comes to stay at mine.
My children are quite close considering I would have preferred a smaller age gap, and its likely my son will be in his teens when and if I had another child. | |
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| Extra large age gap between children?
Posted: 8/8/2009 10:25:38 AM | | My oldest sister is 20 years older than me. When I was little naturally we didn't have too much in common, but now I am 24 and she is 44 and I really enjoy having a sister that age. She's been through a lot of what I am going through already and I trust her opinion on different things going on in my life because she's been there/done that. | |
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| Extra large age gap between children?
Posted: 8/8/2009 4:55:50 PM | | My oldest is 17 yrs old, still lives at home and attends college. My daughter is 5 yrs old and starting Kindergarden. They still bicker with one another yet my son also is very protective of her and they are extremely close. She never goes to bed without saying "Good night Bubbie!" | |
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| Extra large age gap between children?
Posted: 8/8/2009 5:23:00 PM | | my brother is 40 something and im 24 lol. we talk sometimes but really we arnt that close when i was younger my brother was off at collage. so we didn't really grow up together. he moved to bc when i was 13 so i haven't seen him since them sometimes we chat on fb and stuff but my sister and i are a lot closer i guess because she is only 28. there's a lot of resentment between us all over money lol my brother was always spoiled rotten since he was " the only boy to carry on the family name"then when my sister and i got older we didn't get half of what my brother did. Until i got preg and "carried on the family name" my brother is totally different then us though, he is his mothers only biological child spoiled from her, uses my dad ( come to think of it my sister uses my dad too) im more of the calm one when it comes to stuff i normally am off doing my own thing and let them fight. i guess because he was from another time he doesn't get my sister am i. | |
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| Extra large age gap between children?
Posted: 8/8/2009 5:39:36 PM | I can't totally weigh in on this one because my stepson didn't come to live with us full time he was 16 but I think for him, it was like being an only child, for your sons, I think the same once your older boy leaves home. They have the sibling thing going on, particularly if your older boy is good with his brother, without the rivalry you get with more closely-spaced siblings. In four years, your youngest will be much like an only child just as your older boy was an only child for 12 years (or step if I remember?)
I was much closer to my brother, 11 years my senior than the one three years older than me. My daughter is closest to my stepson because she had him to herself for three years and my middle son was 2 when he moved so he has come to know his brother because he lived with us for the first two years of his life and then for visits. My youngest loves him to death but has only literally spent hours with him because he has only been back for about a year. He also now has seven kids, one of which is a year older than my youngest and another the same age, 10, stepson is now 30. It was the 800 miles rather than their ability to continue to forge a close relationship, as well as the responsibilities of a family limiting the time they spend with him because while he has moved back where his mother lives, that is still 150 miles away.
Now, it may be the difference in full blood siblings as well as the 13-year age gap between my stepson and my daughter. The age span with mine is 7 years top to bottom, but my stepson was a fountain of patience with his younger siblings. It was really quite astounding because he took his sister with him a lot, never ragged on her if she was nosing into his room if he had friends over when he was 16. After his brother showed up, he spent time similarly with both of them. My daughter has taken care of her younger brothers but obviously without the patience, et al. I believe that all four of them will be close and retain close ties with extended family, cousins, cousins' kids, the nieces and nephews, etc.
I have already seen the shift betwen my stepson and with my daughter and also older son where they are moving toward more equal ground despite the wider gap than you are looking at, 16 years between him and my 14-year-old and he is obviously acknowledging they are growing up. He now takes them to practice driving in parking lots instead of going to the park, lol. When the age gap is a big difference in life stages they may not be particularly close but as they all become adults, that switches back and they get to know each other as different people. Think he regrets leaving and missing so much with his siblings as they have grown, something I realized long before he left home. Encourage your older son to remember that while he has his own life, his brother will be grown up before he knows it, enjoy the time he has with him. Life is going to change a lot for him in four years.
There is a time period I think, during college and when someone starts a family, that the demands of life encroach on the ability to be a good sibling if that's the right word for it. I have seen that dynamic to some extent with a friend's family. She is like 8 years older, wound up raising her brother his last year or so of his high school as parents had moved and he wanted to finish out with his friends. He was very close to her sons, finally married and started a family so he is still their special uncle but things are obviously different, his own children take precedence to his relationships with the nephews. I think this is what would have happened if he had been her oldest child, he is 30, her oldest son is 17, and he lived with them when the nephew was a baby/toddler. | |
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| Extra large age gap between children?
Posted: 8/8/2009 7:18:36 PM | Hiya Jaxi, nice to see you back in the fora 
Mine are 11 years apart, 15 (boy) and 4 (girl). I can't do anything with them together and have them both happy and content because they are at such different developmental stages. I tried last week to take them downtown to the Busker's Festival here in Ottawa and by the end of the night I wanted to strangle both of them for all the whining that was going on. Today I took them to another daytime festival and we managed to last a whole 2 hours before one started whining. Separately, I have a blast with each of them...both together is a nightmare.
Aside from trying to find family activities we can all do together, they get along very well. My son is starting now to put her in her place when she does/says something that is rude and she is looking at him more and more as an authority figure in her life. He is protective of her both in and out of the house. When she comes complaining to me, I tell her to settle it with her brother and do the same when he complains to her about me. I saw many parents always blaming the older child when there was a fight...in my house I tried to determine who did what to whom and most of the time it was my youngest that had "started it"....lol | |
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| Extra large age gap between children?
Posted: 8/8/2009 8:47:18 PM | | I have a 21 year old son in college and a 7 year old starting 2nd grade. I feel like a had two only children. Same Dad, same one I'm divorcing after 22 years. | |
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| Extra large age gap between children?
Posted: 8/8/2009 9:30:26 PM | 24, 17, and 13. My 24 and 17 year old are boys and they do tons together and have been very close for about 6 years. The last 4 like best friends.
My 13 year old is a girl and she gets along with both of them. She has even gone with them when they have gone to do role play (like D&D) at a friend's house. They are all accepting of each other and each others' friends.
Similar interests in movies and computer games has been a bonder for them all.
My oldest has been some what of a father to the other two. He has been a good role model. My 17 year old is more like the non domestic mother to my daughter.
I guess every family has a different make up and situation. If they get along, that is the most important thing. | |
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| Extra large age gap between children?
Posted: 8/9/2009 1:28:48 AM | Itsallin, it isn't the age gap, it is the siblings. I took the kids to the Grand Canyon last year, they bickered, at least one of them had a huge stick up his/her butt every day. I wanted to strangle all three of them but my daughter recently said that was the best vacation we had been on because it was just us, no friends, no grandmother and cousins, go figure.
I suspect that they will be close when they are older and that is largely due to comments from their friends. More than one has said that they would prefer to live with the arguing because their families separate as soon as they hit the house and don't talk to each other at all. | |
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| Extra large age gap between children?
Posted: 8/9/2009 4:43:00 AM | My son is 16 and my daughter is 4. 12 year difference. And yet, I find they both have temper tantrums for no reason, and ask me why? way too much.
I have found that M&Ms still work regardless of their age. Hahahaha.
That and I sound more like an idiot every day. Why? BECAUSE I SAID SO! Hahahahaha
cheers ( : | |
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| Extra large age gap between children?
Posted: 8/10/2009 12:25:21 PM | There are 9 years between 2 of my daughters. The oldest loved it when her sisters were babies and she got to hold them and help feed them. But when they became toddlers and got into her stuff they became "brats" as in "GET OUTTA MY ROOM YOU LIL' BRATS!" I can laugh... now! LOL!
Now she is pushing 30 and her baby sister is entering her senior year. They have an excellent relationshp most of the time but the younger daughters kind of resent her tryng to 'parent' them by giving them the benefit of her vast experiences (NOT! LOL!) when it is obvious she has a broken picker and kicker (for the curb, dontcha know). But they can talk straight to each other and get past that.
There is 12 years between my own sister and I. She was married and starting a family of her own by the time I entered 1st grade. So we didn't really have a relationship where we truly talked about significant things until I was about 15 or 16. She is my only sibling and means the world to me, even though our POVs diverge a little more every day. | |
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| Extra large age gap between children?
Posted: 8/10/2009 12:29:08 PM | This is one of the issues with getting onvolved with someone who already has kids... unless the kids are very close in age, they will probably have little to do with each other...
Even a gap of 3-5 years can mean different school and friends...
One could be in public school, the other in high school...
If you meet a woman with a 3 year old, date a year or more , move in together, and have a child with her, 3/4's of a year just for pregnancy...... you're still probably looking at a 5 year gap or more.... | |
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| Extra large age gap between children?
Posted: 8/10/2009 1:59:40 PM |
Even a gap of 3-5 years can mean different school and friends. Yup, different schools and friends. So what? We aren't talking about making children to be twins or have the same friends, they are bros and/or sisters. My big bro is 4 years older than I am and I think I got along better with him than my sis who is 2 years older. We used to go shooting together and other activities when I was growing up. Ok, and I loved it when he brought his friends over... I didn't try to hang out with them, I had my own friends.
My mom is 7 years older than her sister. My dad is 7 years older than his brother. They each had the same parents, no step parents, it is just the way the pregnancies happened. Same with me, that is the way I got pregnant. No planned pregnancies. Just hard for me to get pregnant. (I was told I never would... )
Again, my kids are all close. They went out last night together and are again in about a half hour. My mom hangs with her sister. My dad visits his bro as much as he can, my uncle lives in Canada, so that is a bit of a trip from MI and visa versa. My big bro will be coming up from TX in about 2 weeks and I will spend time with him and he will spend time with my little bro. My big bro and little bro have 6 years between them and they get along and do things together when he comes up. Blood is thicker than water... | |
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| Extra large age gap between children?
Posted: 8/10/2009 2:00:33 PM | | i am going to be 30 in a couple months time, my 2 youngest siblings are 7 and 9. my own children are a month younger than my 9 yr old sibling and 6 months younger than my 7 yr old sibling. When they were babies (especially the 9 yr olds) when ever my mom and i would take our children out in public together all the little old ladies in the mall (aka the "baby magnets") would come up wanting to see the twins and would try to figure out which one of us were the mother. to try to explain that mom and i are mother daughter not sisters, and that this baby was that babies aunt, lets just say there were many times the entire situation got pretty interesting to explain. I find the children grow up more like cousins than they do as aunts and neice/nephew. As for my own relationship with my much younger siblings..... they see me more of another adult/authority figure/ someone else to tell them what to do kinda thing than as a sibling. furthermore, my adult friends and family aquaintences often take a second glance when i refer to "my mother's children", as i am referring quite literally to the children and in no way intend to include myself or my other adult siblings in that description. i should also explain that my mother had me very young, at 14 (no she was not some premisquious teen she was molested, got pregnant and kept me). she is now in her mid 40's . my other siblings are now 19 and 24 so i did get the normal experience of all the siblings growing up in the house at the same time, mom just kinda started over after we were all grown and out of the house. | |
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| Extra large age gap between children?
Posted: 8/10/2009 2:50:31 PM |
Even a gap of 3-5 years can mean different school and friends...
They SHOULD have different friends. Sure, they may share some in common but they ARE 2 different people of different ages with different interests.
Different schools?! BFD. I guess large families with kids in high school, middle school, and grade school are just doomed. LOL! | |
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| Extra large age gap between children?
Posted: 8/10/2009 3:54:48 PM | i know a couple of people, my ex boyfs mom, and one of the mums from school, who have pretty much started a family, started over, and then started over again!
oldest kids are 26 and 24 (ish), middle at 18, yougest two are 3 and 1!
the other family they are 25,23, middle at 12, and youngest at 4 months!
i honestly could imagine doing it myself!
but i can imagine that it must be pretty hard, and 80's baby, a 90's baby and a 00's baby! cant get much different! | |
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| Extra large age gap between children?
Posted: 8/11/2009 2:20:35 PM |
In my imagination, the boys will probably hit a time in their lives when they're perhaps not as close (when my eldest leaves for higher education and my youngest is just starting primary school), however I wonder if that gap will really lessen once the eldest is say....33, and the youngest is 20? Or even older?
Absolutely. I remember being "re-introduced" to my youngest brother after I'd been out of the country for a number of years. I was amazed to discover he had a sense of humor. I think the biggest difference is that when he was 5 he took my advice, and nowadays I ask him for his. | |
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| Extra large age gap between children?
Posted: 8/11/2009 7:36:50 PM | | Hi, Well, I am in the same boat your in. I have a 15 year old and a 3 year old. I can tell you they are crazy about each other. | |
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| Extra large age gap between children?
Posted: 8/11/2009 7:56:09 PM | I am the youngest of 7 children. The eldest in the family is 55 and I am 40. I also have a great-nephew that is 14 years old and I became an aunt at 3 years old.
My own children are nearly 9 years apart. | |
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