Suggested, obviously, by the lunatic mom of the octuplets. And yes, I am willing to judge her without meeting her, on account of me being a jerk.
I have 6 or 7 siblings, depending on how you count my father’s oldest daughter, who has a different mother from the rest of us. (I don’t count her as a sister, but a couple of my sisters do.) My youngest sister is several years younger than me, and though I in no way consider her my child, I was always the one responsible for telling her bedtime stories, helping her with homework, taking her on errands, and so forth. Whenever the family went someplace, I, specifically, was understood to be immediately responsible for her, in a way my other siblings were not, and in a way none of them were responsible for me. I never questioned it, but largely because it simply never occurred to me.
I also once dated a woman whose mother was in her late 40s when she was born, and whose nearest sibling in age was 18 years older. Her next-nearest-sbling did the heavy parental in that case, according to all accounts I have heard.
I actually didn’t do too much for my younger brothers (2 and 4 years younger) until I hit my early teens. Then I was responsible for watching them during the summer when school was out. That was…hit and miss…to say the least. They didn’t appreciate me suddenly becoming an authority figure.
My brother is two years older than I, who am four years older than my sister. At seven years old he changed her diapers and directed me in brushing her hair and putting on her socks. He babysat us both. When I was six, and she was two, I was expected to take her around with me when I played with my friends. I helped feed and bathe her and, as we got older, I served as the older sounding board when she had things to say to the folks, just as Brother was to me.
As the oldest of six, I did my share of diaper changing and buggy pushing and hair combing and dragging along. It was good for me. It’s good to have siblings. It teaches us how to get along with other people better than any other method, I think. It’s hard to be remote, aloof, or shy, when you share your bedroom and have to tussle for a spot at the kitchen table.
My husband has 5 older sisters, with the youngest one being several years older than he. As he describes it, “I had 6 moms.”
My sister is only a couple years younger so I didn’t do much in the way of “raising”, more like looking out for her like any slightly older sibling would when mature enough, that kind of thing.
When we were little, I not only did not help in raise her, I probably made it more difficult for my mother to properly raise her, what with my tauntings and proddings and general pickings on.
Once and a while, I would recall my mom telling me to “watch your sister” but that just goes to show what a funny lady my mother is.
Essentially not at all in either instance. In my case, it was a matter of the logistics of the family situation.
My two older sisters are actually half-sisters who lived with (and were raised by) their mother, some 3,000 miles away from where I grew up. They visited occasionally (when their mother would permit it - which wasn’t very often as their mother remains bitter about the divorce to this day). However, they never really had any part of raising me - the most they ever were tasked with was occasional minor babysitting.
My younger brother is less than one year younger than I am. Even if my parents had been inclined to delegate any of their child-rearing tasks to me (and they most definitely were not so inclined - for starters, my brother and I despised each other openly and flagrantly until we were in our early teens), the age difference made it impractical. I didn’t even get stuck driving him around during the year when I had a license and he didn’t. My mom bought a scooter when I was 15 and the scooter license age in our state was 14. We both promptly got a license. So, since we both had a valid scooter license, he could transport his own ass around.
My sister is five years older than me, and my brother nine years, so it’s not like Mom had a bunch of toddlers underfoot. I don’t remember my sibs doing anything more than bossing me around. We certainly didn’t play together outside the house because we had friends of different age groups, but we did play together as a family. Since they were both in school all day when I was a baby, I’m sure they didn’t do much with me as far as diapering, etc, but I should ask my sister next time she calls. She’s the type that would look on me as a dolly to play with!
I am almost 6 years older than my brother. I babysat him sometimes, but other than that I wasn’t responsible for him in any way really. We had a couple of bonding moments but for the most part we really don’t like one another much. We are very, very, very different people and if it weren’t for family gatherings and stuff I would probably not talk to him. It makes me a little sad to say that, but honestly I don’t think he is a very good person and he is someone that if I weren’t related to I would actively hate him.
My elder brother was 2.5 years older than me, but very immature and distractible. On the rare occasions we were left to our own devices, we were theoretically “responsible for each other,” but he was never officially responsible for me.
As far as I know my mother is/was very against children having to assume parental duties. She was quite nasty about it when my sisterinlaw had her eldest child help care for the younger children. I don’t think it’s problem for elder siblings to care for younger siblings.
I think some of this might be cultural. I’m Hispanic and the concept of paid daycare makes my mother laugh. Apparently, this is what siblings are for.
Her brothers even used to go on dates with her when she was in her teens and they were 10-12, armed with grandpa’s instructions and a slingshot, just in case the boys got handsy.
I’m the youngest and a lot younger than my sisters. They did a lot of the child caring for me. The younger of my too sisters was actually more mothering than my mom in fact. For some reason my mom was not that loving to any of us. My sister use to watch after me, take me to hang out in the park, take me to visit my Grandmother on the bus or L-Train. She made a few stuffed animals for me and some painted rocks (an early 70’s mini-fad) and ended up being the person I would talk to in my teens and early twenties when I was depressed. The first person I introduced my future wife to in the family and so many of the things that you would normally do with your mother.
My oldest sister did a lot of childcare also, just not as much. Their is a family joke. When my sisters found out my mother was pregnant my older sisters thought, “this is going to mean a lot of extra chores and babysitting”. The younger of my older sisters thought, “Ooh Neat! A baby to play with.”
Second oldest of six girls here. The youngest–twins–were born when I was 13 and I certainly considered myself a second (or third, or fourth…) mother in the first four years of their lives before I left for college. Lots of diaper changing, bath giving, dressing, feeding, playing, and endless, endless babysitting of both the twins and the two youngers in between. I did resent it a bit at the time–I was a teenager after all–but in hindsight the setup definitely made us a lot closer than a lot of the sibling groups I’ve known who have little more than a passing-acquaintanceship type of relationship that has always baffled me.
My brother is 9yrs my junior. When we were very young, my help was minor things like help ties his shoes, get him a drink from the fridge, grab a clean diaper from next room, etc.
Our mother went back to working full time when he was six and I was fifteen. I watched him after school and all summer. When I was 16 they bought me a car as payment for watching my brother throughout high school (since I couldn’t get a “real” job and buy one myself) and so I could take him places.
We were pretty close. He called me his “summer mother.” We’d go scope out new playgrounds, visit art museums, go to the movies, go hiking. Those were the upsides.
The downsides were the times I’d tell Mom three times that I had band practice on Tuesday and she needed to line up afterschool babysitting for my brother. Then she’d forget. I’d remind her again Monday night and she’d yell at me for the inconvenience. Or the time I wanted to be in the school play but wasn’t allowed because the rehearsal times would cut into babysitting time too much. Or the evenings it was assumed I’d just be around to watch my brother so if I had any plans, too bad. At one point I told her, “If I wanted to be reponsible for a kid at this age, I’d at least have had sex first!”
She backed off.
In college I had to get evening summer jobs so I could watch my brother during the day. One summer I had the opportunity to do undergraduate lab work (for pay!). I know my mom was irritated to have to pay for babysitting, but I couldn’t pass up that opportunity. So yes, there were times I resented being on the hook for my sibling, but there were more times I had fun growing up with him.
Not at all with my sister, who is 18 months younger than me, but I kind of felt like a second mom to my brother who is 6 years younger. I’ve always been nurturing and liked kids, so it was pretty natural. The fact that he was/is (though we’ve grown apart since he became a teenager) such a sweetie helped a lot. My parents aren’t really physically affectionate so there was a bit of a void there to be filled. Mainly it was playing with and talking to rather than actual physical taking care of (parents didn’t go out much, I never changed diapers or was responsible for feeding him).
My parents had 3 boys in quick succession (I was the oldest). Years after my father died, my mother remarried and had my youngest brother.
I was his #1 caregiver #1, and my other brothers weren’t far behind. We were changing diapers, preparing bottles, giving baths and whatnot from an early age.
Not surprisingly, my brothers and I all turned out to be very nurturing dads.
That’s actually really good for me to hear, because I get guilt pangs whenever I ask my son (16) to do anything for his sister (4). I feel like, heck, he didn’t chose to have a kid, I did, so why should he be inconvenienced? OTOH, he’ll make a great father someday, and already knows how to change a diaper, give a bottle, scrounge up a meal and entertain a wee one.
I’d say about 85% of the child care burden falls on me, 10% on my husband and 5% on my son. Some weeks it’s shifted around a bit. This week, for example, the kid’s been asked to babysit on three different occasions for four hours or so a pop, just because we had a play, a dinner and a movie all scheduled this week, but that’s an anomaly. It might be another three weeks before he’s asked to babysit again. Everyday care is mostly me, although I often ask him to get her a glass of water with dinner or help her open a package while I’m cooking or something small.
I am the second of six, and the eldest girl. Relative to the other kids at school, we did a great deal of caring for each other from a very young age and also spent a great deal of time together. At seven years old you became old enough to start looking after a sibling; by nine you were expected to be able to be responsible for yourself and at least one younger sib.
I did more caring for the kids further from me in age of course. And all of us were simultaneously necessary to keep Youngest Brother from self destructing before the age of six. What a hellion he was.
My sister is eleven years younger than me. I didn’t help out too often when she was young, but as she got older, around twelve, and our mother got sick, I gradually took on more and more of the responsibility. Now that our mother has passed away, I sort of feel like I’ve inherited a teenager, and she’s “my kid” now. I never minded it because in my view, things happen and you help family out when the situation requires it, and I’m an adult. We’re close, and I’m glad she’s around, and am happy to be here until she grows up.
However, if my parents had had several children with the plan that I as the oldest would be playing an active role as a a pseudo-third parent going in, then there would have been a problem. I don’t think it’s right to have children raising children. The bulk of a child’s care should fall to their parent, or a responsible adult who signed on for that role, unless it’s a situation where the child/teen doing the raising is the biological parent of said child.
My brother is 16 years younger than I am.* He was born in January 1982, and I left home in August, 1983. Before I left, I did my share of babysitting, changing, feeding, etc.
*If you’d raised a child like me, you wouldn’t have tried again for a long time either. Yes, I am the only Hell my mother ever raised.