My mother had 7 of us in 6 years, although one of the sets of twins were premature and died. So five kids within 6 years of each other. 4 under the age of three. I’m the youngest, and I know that the older ones were expected to do a lot. In our house, if you were big enough to stand on a chair and reach the sink, you could do dishes. Also, with me and my sibs, my mother’s sisters helped out with us a lot (she was one of of the oldest of 11, and her younger sisters were disappointed then didn’t have babies to play with).
Also, even though we were born in the '50’s and '60’s, my parents didn’t have gender hangups, so my brother was as likely to cook and clean and me and my sisters help my father do plumbing or electrical repairs. My parents thought kids should be handy with whatever needed doing.
I’m the oldest of three. I have one brother (1 1/2 years younger) and one sister (6 years younger.)
I didn’t really help out with the bro. We always fought growing up, were in different cliques in school, etc. We were pretty independent of each other but we have a decent relationship now.
I helped with little tasks with my sister when I was younger such as babysitting, playing, feeding, and changing diapers. After mom went off the deep end when my sister was around 13 I had to help take her shopping for clothes, to appointments, with homework and womanly things that my mom wouldn’t teach her like periods and shaving her legs. When I’m home I cook for my sister and father and take my sister to any place if she needs to go somewhere.
My brother is almost 5 years younger than me, and from the minute he was born my parents stressed my role as the older sister. There have been many times when I’ve resented this - as WhyNot mentioned, I had a “I didn’t choose to have a kid!” kind of mentality; I felt like I had enough to do making sure I didn’t screw up my own life. He’s alternated between being dependent on me and resenting me as well - it’s only been recently, now that we’re older, that we’ve mellowed out towards each other.
My sister is six years younger than me. I babysat her occasionally when I was a teenager, but nothing more than that, mostly because we squabbled CONSTANTLY. I was very upset by my parents, who were always on my case to knock it off because I was the older one and my sister didn’t know any better. When I was a sophomore in college, my mom actually apologized to me for not doing more about my sister’s behavior. Without me around, she had no one left to annoy but our parents. She drove the whole family crazy with her psycho histrionics. (For example: when she was 21, she threw a screaming, plate slamming temper tantrum at Thanksgiving dinner that got her sent to her room.)
I’m the second of four, and I don’t think I did any child rearing with my siblings. Sure, I changed the baby’s diaper and did some babysitting, but all of that was more in the context of what a family is, if that makes sense. You do for each other because it needs doing. Some of that may be that the age range among the three oldest isn’t that big (my sister’s a year older than me, and my brother’s three years younger), so it’s not like we could raise each other. With the baby, we helped out, mostly because he was cute and we liked him, but sometimes because we had to.
I’m the second-youngest of many, with an almost ten year gap between me and the next oldest sibling. The only one younger than me, I didn’t grow up with - he’s the child of my Dad and my stepmum and I never lived with them. My older brothers and sister did do a lot of the raising of me, though. One of my eldest sisters (13 or 14 years older than me - I don’t remember exactly, and we only got back in touch last week after no contact for over twenty years), was pretty much my Mum.
All of my early childhood memories are of my older brothers and sisters - writing my name, going to the dentist (now THAT was a bloody - literally - nightmare), going to the cinema, sitting on someone’s lap. Children being raised by children is nothing new. There are worse things; they all left as soon as possible, and I was left with my parents, and everything went to Hell.
I’m the oldest of two by six years. From the ages of twelve and eighteen, I was responsible for my brother ten hours a week during the school year, and forty-odd hours a week during the summer. This meant entertaining, making meals for, and trying to discipline him. Oh, and trying to keep him out of trouble, which isn’t easy when you’re talking about a kid with ADHD who wasn’t medicated until he was eleven and the principal threatened to send him away to a different school. Not coincidentally, we finally began to have a good relationship when I was eighteen.
I understand why my parents had me look after him so often ($ of course) but it made us resent each other much of the time. I didn’t like the responsibility (if the words “you’re the oldest, you should know better” come out of your mouth more than once a week, your kid doesn’t like it either. When he was 12, I finally asked them when they thought he’d know better.) and would have prefered to spend my time with friends, or alone rather than watching a kid would could be a real brat when he put his mind to it. And he didn’t like the fact that despite his declarations to the contrary, I was “the boss of [him]” much of the time.
We now are pretty close and get along great, but I couldn’t tell you if it’s because of our childhood, or in spite of it.
I’m only 18 months older than my little sister, so I didn’t have to “watch her” that much. I really am opposed to the idea of having a kid do too much to help with raising their siblings, since they didn’t decide to have kids and it seems unfair to put the responsibility arising from someone else’s decision onto their shoulders.
Among people I’ve known who’ve been made to take care of their younger siblings a lot, it seems to make them never want to have their own kids – they feel like they’ve already done it, once, against their will.
(Then again, my family might be a little weird in that we didn’t get left with babysitters much, either – mostly, my parents just arranged their schedules to be with us all the time, and didn’t really go anywhere that we couldn’t go appropriately (i.e., no baby Meenie toted along to the R-rated movie – they just didn’t go.))
I’m 2 years older than my sister, and 4 years older than my brother, so I never really did much until I was older. Then it was limited to watching them while my parents were out.
I’m seven years older than my baby sister: she was a preemie and lived in a humidified tent in the living room for her first month at home. She was so little that Mom used the clothes from another sister’s Tiny Tears doll. Us older kids helped out and let me tell you, baby shit in cloth diapers is disgusting! When it was time to do the laundry and they’d been ripening in the diaper pail for a day or two - WOW! That had to be a violation of the Geneva Convention or something. We all learned to do diapers and how to put your hand in so if you stuck anyone with the diaper pin, it would be yourself. I sampled Gerbers jarred baby food while feeding her: it was vile enough that I’d willingly eat liver instead. There’s a pet name that I used to call her by; I’m the only person on the planet allowed to call her that now. These days, if I’m not sick enough for the hospital, but too sick to go home, she takes care of me.
We taught her to heel, roll over, and play dead and stuff, too: all our friends were very impressed.
As for the older kids, it was a cooperative thing. We started staying home alone while Mom and Dad worked when I was in 4th grade. I was in charge of technical issues, but my older sister (5th grade at the time) was in charge of right vs wrong.
In resurrecting this older thread topic, I’m hoping my entry inspires a few more members to share their experiences related to.
One word for me… TONS! Was chief gopher with baby sibling (1966), fetching this, fetching that, holding this, holding that, but by the time baby sibling 1968, 1971, and 1973 came along, I was in it like a mom. A second set of hands I was, and mom never imposed baby-care upon me, instead, it was my desire to pitch-in and help wherever I could. I prepared and warmed bottles – homemade baby formula and all, and bottles were warmed in a pan or pot of water atop the stove, I changed diapers, lots of diapers, and in those days diapers were cloth, so they needed checked and changed constantly. Also remember helping mom with laundry using her old wringer washing machine, and we line-dried exclusively from spring until fall.
Friday night (every Friday night) was babysitting night for me, where I stayed at home to babysit while mom and dad did their weekly shopping. Never once felt I was robbed of my childhood, and the babysitting jobs poured in for me when word got around that there was a girl in the neighbourhood with extensive babysitting experience. Learning to care for baby siblings also helped make me a better mom. A great prerequisite to motherhood it was.
I got off easy. I was the baby, with just a sister 6 years older. We played school a lot, so I was 6 years ahead of my classmates. When I was 12, she grew up and went away, leaving me an only-child teenager. I never saw a human being up close who was younger than myself, until I had one, which is sobering. I treated him like a little adult, and all was fine.
She’s only 3 years (and 3 days) younger than me, so I didn’t do a whole lot. The main thing I remember is helping with homework. I know I never did diapers or anything like that, though I did help out when she broke her leg and had her knee surgeries–always keeping the leg elevated. But I wouldn’t really consider any of that parenting.
Not much, as I was only three when my brother was born. I suppose I was put in charge once I got older and my parents were away, but it wasn’t even really classed as baby-sitting (at least I never thought of it as such). We distracted each other and played a lot as kids.
I was the youngest, and my (approximately) eight years older sister and seven years older brother both enjoyed playing with me and reading to me. (My sister did more of the latter.) Mom never had them change me or do other unpleasant/boring tasks, though, although my sister occasionally babysat.
My parents divorced when I was young (around 11 years old). My younger brother and I lived with my dad and my twin sister and baby sister (baby was two years old) lived with Mom.
Mom pretty much worked all the time, and it was up to Tina (my twin) to raise Dianna (the baby sister). And Tina was basically Dianna’s mother. She is the one who raised her. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. And she had help from her best friend, Tish. They raised her, and my mom recognized that.
My brother has only three older sisters, but we took care of him a lot. The three of us girls (I was in the middle) had a total of 32 months between the birth of the first and the birth of the third), so we were mostly too close in age to do much to take care of each other.
I was 5 years older than my brother, but I don’t think I did any rearing of him. Gawd, I miss him; he died of brain cancer 21 years ago. My sister is 11 years younger and yes, I did my share of diaper changing, stroller pushing and baby-sitting. I loved them both and my wife says that one of the reasons she trusted me so was the obvious love they showed for me.