My mom has a brother and sister. My dad has three brothers and two sisters. My dad saw two of his brothers at my grandfather’s funeral last July, and one of them last summer at a cookout. I think that’s the first time he’s seen any of them in 3 years. My mom hasn’t seen her siblings in an equally long time. Even when we lived in the same state(instead of one away) they rarely saw each other. Please tell me this isn’t common.
My brother is one of my favorite people in the world, and now that he’s starting college, I’m wondering more what our relationship will be like in 2 or 5 or 10 years from now. There are people who do spend time regularly with their adult siblings, right? Sort of like on that show Sisters… I’d hate to lose touch like my parents have with their siblings, and I know it bothers my brother too that they don’t seem to miss our aunts and uncles.
So, how well do you get along with your own brothers and/or sisters?
I’m 28 and my sister is 30. We see each other almost every other day. In fact, they know I’m house-hunting this fall, and it’s possible I end up living in the same sub-division as where they’re having they’re new house built (Still plenty of lots to be sold).
We still call each other to go to the movies or just hang out and watch TV if we notice something on that we both like.
Im a 29 year old male. I have 2 older sister. When I was living in the same city we got together every week or two. Most of my neices and nephews grew up seeing me not as that Uncle you see every once in awhile, but as that intregal family member. I was so lucky that way. About 4 years or so I moved several states away. I’ve only seen my family a few times since then. My littlest nephews now only know me as that guy that sometimes visits. It breaks my heart. If I was back there it would be “at least every week” thing. I miss my family much. Do what you can not to have that happen.
Same here as with Crunchy. I’m 26 and my brother is 30, and we’re great friends. I see him at least once a week, and we phone/e-mail daily, if for no other reason than to pity ourselves for having such wacked-out parents.
My dad has two brothers and two sisters. One of his brothers passed away 11 years ago, and I don’t remember much about the man, except that he was nice and had three kids. My dad has always been close with his siblings. We did Christmas together each year, we saw each other for birthdays and such. His relationship with his younger brother has been very rocky for as long as I remember. Then again, Danny is a jackass, and right now none of us are speaking to him at all. Dad has a somewhat less rocky relationship with his older sister, but we’re all still friendly. And my parents went through a long spell (three years) where they weren’t speaking to his younger sister. Again, that’s a very long story and all has been resolved for some time now.
On my mom’s side, she has three older brothers. Uncle Jim lived with our family for as long as I remember and my mom and him were very close. He died three years ago. Uncle Jack lives on the other end of the city, but we see him all the time, and we are all very close. Uncle Bill lives in Texas (we’re in Chicago), but he and my mom are as close as any two siblings I’ve ever known.
My sister is six years younger than me. We are way closer now than we ever were as kids. It’s rare that more than three weeks go by without me seeing her.
My family as a whole has always been very close. I have second cousins who I am still in contact with. And when I see my relatives from Texas, it’s as if we’ve been living down the street from one another our whole lives.
My sister lives 90 minutes away - we talk on the phone maybe once every week or two and see each other maybe 4 times a year. She doesn’t have much interest in interacting w/ my kids: though my 4 year knows who she is and loves her, she’s only seen my 18 month old half a dozen times.
My dad has 5 siblings - he saw all of them last year for the first time in probably 8 years. He used to see them on a yearly basis - they all except 1 sister live in the same general area (though about 10 hours from my dad) and until his dad died, my dad used to make a trip once a year to visit family, though they didn’t often come to our area.
I have a brother and sister but they don’t look like me and they don’t look like each other. No-one ever mentions that fact but me and it’s always at the risk of being called paranoid (to choose one of the nicer epithets). We have the same mother and father and according to them we are fully related. I don’t know of any other family in which siblings look so radically different from each other. All I can hope for is that age will act as a levelling mechanism on our appearances so that sooner or later the differences in physical attractiveness won’t be so apparent. When I saw a documentary on the Partridge Family recently I couldn’t help but notice that this had happened to David Cassidy and Danny Bonnaduci and they were no longer at opposite ends of the scale. Whereas in the 70s Cassidy rated a 10 to Bonnaduci’s 3, these days it’s more like, say, 8 to 5. I would be interested to hear of any other people who have legitimate siblings with vastly different appearances to themselves.
I have five siblings, three brothers, two sisters. I currently live in my sister’s garage as I slowly remodel it into a guest room or apartment. Since none of them live more than one hour’s drive away i tend to see a lot of them.
We are somewhat ridiculously close. Come to think of it, at one point or another I have, in my adult life, lived with one or more of them at a time. We have terrific times together and the shorthand/slang can get pretty brief and cryptic to outsiders.
The bad part is that I think a lot of this closeness comes from my mother dying when I was fourteen. Pretty tough, but had a lot of good love from my sibs. I love 'em all, the goofy bastards…
My brother(31) lives less than a mile away (right next door around these parts). We don’t really have much in common beyond our parents but still spend a lot of time together. I also get along very well with my sister-in-law and we sit around and talk alot. I watch their kids for them occasionally and we do dinner and movies together almost every weekend. Up until this past spring, he had lived in Alabama, Tennessee, and Mississippi for the last six or seven years so we hadn’t spent a whole lot of time together, but we’d see each other two or three times a year and talk on the phone about once a month.
I have two step-sisters from my father’s marriage. One(turns 27 today) lives on Whidbey Island and I only have to see her about twice a year, if I’m lucky. She’s a first class b*tch, but her husband and I get along great. I still don’t know why he takes so much crap from her. My other step-sister(20) is the baby of the family (twelve years behind me) and we have a special bond. She lives on the other side of OKC and we talk about once every week or two. We get along very well and do dinner and a movie every once in a while. If she gets a couple of days off and comes down here, she usually sleeps on my couch, rather than staying at our parents’ house, which is a mere two blocks away. These two sisters probably talk on the phone once every two weeks or so but they have gone months without talking.
From my mother’s marriage, I have a step-brother and step-sister. My step-brother(26 and makes SSgt today) is in the USAF and is now in Italy and was in Korea for a year before that. I rarely even hear from him, but we get along really well when he’s here on leave. Due to his occupational specialty, it’s unlikely that he’ll ever be stationed anywhere near here; that’s probably going to be the way it is for the next 15-25 years. His sister has completely cut herself off from her father and, by extension, the rest of us as well. She’s moderately pleasant most of the time so we’re hoping it’s just a phase (she’s now 21). Her parents divorced before her first birthday and her mother has made her relationship with my stepdad pretty difficult. Her brother is pretty pissed at her for making their dad upset about this estrangement.
BTW, I’m 32 and live right outside OKC if you didn’t catch the reference to my baby step-sister.
Actually, we are a lot like our parents, sort of. My dad is sort of close to his brothers. They all talk regularly and play golf once in a while (one’s in Tulsa, the other in the DFW area). My mother is very close to her two sisters (all live around OKC), but her brother is in DFW and doesn’t come up much more than once or twice a year. My stepdad gets along with his half-sisters fairly well, but the one in OKC is an alcoholic and the other lives in Texarkana. My stepmom, OTOH, rarely even talks to her brothers. I think two live in NM and one in TX, but I’m not sure. I don’t think they even talk on the phone more than once or twice a year. I bet they don’t see each other more than once every three or four years. She’s been married to my dad for almost nineteen years and I haven’t even met one of them and have only seen the other two once each, on seperate occasions.
Well since my siblings and I aren’t terribly old yet, (the oldest is only 25) I don’t have much to say to the OP except that at our current ages we’re stil… close, well when we’re not at each other’s throats, but we really do love each other and see each other often.
As to G. Nome though, if you look up my picture in the people pages you’ll realize that I’m rather dark. Well not skin wise, but overall coloring I’m dark, brown hair and brown eyes. One of my brothers looks remarkably like me and has the same coloring, my mother shares that with us. My sister has dark hair and dark green eyes like my father. However my oldest brother is blonde with blue eyes. shrugs Go figure. The running gag is that he’s the milkman’s kid though as he gets older he’s starting to look and act more like the rest of us.
One of my older brothers is like that-the rest of us are dark haired, and all but he and I have dark eyes. He is blond. Our family has a similar joke that he’s the milkman’s kid. The only thing denying that is that we all resemble our father a lot as far as facial features go.
I have brothers-20, 30, and 32(I think)). I’m 27. My oldest brother I talk to once or twice a year-he and his wife live in Boston, and we never really had a lot in common. My middle and younger brother live about 90 minutes away, and I talk to the 30-year old about once a week-we’re pretty close, and getting more so as we get older. The younger brother is difficult-we don’t talk a lot, but we can have a decent conversation at times.
My father has once sister-they talk about twice a year, and don’t see each other much since both their parents died. My mother has 4 sisters and one brother, scattered around the country. Since she got e-mail, she keeps up with them a lot more though. I’d say that she’s pretty close with 2 of them, and close to the others.
The longest I’ve gone without seeing one of my siblings was 3 years. And that’s only because she lives 2,700 miles away. I made the trip last summer, and I might again next summer. Three years is too long.
Of my other 4 siblings, they all live within a day’s drive, and I see them anywhere from once a day to once a year.
My older sister is 37. I’m 36. We’re going to the Dodger game tonight with her 2 kids. My younger sister, 30, I see pretty much every week. Usually at mom’s house. Its kind of meeting place for the family.
FWIW, I have a very close relationship with both my brother and my step-brother.
My older brother is 5 years older. We both share the fact that our mother died when we were young. We can almost talk to each other about anything.
The other things I can’t talk about with my older brother I talk to with my step-brother who is six months younger than me.
Granted we all have our own lives, my brothers are so very important to me and my world. They give me strength when the world is shaking around me. We get to together as often as time allows and discuss all kinds of things.
I think it depends on how you were brought up. My older brother and I weren’t particularly close growing up but after our mother died we had a bond that is unbreakable. We both know we are there for each other, no matter what circumstances come up. Since I am the childless one, I also make it a point to be the cool aunt that the kids can turn to in crisis. For that I am there, having been a slightly wild child I can relate.
In either case it really depends on how you evolve as siblings. My brothers will always be there for me and the other way around as well. It’s built on years of acceptance because we all are so different. There is no easy answer, if you feel close to your siblings then massage that relationship. If you feel that things are not quite there, then seek out friendships to mimic what you want but don’t push them.
In short, I think sibling relationships have a lot to do with one’s past. Today, I think sibling relationships are more valued than they were a generation or more ago…my dad and his sister are a good example of that. I couldn’t imagine having that type of relationship with my brothers, how empty now that their parents are gone.
< sigh > Now I am sad for my dad and his sister…for not knowing what my brothers and I have. It’s like a friend but you are related…UGH. Will someone please hand me a tissue? Sheesh!
I’m the oldest of 4 kids. There’s 18 months between me and my middle brother, 5 years between me and my youngest brother, and 7 years between my sister and I.
In terms of looking alike, well, in all the family photos I look like the neighbour’s kid. I’m a slightly built redhead with glasses, while my sibs are overweight-to fat- platinum blondes with good eyesight.
I live in Vancouver, while the rest of them live in Montreal.
I never talk to my middle brother. Never did it when I was in Montreal either. We just have a habit of mutually ignoring each other, which is fine by me. As children, he always used to steal my things, and try to pick fights with me. We’ve never had much in common-- I’ve always been academic/studious, and now I work as a writer. He delivers pizza, pushes buttons in a factory, and mows lawns.
My youngest brother is trying to figure out what’s going on with his life, when he’s not pumping iron. He doesn’t talk to anyone. He mows lawns and works as a busboy.
My sister and I will talk on occasion, if she picks up the phone when I call the folks.
I just don’t share the same values as my family, be they on education, exercize, or credit cards.
But that’s the family that I was born with. The family that I’ve chosen for myself (wife and close friends) loves me tremendously, and I love them.
What I meant by that is, we are all different but have been able to see sides to one another that helps us understand the world around us. With out those differences I honestly don’t think we would be as close as we are.
Oh and BTW, my older brother and step-brother aren’t as close as I am to each of them.
Older bro is my older bro and was in high school when step-bro’s mom and our dad got married. Since step-bro and I are so close in age we had many of the same friends. He really is my brother though, it’s as though he’s always been my brother.
Siblings aren’t just blood relatives but can enter your life at 11 or so and still be considered a sibling. I love him just as much as I love my older brother.
Thank you for starting this thread…I just sent an email to my brothers to let them both know how much they mean to me. Sometimes a little reminder from a message board can mean so much to remind us to connect with our family and friends. You gave me the inspiration to email them to tell them how much value they both hold in my heart.
I’m the first born of 5 and the only one who left home when I joined the Navy at 19. My folks and my sibs all live in the Baltimore area, and I’m in Jax, FL. Even when I was living near Fredericksburg, VA for 3 years, the only way I’d see any of them would be if I’d make the trip - all 2.5 hours of it. Last time I was in the area - on a training trip - I tried to get together with all of them. My brother and one sister showed up, along with the other sister’s favored offspring.
I learned early on not to bother extending invitations because they’d be ignored. It broke my heart when my daughter commented how my parents like my sister’s kids better than they like her. I’m not sure why I’m persona non grata - how dare I have a life, I guess.
My husband has one brother who lives about an hour from us - we see him when he wants something, unless we initiate a family gathering. His other brother is married to a psycho bitch and they’ve had no contact with any of us for years. Between getting their phone cut off and getting evicted, we have no idea how to get in touch with them anyway.
I’m 31 and my older sister is 35. She lives in Utah and I live in Illinois. We talk or email usually every couple of days.
When we were younger, we never got along. We used to fight all the time. As we grew up, we learned to accept our differences.
She worships Martha Stewart, I worship the WWF, and we’re both cool with that.
I’m 27, and the youngest of the family- there’s a 7 year, 9 year, and 10 year difference between my sibs and I. I live 1100 miles from parents, brother and sister, and over 2500 from oldest sis.
I’m going to a family reunion in two weeks. It’ll be the first time in five years I’ve seen my brother and oldest sister. Can’t remember the last time I spoke with the sis on the phone, and emails are infrequent. My brother and I speak sometimes on the phone. Other sis and I are a little closer, but still not much contact there. I haven’t met some of my younger neices and nephews, and honestly if I had to pick any of them out of a lineup I probably couldn’t.
I think a good bit of the distance is due to the fact that they left just when I was just getting interesting. My oldest sis went to college when I was 7, and never came back home. Brother was gone the next year. I had the other sister around for two more years, and she moved back home after college for a couple of years while I was in high school, but she was a bully and we didn’t get along very well. To my siblings, I’m perpetually 7 years old and they treat me as such. It really freaks them out to see me in person, because it throws off their perception.
My brother is going through some weird crisis right now where he really wants his kids and my sister’s kids to play together, but my sister is less than enthusiastic about the idea because his kids are undisciplined and wind up injuring her kids. My mom is stuck in the middle and is drowning in guilt, cause brother says he doesn’t want his kids growing up the way we did, never knowing our cousins. shrug (he’s right, in a way- I wouldn’t know any of my cousins if I tripped over them.) Me, I just point out the fact that we have always (and likely will always) gotten along better the further apart we are. I’m not looking forward to this reunion… I give it about half a day before we’re not talking to each other.
I’m a firm believer in the ‘you can pick your friends…’ thing. I have friends here that are closer to me than my family ever could be, and I’m okay with that. Maybe I’m missing out on something, and when I get older it’ll be a bigger deal than it is now, but I don’t see that happening any time soon.
My oldest sis went to college when I was 7, and never came back home. Brother was gone the next year. I had the other sister around for two more years, and she moved back home after college for a couple of years while I was in high school, but she was a bully and we didn’t get along very well. To my siblings, I’m perpetually 7 years old and they treat me as such. It really freaks them out to see me in person, because it throws off their perception.