The Sibling Thread

I remember very well once crossing the street to the baseball diamond to see all my friends who were playing there. I wasn't allowed because the diamond was adjoined to a new neighbourhood construction pit. Nothing dangerous whatsoever. My mother came over, grabbed me by the wrist, and my feet never touched the ground because she hammered my ass with her other open hand all the way to front porch. She probably whacked me more times than Lizzy Borden.

 

I am the 3rd of four. I have two older brothers and one younger. The way our family worked out was that it was like two sets of kids. My older brothers are 2 years apart, and my younger brother and I are 2 years apart, with 5 years between the two sets.

My little brother and I are probably the closest (he was the best man at my wedding) and I love the kid to death, but holy shit was he irresponsible until about two years ago. He floated from one shitty job to another, totaled his car while driving drunk, and just generally didn't give a fuck about anything. He finally started to mature a bit two years ago, and bought a house and settled down a little (although as the only one of us that isn't married with kids, he is still the 'wild' one.) He is still the one I'd talk to if I needed too, but I find myself closer to my older brother, now.

My older brother (2nd oldest) and I are basically mirror versions of each other. We have the same job (social studies teachers and football coaches), and same interests, but otherwise we are opposites. He is exceptionally social and outgoing, while I tend to be more introverted and quiet. He can walk into a room and just take command with his personality, while I tend to sit back. He has a much lighter sense of humor, while mine is much darker. He has a much shorter temper, while it takes a LOT to get me truly angry (but when I am angry, watch out). The main reason I'm seen as quiet is because if I told some of the jokes that came to mind, I'd be viewed as being pretty fucking insane or insenstitive, so I choose to go the quiet route. However, because we are in the same career and even worked together a while, we talk a lot and have a lot more in common than with any of our other brothers.

Right now, for the most part, my parents, myself, and my older and younger brother get along pretty well. We still have fights (good lord can they be judgmental), but it isn't anything we can't get over. The biggest cause of tension is that they will relentlessly make fun of me, but as soon as I say something back, I am 'too sensitive" and "can't let things go." It doesn't help that my parents both say the same thing, so either I take their verbal abuse or I say something back and get labeled as being too sensitive. My usual solution to this problem is to avoid them, but then I catch shit for that, so I really can't win.

Its also strange, because they LOVE my wife. I honestly think if we got divorced, they'd want to keep her and get rid of me, but ah well.

My oldest brother is the one we barely see. He lives in a different state, and mentally is very different from the rest of us. He is hardcore in his beliefs, to the point where conversations wtih him turn heated very, very quickly. He also feels very slighted by my parents and by the rest of us. Back when he was in his first two years of college, he was still "living" at home. That said, he only came home once every two weeks or so to check in, then otherwise he was staying with his then-girlfriend. I was 10 or 11 at the time, and still sharing a room with my little brother, and we were fighting constantly. My parents' solution was simple; tell my oldest brother to either move out (again, he was only home once every two weeks or so), so I could have his room, or start coming home and actually USING his room. They were okay with either solution, but they were tired of having a bedroom sitting empty while I was begging them for a room of my own. My brother viewed this as being "kicked out" by my parents, and held me partially responsible, too. Ever since then, he has been kind of distant.

He is also the least successful of all of us. He works in retail, still rents an apartment despite being almost 40, and has a wife and two kids that he can barely afford. Rather than asking his wife get a part time job to help with bills, he begs for money from my parents, then can't repay them. Then he avoids us because it is awkward for him to see my parents because he can't pay them back, so we don't see him (or my niece and nephew) often.

When he got laid off and wasn't working for six months, he was 'too proud' to apply for unemployment (he said anyone that does that is a filthy liberal hippy and is going to hell), instead he just borrowed thousands of dollars from my parents, and still hasn't paid it back. My parents want to cut him off, but they feel bad for their grandkids, so they keep giving him money.

We try to reach out to him more, but he seems content with the way things are, so we don't talk often. I'd like to have a better relationship with him and my niece and nephew, but it just doesn't look like its going to happen.

 

That 70's Show. It was great right up until they introduced big haired Randy.

 

I am the number 2 child of 8, we were all adopted and range in nationalities. We were raised in a very strict fundamentalist Christian home, I kept to myself as much as I could as space and privacy were non-existent, for some reason I did not bond well with any of them and the therapist says it is some sort of attachment disorder
My older brother is my only white sibling, he and I fought a lot as teens but we worked together for 8 years doing mortgages and he has since left the company and I speak to him at Christmas dinner. He has a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde personality and most of my family only sees which ever one of those was the good one.
I have a Korean sister who is 2 years younger than me who I am probably the closest to, she married my cousin at the age of 18 with the blessing of the parents and now we have fucking cousins in the family. She put herself through nursing school while kicking out kids and staying married to her husband who is in a wheelchair, not sure how she does it with 3 kids but at times I feel very bad for her, I kept my distance from her as a kid but now I like being around her.
I have twin sisters whom we adopted from Guatemala when they were very young, they are both married with kids and both of their husbands hate eachother and so they don't come to family functions which does not bother me.

I have a Mexican brother who's mother was heroin addict and I like him but we do not have much in common, he is divorced and has partial custody of his kids,while working at Amazon.

I have a brother from Haiti who I never hear from except when he needs something and by something I mean money. He had a full ride to Oregon to play soccer and flunked out and proceeded to smoke dope and bum around, last I heard he was trying to get a degree and I hope he gets it.

My youngest brother I have never had much like for, although as he gets older he is beginning to be tolerable having a wife and 2 kids at 23 chilled him out, he was a typical youngest child getting pretty much what he wanted and being an entitled asshole I moved out when he was very young so my interactions with him were minimal.


As if that were not enough about 10 years ago I found my biological mother and she had 2 other kids whom she kept from 2 different guys and over the course of the last few years all 3 have managed to move to Phoenix. I was very happy to learn I came from a long line addicts and drunks.
My biological mother has pushed hard for me to be the "big brother" but it is not there, while I do feel some sort of bond with them it is not easy to make things like that happen.
My half brother is in his 30's and just had a kid with some chick who is not his girlfriend but lives with, he aspires to be a chef but smokes to much weed to make things happen, he is a great dad but not much of a provider.

My other half brother is in his early 20's and has moved back and forth 4 times in the last 3 years because he wants to be inspired and it is hard to connect with someone that age.

Some people say that they could call their siblings and they would be there to help them in a second, I do not feel that way.

 

Hard to follow Dewercs.

I am one of 4. Or 5. Not sure how to answer that question when asked as my oldest brother is a half-brother that I didn't meet until I was in my early teens. Growing up I would always say I was one of 4, but we see him and his kids quite often now so I feel guilty saying that.

So, of the 4, I am the second oldest. My older brother is 18 months older than me, who my parents had at 19 (dad) and 16 (mom). They purposely got pregnant since they wanted to get married and my mom thought her mom would make her go to the doctor's to prove it, forgetting that her mom didn't care what she did. I would probably be only 1 of 2 if my mom knew there was a permanent form of birth control. She was 1 of 8 from Polish immigrants and had no clue about any of that stuff.

My older brother had ADS (before it became ADHD) and he was brutal growing up. Just never letting up on us. Since his medication game him bad headaches my mom didn't give it to him in the summers, which was torture for us. He ended up having 5 kids with 3 women. Two of which were named Tammy. The first Tammy kicked him out after they had a kid, so he met the new Tammy, married her, had a kid, left her, went back to the old Tammy, had ANOTHER kid, then left her. Got married a couple more times. Had his final two kids with his last wife. They've been married a while now, so he seems to have settled down. While we aren't close, I can carry on decent conversations with him.

My sister is 3 years younger than me. We shared a room growing up and were pretty close, although we are different as two people can be. She was very attractive growing up, and after hearing that stuff your whole life, you start believing it, so she can be somewhat conceited. But she has a big heart and will do anything for her friends. However, sometimes I want to record the stuff she says and play it back so she can hear how she sounds. She drifted away a bit when she got married because of a controlling husband (we didn't see/speak for 4 years--her choice), but we've got much closer in the past couple of years now that they are getting divorced. He is basically putting her into bankruptcy, dragging out the divorce, and she has been depressed and is probably a borderline alcoholic now, drinking her pain away. My mom can be pretty hard, but I just try to listen to her, offer advice when asked, and just let her know that it will pass. It makes me sad to see her like this. I'm hoping once the divorce is final, she will pull out of the hole she is in. She recently went out, got so drunk, she missed three down steps at a bar, face planted, gave herself a black eye, busted up chin, and a concussion. I asked if she went to the hospital and she said she just slept for a week.

My youngest brother is 5 years younger than me. He's a good guy, installs cable and always seems to get stuff for free or really cheap. His recent acquisition was a jet ski that was a couple of years old that the guy said didn't work, so he gave it to my brother. Who he just met. Installing his cable. My brother had to replace a wire and now uses it on the lake near his house. He was also given a slot machine, old-style Coke machine and a Honda Accord for $200, that ran for years until my niece got in an accident with it. When looking for a car for my daughter, I told him to work his magic, but no such luck. He is married to a twin, so we say he basically has two wives as his wife's twin is over all the time and of course they side with each other over everything. I don't know how he deals with it.

When we all get together we have a blast, even though we are all different. But that may be because it's only several times a year. Maybe we would get sick of each other if we were around each other more often. While not perfect, I love my family. I wish I lived closer.

 

My brother is two years older than I am. He lives in Tampa and we see each other once a year during one of the federally designated family holidays. We talk on the phone twice as often.

For virtual strangers, we get along pretty well.