Siblings

[Lord Chrusher]

I have a younger brother.

[Bebop Man]

One younger sister.

[viscomica]

A little sister. She's six years younger than I am.

[Jamfalcon]

I have one brother, who is a year and a half older. We've always been quite close and shared most of our interests, as well as having the same social circle throughout our entire childhoods.

[Tapir12]

One younger brother for me.

[Danielle Pepin]

I don't count step-siblings...especially when I haven't met them.

[Viking_Sleyheron]

1 younger sister.
My parents and all of my grandparents also had 1 sibling, though my maternal grandmothers brother died very early.... must be a 20'th century tradition in our family.

[Timelady]

One half-sister, who's enough older than me so that her youngest kid is learning to drive right now which is not making me feel old at all.

[King Kool]

One identical twin brother, one older sister.

[Shandi]

Does anyone think the presence of siblings or lack thereof meaningfully affected their world view? Like do any only children feel more in tune with individualism than those with siblings around them, etc?

[Elomin Sha]

No.

[phlip]

I have a sister 6 years younger than me, and a half-brother 21 years younger than me (a long story, but I'm sure you can guess all the major plot points...).

[Elomin Sha]

I have something similar, my little brother is 22 years younger (writing that now is scary), my two other sisters are 17 and 18 years younger while my other sister is 1 year younger.

[AdmiralMemo]

Does anyone think the presence of siblings or lack thereof meaningfully affected their world view? Like do any only children feel more in tune with individualism than those with siblings around them, etc?

The absence of siblings may have contributed to my mindset being what it is today.

[Metcarfre]

Does anyone think the presence of siblings or lack thereof meaningfully affected their world view? Like do any only children feel more in tune with individualism than those with siblings around them, etc?

Broadly speaking, I've found a) only children to share certain similarities and b) first-borns to share certain similarities.

[Duckay]

I think of myself as having two siblings, as I grew up with a half-sister four years younger than me, and a half-brother five years younger than me. Technically speaking, however, I also have two step-sisters and at least one half-sister, none of whom I have ever met.

[Shandi]

I grew up with one three-years-older sister. My mom also still runs to this day a daycare in the home where I grew up. I defined myself a lot as being very different from my sister, and by the time I was school aged I was surrounded by younger children who looked up to me. I wonder now if my self-image relies too heavily on me in relation to others.
I have a 16-years-younger brother now too, who is my world.
And a couple half siblings I have never met.

[auberginequeen]

Does anyone think the presence of siblings or lack thereof meaningfully affected their world view? Like do any only children feel more in tune with individualism than those with siblings around them, etc?

I have no siblings and it's really hard to say. As an "only child" I've had a lot of people say stuff like "You must really be glad you don't have any siblings! You don't have to share anything!" or "Don't you ever get lonely without siblings?" To those people I say what I've always said: I have no idea, I don't know the alternative. I'm perhaps more selfish than I might have been, I'm very possessive of things and I get pretty aggressive if anyone wants to take them from me. I'm not the best at sharing.

Statistically, I don't think we would've gotten along if I did have siblings. Sometimes I watch my boyfriend interact with his brother though and I wonder if it might've been nice to have someone who shared my experiences. Might've made the grown-ups vs. kids conflicts a little less one-sided.

[SplitDemonIdentity]

I have five brothers all of which are younger than me {although three are bigger than me} with the oldest of the lot being year younger than me and the youngest being eleven years younger than me.

I quite like them, they are lovely and we're all giant nerds together.

[Avistew]

I have 3 brothers, although my father remarried about a year ago and his wife has two children of her own, so if they count, I have 5 brothers. I don't really consider them my siblings, though. I didn't grow up around them (or them around me) and I've met them only once. If we lived in the same country, that would be different, mind you.

[Thysane]

I've one brother, two years younger than me. We used to absolutely loath each other, but now we've come full circle and are basically best buds. We tend to bond over good (and bad) movies, PC games, music and general weirdness. We somehow put up with each other's bullshit. I don't know how he deals with me. We make a good team regardless.

[Tzimisce]

I have a younger brother and sister.

[TStodden]

While I've chimed in on the poll, I haven't chimed in here...

I'm the older-middle child of my family as I have an older brother, younger sister & a younger brother... all paced about 2 years apart (give or take 6 months).

Having siblings is a mixed blessing. There's a few times when you want to tear each others throats out, but there's other times when you can really get along. There's always some level of sharing, but you learn to be patient & how to compromise to keep some level of harmony.

[Lord Hosk]

Does anyone think the presence of siblings or lack thereof meaningfully affected their world view? Like do any only children feel more in tune with individualism than those with siblings around them, etc?

In my experience the number of siblings in the home tends to heavily influence a persons sense of personal importance.

Single children and youngest children in families with 3 or more children tend to have a strong "im important" outlook on life.

I have also found that eldest children tend to have a alpha/dominant personality.

On another side, Does "favored child" seem to exist to people?

In my family the concept of "I love my children equally" was very strong, my cousins were the same way.

However my best friends parents most defiantly favored his eldest sister (three boys three girls) She had her own room in a four bedroom home where the three boys had to share and the younger two girls shared, as one example.

Similarly my in-laws strongly play favorites, my wife's younger brother was their favored child and still is, my wife and her sister were told they could move out as her sister did or in my wife's case started to pay rent when they turned 18, their younger brother however lived at home until he was 24, never paid rent and when he turned 17 the family bought a second car and he was "given" the old one. On a similar note they absolutely favor my eldest daughter, she gets more gifts for birthdays and Christmas and they criticize Lady Hosk and I for not controlling the Littler Lady Hosks behavior even when she is clearly copying Little Lady Hosk. Last time they visited they even asked if they could take Little Lady Hosk out for ice cream after dinner and when we suggested they take both of the older ones they said "no we dont want to go with both, Littler lady hosk is too much of a hassle" then told little lady hosk that "her mommy and daddy told them that they couldn't take her out for ice cream." Which we corrected, and explained that it wouldnt be fair if they only took her and not her sister, which little lady hosk thought was fine but didnt understand why they wouldn't just take both of them.

When we bring this up to them individually or together they respond "well why should we treat them all equally, they are different children and little lady hosk is just better behaved" or something along those lines. They even once said "little lady hosk is clearly not very smart she isnt potty trained yet" when she was less than 2 years old.

[Shandi]

That's super interesting, Lord Hosk. I can definitely say I have observed strong favoured-child scenarios. In the strongest case I know of, the siblings get along great now as adults, and the less favoured brother has achieved much success in spite of his parents' less than fair treatment.
However, my sister and I have never gotten along very well. She wasn't very nice to me most of the time growing up and I never understood why, but my mother has since told me that while she didn't favour either child, our extended family was kind of more excited about the younger kid and harder on my sister. I wonder if as a child, she resented me for that, and maybe that's why we didn't have a better relationship.