2nd of 6

I’m the second child out of six born to my parents. There are three boys and three girls.  Yes it was a crazy, loud, messy, and chaotic house we had.  The first 5 kids in my family are close in age.  There are just about 1 to 2 years between the births of the 5 oldest kids, and then a long 8 years till my baby sister was born. 

Since my older sister and I are only a year and a half apart in age we pretty much did everything at about the same time.  We were only 1 grade apart from each other in school so we had a lot of the same friends, did the same activities, we usually wore close to the same size of clothes, and we even got the talk about the “birds and the bees” from our mom at the same timeJ  During the “birds and the bees” talk, on the subject of safe sex, my mom told us that she had gotten pregnant using every form of contraception, from birth control to condoms.  At the time this was way more information than my sister and I wanted to know about our parents.  She was trying to enforce into our minds how birth control isn’t 100% effective.  Little did we know back then that I didn’t need the help of birth control to not get pregnant, my body takes care of that on its own (oops, this wasn’t supposed to be an infertility post…but lately I find infertility in everything).

The Pros of having 5 siblings are:

·         You are never bored.  There was always something going on.

·         You never have to play by yourself.  There was always someone willing to play a game, ride bikes, go hiking, or just cause trouble.

·         Hand-me-downs.

·         There was always a sibling to go to school or church functions with.

·         You can combine forces and get chores done in record speed.

·         You can blame a younger (innocent) sibling for something you did (I have some very funny stories that go with this one).

·         Getting to experience the different types of relationships from having siblings that are close to you in age and ones that have a large age gap with you.

·         Someone else would eat the foods you didn’t like at the dinner table.

The Cons of having 5 siblings are:

·         Your stuff always gets destroyed.  Although I think this is true for me and my older sister because after me in birth order are 3 boys.

·         You have to share everything.

·         Hand-me-downs (yes this is on both lists…depending on what this is it can be good or bad).

·         Trying to find a quiet space is impossible.

·         It’s hard to be alone.

·         So many dishes after meals!  We didn't have a dishwasher and this is probably why dishes are my least favorite chore.

·         There is only so much attention that can be allotted to each child from the parents.

·         So much babysitting if you are on the older end of the birth order.  Even more so when the youngest sibling is born when you are 14.

I made it a point to make the pros and cons have the same number of items.  There were times when I was young when I really disliked having so many siblings, and then times that I was so grateful to have all of them.  I am happy to have been raised in a large family. 

During my recovery from my surgery my baby sister has been such a big help to me.  She has taken good care of me when M has not been home.  I mentioned earlier that I was 14 when she was born.  I remember when my mom told us she was pregnant.  I was disgusted to think my parents still had sex!  When she was born I fell in love with her.  My older sister and I took her everywhere with us.  We got to dress her up and give her 4 different hairstyles a day.  Poor girl!  She was just a little girl when I moved away at 18.  She was so heartbroken to have both her big sisters move away and be left with 3 older brothers.  Oh the teasing she had to endure from our brothers!  Baby sister moved in with M and I almost 2 years ago to attend the University in our town.  I am so lucky that I have been able to get to know baby sister as an adult.  She is such a special person.