I am the third of four children. My older brother is 10 years and almost 5 months older than me, my sister is 8 years and about 7 months older than me, and my younger brother is almost 13 months younger than me. When I started preschool, my older siblings were in high school or about to be. My brother graduated high school when I was in the second grade and my sister when I was in the fourth. As you can guess, we've never been close as siblings, but it still impacts me.

You see, when my siblings went to college, it was a family affair to help them move. The whole family took the day to help move in and go out to eat. When I moved to college, it was me and my mom.

Whenever my siblings visited from college, all the attention was on them and how college was like. Now, one parent isn't at home on weekdays and the other is busy or gets tired earlier. When my siblings graduated high school, my parents still lived in the same house. That is not the case anymore (they're still married though).

Since there is a big age gap, my younger brother and I were always grouped together. I was forced to do the same things with him and now we resent each other for it. It is because of that age gap I am always told that "[I] had it easier. We were forced to do chores and work." That is SO not the case, but that's for another day.

Since my brother and I are so close in age, we had to do many things together and mom wanted us to match constantly. We lived with each other for so long we fought ALL. THE. TIME. I have been locked out of the house countless times and have been in physical altercations that left bruises for weeks.

My older siblings didn't experience going through three and almost a half years of just having a mom around all the time like my younger brother and I did because they were rarely there anyway. For about three years I technically only had one parent.

I couldn't fully celebrate my graduation because of my sister's wedding. I say "I," but really it was my family. As soon as my graduation was done, it was wedding this and wedding that.

I'm very grateful to be able to have siblings, even though we never get along or never see each other. There are some moments where get along, but that's few and far between.

Parents, be careful when planning (or not planning) for kids. Too much or too little of an age gap and your kids either won't have that relationship or spend so much time together that they get tired of each other.

Having siblings is great, but maybe not if they're so much older or barely a year younger.