Growing up, most of my friends had siblings a few years younger or older than them. For me, that was not the case. I had one brother significantly older than I, 8 ½ years older, to be exact.
When I was younger, I thought it was so cool to have a brother that much older, I didn’t know anything different. He was my role model and I was his baby sister, and he was going to teach me everything he knew. Even my cousin had two older brothers who were 14 and 12 years older than she. And another is 8 years older than his brother. It was very normal to me.
He didn’t blow me off, he would let me play video games with him, I was allowed to hang out with his friends, and he hated seeing me cry. When I was little and my parents went out and left me with a babysitter, and my brother wasn’t home, I would cry until he or my parents came home. Most of the time, he would come home before my parents, so he would hold me, and sing to me about anything and everything (yes, sing, sorry Stephen it’s out there now…no more denying it) until I fell asleep.
As siblings who are closer in age go through elementary school, middle school, high school, and college together, I was watching my brother do those things while I was still in elementary school and vice versa. I knew I wanted to play soccer because I watched him play for most of my life, and I knew I wanted to join Girl Scouts because I saw how much fun he had in Boy Scouts.
Of course there have been times that I’ve wanted a sibling closer in age, and I’m sure he did too, but he is the brother that I can always count on. Well, almost always, not if it includes heavy lifting…then he finds a way out of it, but otherwise, he’s always there for me. I’ve always looked up to him and tried to emulate many of his accomplishments. However, as I matured I realized that we are different, which made our accomplishments different, yet special for each of us.
I learned how to stay out of trouble with mom and dad by watching him. If his actions got him into trouble, then I didn’t follow suit, to steer clear of trouble. I was his excuse for watching Arthur, George Shrinks, and all the little kid shows and movies at sixteen years old. He’s the one that taught me how to drive a manual transmission at 11 years old, and he’s the one that took me on the road for the first time once I got my learners permit.
Having a large age difference can be difficult at times, but I’ve had experiences that others have not and cannot because they are too close in age to their siblings.
