did you feel competitive towards them growing up?
DH is an only child, and I have a younger brother, so neither of us felt "competition" among siblings. My brother and I are super close and have always been each other's #1 fan. We are having DS#2 in the summer and it's one of the things that have crossed my mind as we try to foster a close relationship between our boys as they grow up.
pomegranate / 3779 posts
Yes and no - with my older sister, no, but we are 8 years apart and didn't live together very much (she only lived with us for her high school years.) With my younger sister, yes, but we are 1 year apart and grew up in a very small town where there were not a lot of opportunities to have different interests/classes/friends/etc.
wonderful cherry / 21504 posts
I have 3 sisters and only ever felt a tiny bit competitive with one of them (I was older than this sister, though, so I think she felt more competition with me than I with her). I really think the lack of competition or rivalry is more because we had very different interests and talents, so I didn't care that my one sister was better at soccer since I liked drawing better and was better at that. The sister I was competitive with is the closest in age and interests to me, though, the furthest in personality.
Dh and his brothers are still competitive though.
pomelo / 5041 posts
My sisters and I were never that competitive because we had different interests and one sister is much younger. But in the few things my close-in-age-sister did that I did too, we each wanted to be better than the other. I think that's pretty typical.
squash / 13208 posts
I didn't feel competitive with my sister - we were totally different though and didn't share the same interests
pomelo / 5257 posts
Never. I'm older, though, so I don't know if that makes a difference. It seems like older siblings would be less competitive because they're doing everything first anyway? But my sister and I always had different friends and different interests. We were still close, but we didn't have that competitive streak. That I'm aware of...haha, I can't speak for her I suppose! We're both pretty laid-back anyway.
pineapple / 12053 posts
No, but we're 6 years apart and never had that kind of relationship. I don't know that I felt competitive against my brother or sister!
pineapple / 12053 posts
@MrsSCB: I'm also oldest, so I also wondered about this. I feel like my brother may have left competitive but not sure!
pomelo / 5257 posts
@birdofafeather: Yeah, it's hard to say but when I imagine having someone older than me, I feel like it could be a little different. I still don't know that I'd feel competitive exactly, but maybe a bit more pressure to do well -- especially if the older sibling was a good student, etc.
honeydew / 7235 posts
My sister and I (2.5 yrs apart) were incredibly competitive. And still are about some things, although nothing like when younger. We are polar opposites, so we just don't relate really. I'm hoping my two boys have an excellent friendship and plan on working really hard to help that happen. Although, with such different personalities, I think sometimes it's just not reality.
pomegranate / 3863 posts
Not at all, but I'm 10 years younger than my sister and 6 years younger than my brother so we just don't have that kind of relationship.
I think you just need to encourage them both to pursue their own interests (I did a lot of activities and sports just because my older siblings did them) and try to celebrate them equally! It's a tough balance though, I'm sure!
cantaloupe / 6634 posts
Sort of. I always felt like she was more beautiful, skinnier, more athletic, more talented and popular growing up. I, on the other hand, was more academic. I think the competition I felt was much more self-induced/perceived than actual.
blogger / wonderful cherry / 21628 posts
Never. My sister is 7 years younger than me though. We were never at the same stage at the same time.
cantaloupe / 6869 posts
YEP. We were 2 years apart but only 1 year in school so it made sense.
cantaloupe / 6791 posts
Not really. We are 3 years apart and had enough separate interests that it was never really an issue. The only thing that bugged me was that she focused more on schoolwork and her friends in high school and I had a boyfriend, so my parents told her not to be "boy crazy" like me (even though the boy was the one I eventually married...).
blogger / eggplant / 11551 posts
No - we were only 19 months apart, but I never felt a sense of competition. We fought a lot, but we were also really close.
grapefruit / 4089 posts
No, I didn't feel competitive with them at all... I'm the oldest, so that might have made a difference. I'm not really sure what my sisters would say if you asked them. My parents were very good about not comparing us, so that probably helped.
grapefruit / 4923 posts
my sister is 2.5 years older than me. i never felt competitive with her.
eggplant / 11861 posts
I'm the oldest of 4 girls....I think my parents did a good job teaching us that even though we were sisters we were all different, where as in school a C in math for me was Good but a C in math for my sister was bad, and never EVER saying why can't you blank like your sisters...
grapefruit / 4817 posts
I think we had just a normal amount of competitiveness, but we're so so different, that there wasn't much to compete over. I think it actually picked up more as adults, though it's still not an issue. My younger sister is a lot younger, so we were too far apart to be competitive.
pea / 15 posts
Two sisters. No competitiveness - instead, we're oftentimes there for each other (especially my middle sister), as much as we can be. Never really argued either. But my brother and middle sister were the two siblings closest in age out of all of us and they still argue to this day! Not really competitive, just antagonistic. Still, they're good friends (we all are).
persimmon / 1379 posts
I have a sister who is more than 10 years older than me and there was zero competition. Though I really don't like her at all, but that has less to do with her being my sister and more to do with the fact that she is a terrible human.
pomegranate / 3791 posts
@simplyfelicity: I felt like this about my cousin who was a couple of years younger than me - she lived with us during high school, so kind of like a sibling. It sounds horrible but as a teenager I basically felt like she was the pretty/cool/popular one and I was the smart one.
I didn't really feel any competition with my brother though. Not the same gender obviously, we didn't have similar interests, and we have pretty similar levels of intelligence (although he didn't care about school and usually didn't do his homework, so grades weren't competitive either), so there really wasn't much to feel competitive about
persimmon / 1071 posts
@mrsjyw: I didn't feel that way with my brother at all growing up, although sometimes I'm bothered by it now as it's pretty clear sometimes that he's favoured. Maybe I just didn't notice it growing up? haha.
I did, and still do sometimes have a competitive feeling with my cousin though. She is 8 months younger than me and we grew up really close and were constantly being compared.
watermelon / 14467 posts
No, we had different interests. I did hate letting her borrow my clothes because they looked better on her since she was curvier.
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