Big families can mean big fun, right? While this may be true in a majority of cases, it doesn’t necessarily mean fun all of the time. Sibling relationships run the gamut of emotions and feelings, and these relationships typically change over the years. It is understandable that big families have some advantages and some disadvantages.
There are many advantages of being a member of a large family. A child who has several brothers and sisters rarely lacks company or playmates. The older children can look after the younger children, teaching valuable life skills such as responsibility. Younger siblings often idolize older brothers and sisters, and they want to emulate everything about them, many times trying to follow in their footsteps. Older siblings can take leadership roles with their younger brothers and sisters, such as coaching them in sports leagues or giving them dance or music lessons.
Of course, there are typically disadvantages to being a member of a large family. Sibling rivalry is commonly prevalent among brothers and sisters who are close to each other in age. Competition is natural and often unconsciously encouraged by parents and other siblings. This competition may lead to closer relationships as the siblings grow and mature, or it may lead to resentment. Often, younger children feel they must live up to the good example that their older siblings have set, and this can occur at home, at school, on the ball field, or in the neighborhood.
Friends may come and go throughout our lives, but our siblings will always be our siblings. They can be our true support system in the stressful times of our lives. As our parents get older, only our siblings can truly understand and empathize with us as we make the change to caregiver. When a parent dies, siblings can offer comfort and support in times of grief and confusion.
Our relationships with our siblings teach us how to interact and socialize with others. These are our first relationships, and with the exception of our relationship with our parents, these are our most important relationships, too. We learn how to handle conflict, offer friendship, and confide secrets to our siblings.
In large families, siblings may form closer bonds to some than to others, and this is natural. These bonds may change over time, as people’s lives become different. Two siblings who may have had many things in common as children may find that they are not very alike as adults. Still, there is that common bond of family that will never go away. Nobody can reminisce with you like a sibling can. Nobody can share your childhood memories quite as thoroughly as a sibling, and nobody understands why you are the way you are like your sibling understands.
As children grow into adults, it is still so important to maintain a close relationship with those brothers and/or sisters who played such an important part in our lives when we were young. Many times, sibling relationships fade into the background of maturing adults’ lives, only to be rekindled in the later years. We who are busy building careers and raising families may lose touch with our brothers and sisters, but as the years fade into old age, we recognize a need to rediscover what was lost. Siblings remind us of who we are, where we’ve been, and where we might go one day. Yes, there can be disadvantages to being a member of a large family, but typically, the advantages vastly outweigh those disadvantages.
