In your family, were you the oldest child, the youngest, the middle or the only child, and how did it affect you as a child being brought up and now, as an adult?

With or without artificial time dilation?

I was the oldest of five, and it had a very large effect on me well into my adult life.

I am pretty much in the middle – number four of six, but I am also the oldest girl. As her first daughter, I was doted on by my mom, but as I got older I got sort of lost in the shuffle, which was fine by me because my older brothers were the ones getting in trouble.

My life has been colored more by coming from a large family then by birth order. Some things I learned that are still habits are to eat my food really fast (in order to keep my siblings from taking it), to put up with lots of noise and distractions, to tune things out, negotiation skills, to speak up if I want to be heard, and to put up with lots of activity and noise all around.

I’m the oldest of the two.

At first I thought I was ignored, so I got jealous with my brother. His naughtiness annoyed me too. But as he grew up, we began to get on well.

I was the youngest, by 7 years, of two boys. My parents were quite a bit more mature by the time I came along (my mom was 18 when my brother was born), so they had a better handle on the parenting thing. This made for a more relaxed relationship, overall.

I got the feeling that my brother was seen as a bit of a botched first attempt; he was rebellious in his teens (this was the 60s), and always had a hard time finding his way in life. My father responded with harsh discipline and berating. Mom cried a lot through this.

Observing all of this had the effect of making me conflict-averse. I was the overly good kid, never wanting to stir up trouble or disappoint my parents. That wasn’t a healthy situation; I ended up stifling lots of stuff.

Much later, my brother and I kind of reversed roles. I eventually found my freedom to live my own life, and my brother settled into a comfortable companionship with our parents.

I am the third of four; my older brother and sister are 6 and 5 years older. My younger brother is 8 years younger. So I was the baby of the family for 8 years, with older siblings that really didn’t have a lot of reason to care one way or another if I were present. They dominated the conversations in the family as I was too far behind to participate.

And then my younger brother was born and the focus was on him as baby, and I became an almost classic “lost child” in the family.

The benefit of that was that as I got older I had the liberty to craft my existence as I saw fit, without any strong family dominance.

Similar to @thorninmud I was the youngest of two. There was just short of 5 years gap.

We were raised by the seen not heard. I followed the rules overtly anyway. No one knew what my personality or interests were or cared much. My sister was outspoken and got a lot of negative attention. I repressed everything. As a result we were played against each other. My sister responded to it. We were never close.

My sister had a close relationship with my mother. My mother was quite young when she had her.

When I was in my early teens parents seperated and my sister and I lived apart. At that time I was responsible for the household.

I spent two years after leaving the house being rebellious and ignoring my family. Free of the jail of their expectations and restrictions. I was niave and immature socially. Testing my limits only after I was free.

After that birth order didn’t matter much.

I was an only child of two only children and have an only child/daughter. A long and distinguished line of onlies.
I am fiercely independent, highly creative, have leadership qualities but do not care to lead, I am an extrovert by nature, zero social anxiety issues, but love my alone time. I have no problem keeping myself amused and entertained and far from the stereotype of only children I am very generous and unselfish.

The offspring of an Architect and a language major/musician I am in a league of my when it comes to defying creative categorization. lol

I was an only child.and my parents were divorced when I was 6. I lived with my mother till I was 17. I never had the best relationship with my mom, as she had such high standards, it was impossible to please her. At 17yrs old, I left home, got my own flat. Still kept up relationship with mom.
Growing up, I spent a lot of time in my room, or otherwise on my own. I had to deal with bullies in school, family problems and poor hearing. As a result, I was forced to grow up pretty quickly, especially as I left home so young. I had to rely on myself for a lot of things as I had no family to help me. I could have asked mom, but she had health problems. All this has made me quite independent today. Although some times were often quite hard, it has made me a stronger person mentally, and I am comfortable with my own company.
Sometimes I do wish that I had siblings, as it would be nice to have someone close to talk to about things. However, I’m quite happy with my own company, especially if I have a mug of coffee in one hand and a good book in the other.

I was & remain the middle of three brothers, I had a sister but she died through complications with her little heart after a tragically short six weeks of life.
It affects me as an adult because i’ll always wonder what life woulda been like with a little sister.

I was the youngest of three by eleven and twelve years. I felt spoiled , catered to and happy. I have a high self esteem, a lazy streak due to never having to do much of anything thoughout my childhood years but play. I now treasure my time alone which is way too rare. I’ve never been into kids but love my own and babysat for the neighbors’ children just for the cash. I thought of life as a teen as a time to go crazy whenever possible and almost made curfew a couple times. Being a senior citizen is the only time of my life I’ve not cared for. I’m lucky and healthy but it just isn’t what I consider the Golden Years. blah.

I was the oldest of five children. It was my responsibility to watch over them since both my parents worked. That made me a very responsible person and a care giver to everyone. I feel I “take charge” too much but at my age I’m stuck this way. I was so tired of cleaning and cooking when all my school friends were out having fun.

When I married I only had two children since I didn’t want a big family like the one I grew up in. I had a girl first and then was extremely fortunate when my next was a boy. worked out fine.

I’m the eldest of four. Each of us is nearly exactly 14 months older than the next in line with the girls in the middle and my little brother bringing up the rear. As adults we would tease my mother by asking her which hobbies she and my dad preferred. She never got the joke, and only replied “why do you kids always ask me that?” We kids got along surprisingly well, which is a good thing, because my sisters combined were truly formidable as enemies. We were very fortunate in our parents, though we didn’t appreciate how lucky we were. We had every board and card game ever invented for kids. There were books galore. For a while my mom sold these collections of children’s books called “My Bookhouse” and “Childcraft”. Neither of my parents drank, not from any moral or religious conviction, they apparently never acquired a taste for booze. But as for the vices they did have ( aside from the one responsible for us ), mom smoked like a 54 Buick 100,000 miles beyond a necessary ring job, and my dad could not resist sweets or ( wait for it) TOYS! Our parents would taunt one another about the moral failures each of them was as examples for their children. Dad would hide the ashtrays, and mom would scold him about being the “slave of the bakery”. My dad referred to the chevy as “your mother’s car ” or the “rolling ash tray”, and mom would make statements like “Where are my Chesterfields you pastry whore?”

I only have an older brother. He left the house to go to college when I was in middle school. Due to the age difference, he would always outsmart me.

My mother had two children. My father had five. I am the youngest, and while my siblings will tell you otherwise, I was not spoiled or babied. If anything, I was held to higher standards than the others, because they were all screwing up so bad. My mother didn’t want me to make their same mistakes. I think being the youngest allowed me to observe, and learn from them.
They’ll automatically tell you that I had it easy, and our parents liked me the best. But that’s really not the case. I was just the only one who never got caught breaking all of the rules. It’s not that I was a better child, or that my parents loved me the most. I was just sneakier than they were.

3rd of 5, two older bros all of us born same day one year apart; two younger sisters.

Oldest of three girls. My sisters are three and nine years younger, respectively.

I used to be extremely domineering, just because I was accustomed to taking charge. I can let go of much more by now, but I think I will always be pretty stubborn and determined if something is important to me.

Additionally, I tend to think for others without being asked – and I feel responsible very easily. Both those things are stressful, but not unbearably so. To make up for them, I have excellent relationships with my sisters. I consider both of them friends.

I was the youngest. My half sister is 8 years older and still lives with my parents and her daughter at the age of 32. She’s also addicted to narcotics and, while currently clean, has a history of stealing pills from both my mom and my grandmother, who had cancer at the time. My step-brother is about 28 and is currently in prison for kidnapping, attempted burglary, among other things. He spent his adolescence in gangs and generally being a pain in my parents’ asses.

I was the baby and I was a good kid (a bit of a goodie two shoes, in fact), so I was spoiled by everyone. I ended up being the only one in my family to go to college, move out at 21, and never go back. I’m the only one that got married, bought a home, and landed a well-paying job. No drug or alcohol use; I’ve never even smoked a cigarette. I’m sort of the black sheep in the family because I ended up so vastly different from the others. On one hand, they’re proud of me for being independent and not causing them grief. On the other hand, they think I’m a bit selfish and lack compassion because I stay out of all of their drama and want nothing to do with it.

I think I turned out fine, but I’m not sure how. I could say the same for my husband – he’s the only one of 5 kids that ended up doing anything worthwhile. One got pregnant at 17 and is currently living with her flavor of the month, pawning her daughter off on whoever will take her. One that actually had potential ended up buying a house with an alcoholic that has acted out while drunk and lost the respect of the entire family – not sure if he’s ever lashed out at her, but she defends him tooth and nail. One has 4 kids he can’t afford, 3 with a woman he doesn’t even like; he gave one kid up and lives with this girl and the other 3 kids at her parents’ house. The last one is just a bum, living with his girlfriend’s parents and refusing to move on from his shit job. And, of course, my husband is considered stuck up because he got out of that hell and his life doesn’t revolve around them and their trailer park lives.

I am the oldest girl of two girls and I think being the oldest helped me feel more confident in my looks relative to my sister and more able to deal with my dad. I think I also did not understand my power and possibly hurt my sister more than I would ever want to, even then. So, I think that impacted her. She was alone at very young ages because my mom went to work when I was about ten years old. I played with her a lot when we were little, but as I got older I played more with kids my age. I think she experienced much more lonliness than I did at young ages.

I think the younger girl sees their older sister growing up, styling their hair, wearing make-up, growing boobs, and in their young mind their older sister is prettier, but really she is just older.

Older children usually are closer to their dads from what I can tell, because when the next kid is born the dad takes over with the older child while the mother is tending to the infant.

I am the youngest of 9 children. I felt like a mistake all my life. I knew I was. My mother was resentful and depressed the first 11 years of my life. She nearly killed herself with alcohol. When she and my father, both, pulled it together it was only me and my immediate older sister left at home. A few of my older siblings resented that ‘I was growing up with the best-of mom and dad’ because they lived through having to move every few years (because Dad was in the Army) and the worst alcoholism, but what they forget is that I was very young during the worst of it, but I remember. @thorninmud ‘s story sounds familiar in that I was very eager to please and stifled a lot of feelings, trying to make everyone happy and avoid conflict or confrontation. My older siblings, all of them, still treat me like I’m a 7 year old child who needs to be shielded or protected. Now that both parents are dead, I keep in touch with only one or two of my siblings, but I have loads of cousins and nieces and nephews who are great and I’d do anything for.

Unlike most ‘babies of the family’ I am ferociously independent, moved out of the country, to the other side of the world when I was 19 and never wanted to move back.

@cazzie Were you born years after the second to last child?

@JLeslie no, there was very little break between children. I was born a year and 9 months after the second to last child.

Youngest of 2 girls only 3 years apart. My sister either ignored me or made me do things for her. I was the one who wasn’t as scared of my dad so she used me as to go between.

I was definitely the brat and neither one of was attached to a parent. (We were abused are whole lives by my father.) My penchant for rebellion was either inbred or reaction to my sister always making me do things for her.

In my family there are no age comparisons.

My family is Mastema, Wickedvamp, & Araphel. Hopefully they will be with me soon, here…

@ Unholy Thirst, I’m here Sister, I’ve always been by your side, even in times you think I’m not. V….V