Any ladies have sisters who are five or more years older/younger than you?

[Mary]

If you do, how is your relationship with her (or them) now that you are adults?

I am just wondering what the future might hold for my girls. I keep hoping they'll have a great sisterly relationship but they are 6.5 years apart. I know they're going to go through a phase (perhaps a long one) where Madalyn thinks Eliza is a total pain in the rear. Heck, we're getting to that point now with Mad and JZ, and he is only 2-and-three-quarters years younger. She is starting to become annoyed by how he always wants to do the same things she does. Anyway, I fully expect that when Madalyn is, say, 13, and Eliza is 7 they are not going to have a lot in common. What I'm hoping, though, is, as they get older, they will come together and form a bond maybe as friends. I'm hoping that, perhaps, when Eliza is about 15 or 16 and Madalyn is 21 or 22, that maybe they will have the type of relationship where they'll talk about stuff and maybe Madalyn can give Eliza advice and things that maybe E. won't want to hear from me. :) I'm really hoping that their being so far apart won't prevent them from being close.

[Mary]

Oh yeah, and I'm hoping that, when Mad is a teenager, she'll still be enough of an alpha female/mother hen/typical oldest that she might still kind of like spending time with Eliza once in a while -- you know, to boss her around. :giggle I'm hoping maybe she'll think Eliza's kind of cute and not mind her so much, and maybe still like taking care of her some? I'm not sure if that's realistic or not.....

[Jejune]

I'm five years older than my sister. We did not get along well at all as children, but are good friends now. I really adore her, even though we're very different people. I don't think we always understand each other perfectly, but we like each other a lot.

[Jo]

Well, I don't have a sister but I do have a brother who is 5 years younger. We are actually pretty close. Not seriously close. He doesn't call me about problems in his marriage or anything(not that I think he has any.) He has always kept that stuff pretty close to his vest. But we do talk weekly and I have helped him and his wife a lot out with pregnancy and first baby questions. Actually it this point, I know more about his wife's plumbing issues than I ever wanted to know.LOL So yeah...I guess we are pretty close.

I think kids have a better chance of being closer when they have more than one sibling. All the people I know who aren't close with their siblings 5 or more years younger were in families they were the only two children. I do see more closeness in families like yours where the oldest has had to learn to relate to different ages as they grow.

[Jeri]

My sister and brother are 9 and 10 years older than me, respectively. i'm not particularly close to either one of them, but especially not my sister. I don't dislike her, but she's never seemed to want to be a part of my life. I got no excitement whatsoever from her when I hit major milestones - graduations, marriage, babies, etc. I don't know - she's kind of odd. I don't think it's so much an age thing though, as it is a "jeri's weird sister" thing :lol. Honestly, i think she holds a lot of resentment and healousy towards me because things have worked out in my life the way she wanted them to work for her. My brother and I are much closer, but in the last few years (since having kids, mostly) we've had a lot less in common, and don't see each other or talk as frequently.

[Faith]

I am 7 years older than my sister and we have always got along great. Actually all three of us(my brother is 5 years older than her) have always gotten on very well together except when I was left in charge(which happened quite a bit when we were younger), they would gang up on me. :giggle I was actually very motherly to her always and I used to spoil my sister rotten. On half days when I was in jr high and she was in kindergarten, I would dress her up all cute and pick her up after school to take her out to lunch with my friends. :giggle I would buy her things when I went out to the mall and just really spoiled her.
As we got older, I still took her places with me and we would hang out with my friends. My sister was always very mature though so I didn't mind spending time with her...she didn't annoy me. :lmao
Every once in awhile, I will go down(she lives in Carlsbad) and spend the weekend with her and go out with her friends. We have fun.

[Beka]

My girls are near on 7 years apart and at 4 and 10+ they get on pretty well, I find Chase enjoys being able to watch Dyl and ask if she did those things, I find Chase likes being the all knowing authority on anything Dyl is about to encounter and on toys, and fashion :giggle but they're not grown up. If I had to pick the one sibling she is closest to I'd have to say Jude though, he drives her to distraction but she's fiercely protective of him, she's nearly 6 years older.

My dad comes from a family where his older brother and sister are just 13 months apart (I have the record for shortest age gap in my family- however my aunt came close with 3 within 23 months) and then there is a big gap of 8 years to my dad (uncle born 1940, aunt 1941, dad 1949 but there was a 1944 baby boy who died infancy as a "blue baby", then there's all the way to 1956 for my dads little sister) My 2 aunts are very close despite being 15 years apart- to the point that when one moved from the county within 12 months the other one up rooted her family and followed, they still both live there and have supported each other through one nursing her husband to his death and the other going through a very bad divorce. My dad and his brother are 9 years apart and throughout my entire childhood my most prominent memories are of every sunday spent at either my aunt or uncles house (until the aunts moved) I was always around my cousins, always felt at home in either house. My dad and uncle are going on 58 and 67 now and still see each other several times a week, my dad still talks to his elder sister weekly too (and sees her as often as possible with the distance)

My aunts are so close when the younger one remarried last year she had her sister give her away.

So age gap siblings can most definately get along- my eldest aunts late husband always recalled when he first started dating my aunt my nan used to insist they took "the baby" (my youngest aunt) with them in her pram so they didn't have opportunity to get up to misgivings LOL :lmao I have photos somewhere of my dad as a 7/8 year old boy sat playing racing cars in the sports car my uncle was building from scratch and my dad remembers very prominently having to fetch my aunt from brownies to tell her she was now an aunty when my eldest cousin was born :giggle

My sister and I are close in age and well... you know how that story goes :lmao i love her to death but UGH she drives me to the point of beyond insanity on a regular basis (as i am sure my life choices do her) I don't think it's so much age but personality that brings siblings together.

David is 19 months older than one sister, 7 years older than the other- he is most definately closest to the younger (to the point, as you might recall, she lived with us for a while) at first i thought it was due to him filling the father role for her but as adults they're still close even though she doesn't need a father figure. David and sil1 however are close in age but have totally different life amibitions and outlooks which causes them to be more like aquaintances than siblings.

[Kristi]

My baby sister is 7 years younger than me. I wouldn't say she is really an adult yet LOL As she just turned 18 but anyways...

Growing up we didn't get along that well most of the time. The older three of us were very close in age (me, my other sister and my eldest brother) and we picked on her and shut her out of things.

BUt now we are really close. We talk about everything, We have a good time together and enjoy being around each other. I can only see the relationship improving as she gets older.

[Lisa]

I have one sister who is 11 years older and one who is 5 years older. I'm not super close to my sister who is 11 years older. We've had our issues in the past and while we get along just fine now we aren't super close. I do however get along great with my sister who is 5 years older. In fact she lives fairly close to us now so we see her often.

[Maggie]

I'm 9.5 yrs older than my sister. I'll be honest, I hated her for most of my life.

I was insanely jealous of her. My friends would come over and want to play with her, not me. As I got older, the age gap was large enough that we were always in 2 different worlds.

However, as she's growing into a young adult I find her much more easy to tolerate. ;)

[Mary]

I guess that's one thing we have going for us -- Madalyn doesn't seem to be jealous of Eliza at all. Mad is the one who wants to take Eliza around and show her off. We were at JZ's soccer practice yesterday and Mad took off with Eliza -- she took her into the Boys and Girls Club building to show to all her friends in there. LOL

I think that's cool what you used to do with your sister, Faith. I can see Madalyn being that way. She likes to be in charge and play the adult so I can imagine her treating Eliza like a little doll and dressing her up and taking her out. Hopefully Eliza's personality will be such that she'll allow it....I have my doubts about that with what we've seen from E. so far, though. :lmao

I'm selfishly kind of hoping that Madalyn ends up going to college nearby wherever we are living when she gets to be that age. Assuming she goes right away after high school Eliza will be 11 when Mad goes. I think if she moves out of state and doesn't come home that often it will be detrimental to the potential relationship. It would be nice if Mad was nearby and they could spend time together, especially as Eliza becomes a teenager. I'm pretty sure Madalyn will wind up being a good influence. :)

Anyway, it's very interesting to read all your different experiences!

[saramarie11]

I have two sisters and one brother. One sister is a little over 5 years older than me and the other is only 1 year older. My brother is 1 year younger. (My mom was a busy gal! :)) My oldest sister and I got along when we were younger, I guess we didn't really spend too much time with eachother though. My 2nd to oldest sister and I fought some, but we shared a room and I think that we spent too much time together. I was the closest to my younger brother. Now we all love hanging out. We are so close, I don't know what I would do if I didn't have them. I think that I have such different relationships with all three of them. I am not sure if it is because of age... I think it has more to do with our personalities and how they play off eachothers. I have told my husband that I want to have four kids (only have one now) because I loved growing up with siblings. He's not too sure about four... two maybe three!!

[Jbird]

My sisters are 12, 14, and 15 years older than me. They're half sisters, and while their life experiences were very different from my own, I get along fairly well with all of them, the two older better than the youngest. We're probably not super close like sisters closer in age might be, but they're still my sisters, and I still love them.
Taryn and Delaney are 10 years apart, so I'm sure we'll face some difficulties with that, too.

[freebiemom]

I'm glad you asked this because it hits home with my kids too! My boys are 5 years apart and my girls are 4 years apart and I worry so much about them being close. They are all close right now and especially to the ones that are closest in age to them but considering I had boy/girl/boy/girl, I have always worried that the sisters wouldn't bond like I want them to nor the brothers. And considering the boys share a room and the girls, I know that's going to lead to some problems down the road because of the age differences.

[Shana]

My youngest sister is 6 years younger than I am. When we were growing up, she defintely was the pesky younger sister. In fact, there was really no love lost between Heather and I until she got to be around 18 or so.

Now -- I adore my sister with my whole heart. We are so close, and I just don't know what I would do without her. She loves me unconditionally and is always there for me. The fact that she's married now and has 3 young kids of her own just bonds us even closer together. I can share my experiences as a mother, and her insights into even my teenaged kids is AMAZING.

My kids also adore their Auntie Heather.

One other thing -- I respect my sister SO much, that sometimes I feel like I am the Little Sister (and, I am the oldest of 4, she is the youngest) and she is the Big Sister.

You just never know what the future will bring, Mary. Keep encouraging a positive relationship between them, but do expect that as Eliza becomes even more mobile that she will really start to annoy her big sister :giggle Kara is 4.5 years younger than Rachel and can really push her big sister's buttons, however, those times when they sit and watch movies together, or play video games and just hang out are precious, and I know they will become more frequent one of these days.

[kcmomma]

My sister is only 2.5 yrs younger than me and although we're really close, we faught like cats and dogs as children until I went to college.

My mom is 11yrs older than her youngest sister and they talk DAILY. Aunt Sally is 14 years older than me, and has always been the cool aunt/big sister figure that I can go to when ever I need to. Her daughters are 10, 16 and 19 years younger than me. I think we're all close. I spent the weekend at District COnvention with them (their school traveled with us and I roomed with their advisor). I hear all about their boyfriends, activities. Janelle, a senior studying cosmotology at tech, cuts my hair.

So, I could see it going well...it's what they want it to be, and what you'll encourage, I'm sure

[Desirae]

I am 6 years older than my brother, 9 years older than my youngest bio sister and 12 years older than my youngest sister. Our relationships are good. :)

[Kristen]

I don't have a sister that's lots younger(2.5 years), but my little brother David is 6.5 years younger than me. When I was 10 and he was 4 and thereabouts, I used to get really annoyed with him. He'd always want to butt in on the girl stuff my sister and I were doing, and we weren't very nice about it. :p

But, once I got to be a teenager and an adult, we got to be very good friends. In fact, aside from Steve I'd say David is my best friend. Unfortunately, he now lives down in Charlotte. :( Anyhow, we did lots of stuff together once we got to be better friends, and I miss having him around.

[Sam]

We have a love hate relationship. I love her to bits but she pisses me off and we argue a lot. However, we will talk the next day like nothing has even happened.

[Jessica]

I am nearly four years older than my sister, Tara, and nearly 10 years old than my sister, Rebecca. Tara and I always fought, and it would just get down right ugly! She and I get along ok now - most of the time. We still have our moments though. ;) Now my relationship with Becky is totally different. I've always "mothered" her, some of that was necessary because our mother become so emotionally distant from us during a period of time (depression :( due to our father having an affair!) but was also because I just loved this little girl! After I got married and moved out (I was 17 and she was 7) she would come and stay with me over the weekend, and weeks during the summer. When we moved out of state she came and stayed with me for a while, just to visit. But it's always been more of a mothering relationship than a friendship. Now that she's an adult she's starting to see me as less of a mother type figure, and I'm glad. It's opened up our communication more with her understanding that I'm not going to come down on her the way our mother will for the choices she makes (though, depending on the circumstance, she may still hear some things she doesn't want to hear.)