If you are one of three, did you feel left out ( or that a sibling was always left out)?

[Anonymous]

Oldest of three girls here. It seemed like the younger two were always ganging up on me. As adults the middle one is quite a bit different than the two of us and we (oldest and youngest) are very close and talk on the phone a couple of times a week.

[Anonymous]

I'm a twin with an older sister. I know she sometimes felt left out growing up, but my parents were very conscious of it and did their best to mitigate / make her role in the family special (she's quite a bit older than us). It's a dynamic we're conscious about as adults, and are all very close. At some point we adopted her as an honorary triplet . I'm expecting my third and worry about the same dynamic because my older two boys are very close and their will be a big age gap between them and the baby, but it's definitely not something that would stop me from having a third.

[Anonymous]

I'm the oldest of three (I was the only girl, with two younger brothers, and we're all three years apart). My mother favored my brothers, and when I was a teen, this became obvious to other family members; my grandfather still mentions this and says he "saw things that weren't right." My middle brother used to play the situation and he apologized a few years ago, but our relationship is never going to be warm. My mom died when I was 22 and I have a lot of conflicting anger followed by guilt that it was probably my fault we didn't get along. I don't have any advice for you because I don't understand what went wrong.

[Anonymous]

Middle child here of of three. Boy-girl-girl. Oldest is 2.5 yrs older than middle and youngest 19 months younger than middle.

I wouldn't say I felt left out but I would say that there always seemed to be a 2 against one dynamic. With 2 ganging up on or making fun of one. My family would say I definitely had middle child syndrome Still my sister and I were very close growing up.

[Anonymous]

Not as children but yes as adults. We were spread pretty far apart, FWIW, 3.5 years then another 5 years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am one of three. Never felt left out. We were all great friends, and still are. It's not the number of kids, it's how well the parents do at parenting, in my opinion. I had great parents and all was well.

I have three and I know it wasn't your intention, but this made me want to cry. The middle kid used to feel rejected by the oldest, and that was awful, and now the oldest often includes him in someone the youngest can't do, and the youngest feels left out, which is also awful. But parents can't fix everything that is hard on kids.

[Anonymous]

that was the dynamic in my family of 3. We are G/G/B. Older sister, me, younger brother. My sister and I are extremely close and always best friends (20 mos apart) and that made little brother (2.5 yrs younger than me) the outsider a lot of the time. Because of that experience, i always wanted either 2 or 4 kids, not 3. My mom says she wishes she had had a 4th.

But, so much of it is personality driven plus the gender mix so it's really hard to forsee how the relationships will work out. My BIL & SIL have three and I think they have a better gender mix-- older girl, then two boys. With the odd gender as the older kid there's less of her wanting to be part of the boys group because she's more focused on her friends and activities. It seems the younger siblings are more likely to be looking up to and wanting to be a part of what the olders are doing.

[Anonymous]

i'm the oldest of three and the only girl. i never felt left out but I think that is because my parents worked really hard to make sure that they paid enough attention to/spent enough time with all of us...and I never felt left out by my brothers either, because, being the oldest, I could always assert myself and include myself in whatever they were doing if I wanted to. I think it's possible that each of my brothers at one time or another felt left out by me or by the other brother because we all went through phases where we wanted to do certain things that the 3rd sibling might not have wanted to do...but I seriously doubt any of us ever felt left out by my parents. I don't see why not having a fourth child would contribute to this, though? if anything, it seems the more kids you have, the greater likelihood for someone to get left out and I'm sure sometimes kids feel left out in every type of family (even as an only child it is possible) so I don't think the size of the family is the determining factor but rather the characteristics of the family members and the dynamics between them.

[Anonymous]

Initially we were closer to each other according to age (the ones closes in age would hang out more). Later it was more divided by gender. Now I'd say it's pretty even and more about personalities, logisitics, and spouses.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To take a different perspective, I am one of four and alignments were/still are always shifting depending on the issue. Growing up I was closest with my brother who is two years younger, but we fought a lot - we're still close and we still fight. My brother who is six years younger is the most like me and we do stuff together as often as possible - he's like the best friend you don't see for months but then things fall back into place right where you left them. There is a large age difference between me and my sister - but we became close as adults and talk way more often than I talk to either of my brothers.

I don't think having four necessarily guarantees someone will not be left out. Even today, there are times when three of the four of us will agree and there is one outlier. But mostly we're a close-knit group, though each relationship is different.

I am one of four as well - the oldest. There were some teenage years where the middle two became quite cliquey and I think I would have been pretty miserable if I hadn't had my youngest sibling (8 years younger). We are all four friends now. But this is largely speculation on my part.

I'm another one of four! I'm the third. Constantly shifting alliances, sometimes a pair, sometimes a trio, mean that someone always feels left out from time to time. No big deal, and not dependent on the number of children (though I suppose onlies don't have that particular problem).

[Anonymous]

Sometimes, but I think it worked out. My twin brother and I are the oldest and my younger brother is two years younger.

So we had twin times where my younger bro was excluded and boys only times where I felt excluded. My younger brother and I are more similar personality wise, so there were (very few) times where my twin brother probably left out. The two of them were great friends in high school.

[Anonymous]

Oldest of three girls, seven-year age span total. Each of us felt left out at times. Youngest and me had similar personalities, so left middle out, and age-related things left out me and youngest, respectively sometimes. I think it's unavoidable. We took turns ganging up on each other at least.

This is completely ridiculous - but one thing that really bugged me growing up was airplanes and amusement park rides. They are all made for even-sized families. One of us was always left out of the row. Restaurants too - waiting for a table for five was always longer than for one for four.

Yes, those are petty, petty little things. But they stick out for me.

[Anonymous]

I am the oldest of 3 and we are very close as adults. That being said, we currently have 2 kids and my husband knows that I want either 2 more or no more. I do not want 3.

I didn't feel left out growing up, but often times we would have various combinations of 2 vs 1 (no consistency of the same two against the same one). Trips to places like amusement parks sucked because 1 person would always have to ride alone. It always felt like the world was built for an even number of people.

[Anonymous]

9:39 here...9:38 - It seems like we had a similar experience, haha.

[Anonymous]

Oldest of three, only girl. Never felt left out although my brothers did have more in common/more shared activities than I did with either of them.