How many siblings do you have, and how close are you? How happy would you rate your childhood?

[Anonymous]

3 siblings in my famiily, me and two brothers. I am very close with my middle brother, not close at all with the youngest brother. He went full MAGA and disowned the rest of the family. I talk to his wife sometimes. She's a sweetheart and probably too good for my brother.

Childhood: terrible. alcoholism, divorce, physical abuse, etc. Would not recommend.

[Anonymous]

The ideal number of kids for parents' happiness is 1. Happiness levels and marital satisfaction levels recover after one child, but drop after more than one.

https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20230110-only-child-or-siblings-one-and-done

I have one brother, 5-year age gap. We love each other and mostly got along well but we are not super close. I had a happy childhood but a lot of it was being surrounded by cousins and grandparents.

[Anonymous]

I am the first of four, the only child from my mom's first marriage. I have three brothers ranging from 6-10 years younger than me.

Like other posters have described I don't think I would say we are very close in that we call each other all the time, but we all love each other very deeply and will always be there if someone needs us. One of my brother is deceased, I think I have a similar closeness with the other two and they are closer with each other than with me because of geographical location and age.

My childhood was a mixed bag. Very financially fortunate, house always clean, physical needs always met but one parent was an alcoholic who died fairly traumatically when my brothers were teens and the other was very emotionally unstable (borderline? bipolar?) so high highs and low lows but a lot of shared trauma. We all have mid level ACE scores.

I am very happily married with three kids and have fairly strong boundaries in place with the surviving parent. Our large extended family has always ben a source of comfort for all of us.

[Anonymous]

I have one sibling, 4 years younger. We have never gotten along and still don't. Our childhood was not happy.

I have one child, which I had late in life after never planning to get married or have children. Very happy with my family life now.

[Anonymous]

1 sibling - not close at all. Child happiness was a 4/10. I have three children and we don't spend a lot of time with my family.

[Anonymous]

3
Not awesome, sometimes I think horrible.
As adults I talk to 2 out of three but none of us are close.

[Anonymous]

OP you are looking at it the wrong way. The number of siblings is irrelevant unless entering neglect and/or resource issues, as some folks from large families mention here.

[Anonymous]

I have one sibling who is my best friend — but only one child now. I feel sad thinking my child will miss out on that part of life. Fantastic childhood, wish I could go back.

[Anonymous]

4 biological, 2 unofficially adopted( relatives who grew up with us.. We are very close. We are like a clan.

Happy childhood for most of us. Mine was not that happy due to undiagnosed chronic illness.

[Anonymous]

I have a twin sister and a sister who is two years older chronologically but always acted like she was twenty years older. We are not close. Never were. I was on and off with twin as we worked our way through our teens and young adulthood. We are pretty close now. She has no kids. I have two. Parents were pretty hands-off in parenting style although our mom was a SAH and dad worked really long hours so wasn't home much. I am not close to my parents but I know how to contact them if needed.