The Anatomy of Siblings with a Large Age Gap

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October 7, 2014 by adbesserer

My mother was engaged at 17 to a man who was, by all accounts, a nice guy. She grew up in a small town in Manitoba; her father died when she was in her early teens, and for complex reasons, her biological mother bailed, and she would only see her one more time–when my brother was born. Luckily, my mom had her step-mother around, who she felt close to. When I asked my mother why she didn’t eventually try harder to keep her biological mother in her life, my mom expressed that she was disappointed by how little my biological grandmother seemed to care about her only daughter’s first child, my brother

My mom dumped the guy she was engaged to for my father, and then, in a private ceremony in the mountains, they married. My mom wasn’t the type who cared if she had kids at all, but I think it surprised her how much she fell in love with her baby boy. I have so many stories about my brother’s childhood. I can’t verify them for sure because I wouldn’t be born until nearly 14 years later.

My father dropped out of school in the 7th grade because his father suffered from alcoholism, his mother died of cancer, and so he was shuffled between his two older sisters. He told me that his first job was apple picking. Dad married early, had 3 girls, and then panicked and left them to fend for themselves. When he met my mother, he had met his match. His idea of success didn’t match his level of education, so my mom, who finished high school, would fabricate his resumes to get him in to jobs at saw mills, pipe fitting outfits, and stuff like that. Once my dad was in, he proved to be a fast learner, and he had a presence that demanded authority, so he was often promoted to management positions. The pressure of holding jobs beyond his level of education was a lot for him. In one anecdote I’ve heard from him over the years, he remembers being promoted to a top management position at a sawmill. Sometimes, the job required having to attend meetings with government officials; he suddenly found himself in over his head. At this point, he technically knew what he was doing, but he didn’t have the language to communicate with MP’s, and so my dad would leave that position in exchange for a different one. This resulted in my parents and my brother moving across the country–Brandon, Fort McMurray, Kitimat, Elliot Lake. I was told that my brother could read a map as soon as he learned to read at all.

My brother was an adventurous kid. My mom had to keep him on a leash, so that he didn’t wander off to explore on his own. He was always independent, extremely bright, and adaptable to new environments.

Sometimes, back then, my parents would find themselves with a lot of money, even one house with a dance floor, and sometimes they would live modestly, which was never comfortable for any of them. My mom talks about when the whole family each had their own horse, and how fun it was to go on rides together. It was a good time in their lives. My parents were beautiful, young, and in love.

Somewhere between my brother and I, my mother suffered an ectopic pregnancy, and she was told that she would never be able to have more children. That wasn’t a big deal for her because becoming a mother at 19 wasn’t really planned, and they already felt like a good, solid family unit. 14 years later, my mom was told that she was pregnant with me.

The economy had changed quite a bit from 1970, when my brother was born, to 1983 when I came along. My father decided to move to North Bay where his older brother was making a killing selling swedish chainsaws, and lawnmowers, and he thought it would be great to open a shop near downtown North Bay to both sell and repair his goods. My dad would become the in house small engines mechanic and co-owner.

Well, not too long after I came along, the business tanked, but it was okay because my father was offered the opportunity to teach small engines at the college in town, which was the jackpot because he would be making great money, have amazing hours, and he would gain full benefits.

By the time I was 8, and my brother had already gone off to school, shit hit the fan in ways you may be tired of hearing about at this point. Both of my parents had affaires, my father lost his mind,
and couldn’t work anymore, my mom went to jail, and my parents got divorced.

I will tie this all together, I promise. Alright, so my brother travelled across the whole country until he was a teenager, I would stay in North Bay until I was 22. My brother grew up with young parents, by the time I was born, my dad was 40. My parents were together for my brother’s whole childhood, they divorced when I was 8. So even though we’re biologically brother and sister, we grew up under entirely different circumstances. Even in terms of our generations, he comes from one where public service announcements were more about staying off cocaine than asserting the merits of multiculturalism. One of our biggest issues is political correctness. I find his humour offensive, he thinks I’m snotty and uptight.

There are always differences between siblings, but ours have much deeper roots. I’ve basically only seen him at Christmas for my whole life, and he doesn’t quite know how to understand me as an adult, especially since our mother died. To add another dimension to our strange dynamic, his wife has a child one year older than me. When I used to go see him every year, he would often arrange sleepovers with my niece and I without asking how I felt about it. I love my niece, but I don’t think he would promise that any other house guest, even a family member, would sleep in his kid’s princess tent.

Most of the articles I read about temporal distance between siblings were aimed toward parents considering having another child, maybe 5 years older. The articles I read pertaining to my situation mostly gave accounts of how the initial resentment the older child felt eventually gave way to a deep bond. Some people said that they never formed a bond with their older sibling because they had moved out before a relationship could even grow at all, and neither sibling had the inclination to make it any different.

My brother and I have had a difficult relationship because we were in such different places when the traumatic events of our lives occurred. When my brother had his heart broken for the first time, I was annoyed by his irritability, and his obsessive singing of break up ballads. When our parents got divorced, or when our father changed, we experienced those things very differently because he had been raised by two people in love, and a father who was a different man entirely. When our mother got sick, I was stuck to deal with it because I was between 17-20 years old, and he had adult obligations that I didn’t understand–he couldn’t just stop working and take care of it, he had a new wife, and a baby.

This all sucks. It really does. I know it’s not what most people do, and I think there’s a reason for that. Aside from our different viewpoints, my brother was regarded as a much easier kid because my parents were younger, and they were in a better part of their lives when he came around. We were raised under entirely different circumstances, and who’s to say that I wouldn’t be more successful, or that I would have been a less neurotic kid if my family all rode around on ponies together.

Anyway, I love my brother. He’s become a successful business man, and he’s one of the top guys in his field. I’ll never forget him taking me to my first concert, or how he brought me to Tofino, one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen. He even bought me my first stereo. I feel like I know him better than he knows me, but that’s just his way. He doesn’t ask personal questions ever.

Genetics are amazing. Aside from all of the environmental factors of our upbringings that make us so distant from one another, there is always how identical our feet are to remind us that we’re cut from the same cloth. One time we went to the movies, and we both went to different ends of the counter to purchase our snacks. When we finally met back in the middle, we were dumbfounded by how we’d ordered exactly the same thing: Diet Coke, Popcorn with ketchup seasoning, and a pack of sour skittles. We laughed together.