SISTERHOOD

Sunday, January 18. 2009

Until Coney came along I never had a sister, and of course the age difference between us makes this a different relationship than with most sisters who don’t have as many years separating them. To Coney, I’m probably more like “Mom 2.0.” ...Or “The Mom That’s Never Breast Fed Me.”
Not so with Fiona and Corrie who are exactly the same age. While not biological sisters, they nevertheless established a familial bond. That bond has been tested by their new circumstances.
When Uncle Ralph married Martha Fennec to create that family, Corrie and Fiona were already good friends. Moving into that mansion caused their friendship to shift, but it wasn’t a wrenching change. They each had their own rooms, and the mansion is so vast that everyone was able to maintain their personal space.
Now for the first time Fiona and Corrie have to share a single room. For Corrie this is familiar terrain owing to the years she spent with Bruno, but Fiona has never been in this situation before. She grew up an only child, and her parent’s frosty marriage led to even less contact.
Now on top of the trauma of her lost fortune she has to adjust to living with someone else in the same room. No wonder she’s not sleeping well! I suspect the problem isn’t her overly sensitive hearing but simply coping with what’s happened to her.
Sometimes one’s inner thoughts are the loudest sounds in the galaxy, and there’s nothing that woolen ear coverings can do for that.
This week's question: Have many siblings do you have in your litter?

Posted by Lindesfarne at 12:31 | Comments (28) | Trackbacks (0)

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Heh, we don't call them "litters". We call them "family". Anyway, I have one older Sister. She's long since moved and has a family of her own. They live about 45 min. away so I don't see them very often.

#1 Mortar on 2009-01-18 12:46 (Reply)

I hope Fiona adjusts soon. From near hermit to roommate while simultaneously losing 99% of your wealth has got to be a wrenching experience. I cannot offer much help here.
In my "litter"...no one. I am an only child. Humans normally have one child at a time (though I knew a pair of twins in school...about 1 or 2 percent of births are twins). As for me, I had an older brother or sister who was miscarried, but that is the closest I ever came to a sibling. I once knew a family with six sons, and that was considered extraordinary. Demographers are starting to worry about declining population...mothers on average in many developed countries are having fewer than the two children needed to replace them.

#2 Thomas Mazanec (Link) on 2009-01-18 13:04 (Reply)

Personally, I don't see that as a problem. Considering how over-populated the planet is now (6,754,764,835 as of this writing), we could stand to cut down.

#2.1 Mortar on 2009-01-19 00:21 (Reply)

Well 6,754,764,835 plus 100 years give or take (without reproduction) would result in zero people. People do die you know, we don't just hang around indefinately XD not even counting things like war famine and plague.

But yeah to stay on topic I have two brothers, but I only had to share a room once until we moved. Then we had a bigger house with no space issues. Thankfully, because my little brothers are nuts.

#2.1.1 Becca on 2009-01-27 00:09 (Reply)

Oh, also wanted to agree with what was said about Corrie last week. She is remarkable, and Bruno does indeed know what he has in her.

#3 Lindesfarne Dewclaw on 2009-01-18 13:29 (Reply)

Only two siblings, but in sixty-plus years I've never had a private room of my own. Mostly I've wished for privacy, but I have to say there were a lot of advantages to being forced to share.

#4 l'empress (Link) on 2009-01-18 13:30 (Reply)

Well I was adopted so I do not know the actual number but what I do know is that I have three siblings, two sisters and one younger brother.

#5 Jak Trina on 2009-01-18 14:59 (Reply)

there are 4 of us children (plus 2 parents and inumerable animal companions). and maybe because i'm the oldest and female i sympathize with the "mom 2.0" feeling. we are a large family for the modern usa, but are closer to our agrarian roots than most families.

#6 tiffany on 2009-01-18 15:19 (Reply)

I'm the oldest of three siblings. That's about average. There is one family that has it's own reality show that has 18! Most people here think the parents should find a new hobby.

#7 Slave to Monkey the cat on 2009-01-18 15:23 (Reply)

Well, speaking as a lion, I must say that we rather enjoy that hobby (we're the rabbits of the carnivore world

), but I don't know of any lions with that big of a litter. (Just two cubs of our own - I come from a litter of two, Mrs. Lion comes from a litter of four - but I didn't want to comment on the thread seeing as how Lindesfarne was mainly asking about the human world, not ours.)

#7.1 Ken D. Lion on 2009-01-20 23:34 (Reply)

I'm an only child, myself, but when I first moved out of home it was into a share-house. Getting used to other people was the most difficult adjustment for me, also.

#8 Weldûn on 2009-01-18 16:11 (Reply)

I'm the youngest of four children. I understand the Mom 2.0 feeling, as when I was a small, that's how I considered my oldest sister, who's 17 years older than me. My brother I don't know very well, all considered. He's 20 years my senior and was actually in the process of moving away to university the day I was born!

#9 Nicky Firenight (Link) on 2009-01-18 16:59 (Reply)

I hope this doesn't make things to stressful there... Especially when i move in next week (I was lucky, I actually knew someone on the inside). Looks like Dennis also got a room there (I'm actually surprised... considering he received two black eyes during his interview to move in last week).

I think it might be time to empty my old storage shed to... except the fact the most of that stuff can't be moved in with me without someone questioning why I own it...

#10 Reptileus Concarna (Link) on 2009-01-18 17:39 (Reply)

I'm the eldest of six siblings, so we're a big family. Four girls and two boys - and like you, Lindesfarne, the youngest was adopted.

#11 Papillon on 2009-01-18 17:46 (Reply)

I think I have you all beat, or maybe it's the other way around, depending on how you look at it. I'm in the middle of 10 siblings, plus 3 half sisters, and later Dad remarried after being a widow for many years and added 5 more step siblings to the family. Because of the wide span of ages and interests, few of us are really close, but we try to keep in touch and get together when we can. With all of us up in years now, from 40 something to 60 something, and all the kids, grandkids, and great grandkids, a family gathering looks like a small city growing in the park where we meet on the 4th of July each year.

#12 Lynnskay on 2009-01-18 21:20 (Reply)

Also an only child.

#13 Bixyl Shuftan (Link) on 2009-01-18 23:55 (Reply)

I wasn't part of a litter although humans can be -- we have special terms for each litter size (twins, triplets, etc.). If I recall correctly, the largest multiple birth of humans that had all the babies surviving was sextuplets. Or maybe septuplets. Generally, that number of babies (or higher) is the result of fertility treatments and it's rare that all the babies survive.

I'm the eldest child of my generation within my family. I have one brother, one stepbrother, and two stepsisters. Lots of cousins, too. I don't live near any of my family anymore, though.

#14 Dani on 2009-01-19 01:02 (Reply)

The middle of three girls. I've always been close to my siblings, since there's only a three year age difference either way.

#15 Lightshade on 2009-01-19 01:25 (Reply)

My cousins produced three children in five years - then produced a fourth child 14 years later. The older siblings, as they were on their way to moving out, were more like uncles and aunts than siblings to the youngest one.

Another cousin managed to produce a "blended" family thanks to multiple unsuccessful marriages - managing to get six children with different lineages to cooperate in living together was bad on the nerves of everyone involved, especially with the excess drama of the parents' bad marriages in the background.

Fiona and Corrie should have it easier. The Fennec parents have put their divorce behind them and moved on to healthier relationships. And both ladies are more mature. Their relationship will probably be more like roomies than siblings.

#16 Bookkeeper-At-Arms on 2009-01-19 01:35 (Reply)

I have one younger sister. But she and I are only two years apart. The really hard thing is that we live in a small town, so people who see us remember us as being 10 and12 or younger, and for a long time, because I still walked her to my parent's store, it was difficult for them to avoid calling us by a weird conglomeration of our names.

The family mentioned before, the Duggars, would be akin to your gran having three times the children she had. I'm with the previous poster. Maybe your religion does not support non-biological birth control, but could they at least try SOMETHING? And now, the oldest one is married and having kids of his own and he says he wants a big family too!

#17 Selina Grace on 2009-01-19 02:22 (Reply)

I'm the oldest in my family, there's a 10 year gap between my sister and me, but there was a 7-year gap between my brother (who has passed away).

#18 Luna on 2009-01-19 13:50 (Reply)

If by 'litters' you mean 'siblings that shared a womb with you,' chuckles you will get few takers, Lindesfarne. Humans usually have one child at a time, with as many as eight - rarely! But, multiple births are becoming more common, because the advances in helping childless couples conceive include planting lab-fertilized ova into the female, and the norm continues to be implanting several to increase the chances of one viable fetus.
My sister-in-law, after having a beautiful daughter, managed triplets (a litter of three, if that is not obvious) without scientific help, though! One fraternal, and two identical, all boys. The human female often needs help carrying multiples to term, as well, which accounts for much of our recent advances in caring for preterm infants.
To answer your informal poll, though: I have an older brother and a younger sister. Dad and Mom came from families of nine and seven singleton children, respectively. I have two singleton children, my sister has two singleton children, my brother none yet. My father-in-law and mother-in-law both came from families of two singletons, and my man has a younger sister (the aforementioned mother of four).
-Stephanie, from the human side of the portal

#19 Stephanie on 2009-01-19 14:45 (Reply)

Lindesfarne, since I'm sure you're just as interested in the scientific as the social aspects, might I tell you that the number of children humans typically have depends largely on how easy their lives are and how long they expect to live. In some of the wealthiest nations, the population is declining; in the poorest and in most past cultures, humans have multiplied like... well, not quite like rabbits. In theory, a woman could have about 24 children at maximum; in the modern U.S., more than four is pretty rare.

#20 Classic Steve (Link) on 2009-01-19 14:48 (Reply)

Like Lindy, I have a younger half sibling. He lives with his father, while I was raised with some of our mother's relations. I was sort of like an only child, as I had no sibling peers. Still, several other people were always vying for my adopted parents' attentions... enough to make me jealous, and so enough to think about redefining the word "sibling."

A response to earlier comments: the Earth is severely overpopulated in terms of humans. The "you need two to replace yourself and your mate" argument is simply illogical, since humans are a species that do not die after procreation. I have a great-grandfather who is 91 years old, and he is still capable of driving a car for 200 miles without incident, and through major cities. Most elderly humans are not so fortunate, but it just goes to show you that we stick around for a long time in "developed" countries. A LONG time. Great-grandpa did not replace himself and his wife by fathering two children; he added 2 people to the population pool, who collectively added 3 people to the population pool, who collectively added 4 people to the population pool, who collectively added 1 MORE person to the population pool, SO FAR.

And his wife is still alive, too.

That makes 12 people who exist, not 2.

See, it takes a LOT out of the Earth to support a lot of people. Humans are not known to be very efficient with their habitats, though we are getting better about it.

Now, consider that the more education a person has, the fewer children that they have. It's statistically true. This translates to the upper and middle classes having the 0-3 kids a piece, while the scores of lower class people (whom we tend to pretend aren't even there) have several times that number of kids.

Religion seems to play a part in some cases, but I don't think we have any big statistics on that. To put the prevailing religion of my area to perspective: one of my elderly relatives insists that their God commanded humanity to go forth and multiply. My lack of desire for children upsets her, as I am supposedly defying God's will. I tell her that by "multiply," he clearly meant not to skip math class. =)

#21 Neera on 2009-01-20 01:02 (Reply)

I have two siblings, both girls. One is 2 years older than me and the other is 3 years younger. Being the male in between has been more than a little inconvenient at times.

#22 Splinterpaw on 2009-01-20 09:17 (Reply)

In my family (or litter) I'm the oldest of 4 by 6 years. This makes it hard to connect with my brother sometimes, me being in my 3rd year (ish) of college, him starting High School, but he's still my bro. A year after him is a sister, and 4 (I think, cant' remember >> ) years after that is my little sister.

Of course, in my family at large I have only one sibling who is closer then 5 years to my age, and he's the same age as I am.

#23 Kylen on 2009-01-20 18:16 (Reply)

It occurred to me that I didn't actually answer your poll. I'm the third of three children, all four years apart in age.

This made me do a bit of research, and according to the Guinness Book of World Records, the highest officially recorded number of children born to one mother is 69, to the first wife of Feodor Vassilyev (1707-1782) of Shuya, Russia. Records of the period didn't list her proper name. Between 1725 and 1765, in a total of 27 confinements, she gave birth to 16 pairs of twins, seven sets of triplets, and four sets of quadruplets. 67 of them survived infancy. The record for children fathered by human males is harder to research - there are medieval accounts of sultans and caliphs who had harems and could field entire regiments of their own sons.

And as for multiple births among humans, the odds of any given multiple birth are 30-to-1 (having two babies in a pregnancy is 30-to-1 against; having triplets is 900-to-1 against; quadruplets is 27,000-to-1 against; etc.).

#24 bOOKKEEPER-aT-aRMS on 2009-01-21 05:07 (Reply)

I'm the middle child of 3, with 2 brothers.

#25 Laura on 2009-01-21 12:13 (Reply)

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