I Dare You To Guess Which One Is Most Like Me
I’m pretty sure I misread Dr. Spock when he made some comment in his epic tome (the only baby book I read) about children being more alike than different. Because I think I need to swap “pregnancy” for “children” here.
This isn’t to say that either of my pregnancies were in any way alike, save for the fact that they both amounted in a massively 60-70 pound weight gain and that they both were boys.
But for years, despite the fact that my brother and I are only alike in that we both have black hair and dark coloring (lemmie give you an example: he got his BA in underwater pole vaulting–actual degree: poetry and photography–and I got my BSN. Now he’s an engineer and I write a blog. Who got the short end of the stick here!?!), I mistakenly took up the mantra that my children would be more alike than different.
I will take this opportunity to allow you to laugh mightily at my expense. Go ahead. It’s okay.
(jerks)
So, it’s come as a bit of a shock to learn that for children I have two completely different creatures. In my current possession I have:
1) A Cranky Fetus. Who may or may not hate me in a teenage angst way. I’d be willing to bet that it’s ALREADY listening to the Cure and wearing copious amounts of black eyeliner.
2) Ben: The Absent-Minded Professor (a.k.a Techno Distracto)
3) Alex: The Ass-Kicker (a.k.a. Techno DisTRUCTo).
Ben cannot remember something as simple as TURNING OFF THE WATER when he’s done at the sink and Alex beats down everything in his path. His habit of whipping things at my face has actually amounted to a fat lip (mine, not his) and Ben has driven me to the brink of insanity with his inability to remember oh, I don’t know…ANYTHING.
So comfort your Aunt Becky, Internet At Large (whose butt looks FANTASTIC in those pants. Have you lost weight?!). Are siblings more alike than different?
Well, in my case….I have a younger sister & growing up we were very much alike (liked the same foods, activities, etc.). But as we have grown-up (if that’s what you call it), we are very much different. She is into hair, clubbing, art, etc…and me, yea, not so much! Our personalities and temperments are also different. But, I do think that our differences are what allow us to get along so good…I would hate to have a mini-me for a sister!
My brother’s kids are very different. He bloggingly refers to them as MLI and MLE for My Little Introvert and My Little Extrovert.
My sister and I are very different too, especially in the way we relate to the world around us. Who’s to say though? Some siblings are so alike they seem to be twins, even when years separate them. There are no rules. I think all you can determine is that there is most likely a lot of YOU in all three of them.
Well seeing as how my kids are all out to “get” me and drive me insane I’d have to say they are alike. LOL Sure each have their own personalites and interests but the common goal is to drive me up the wall.
All four of mine are different in SO many way!
First boy – highly intelligent athletic rebel
Second boy- not a care in the world, not athletic, not a rebel, but extremely sensitive
Third (First girl) – highly intelligent, straight A’s, wise, kind, generous, God’s Gift
Fourth (Second Girl) – God help the teachers AND the kids when she gets to school. That’s all I’m saying about that! LOL
My kids are complete opposite.
Both in physical appearance and personality.
I find it quite strange–but thankfully, they sort of balance each other out. 🙂
My brother and I (eight years apart) might as well be twins, but my sister is NOTHING like either of us. We like to tell her she’s the mailman’s kid, except she is actually the most like my Dad…
My older sister is completely different (from anyone). She was always mean to us when we were younger, now she is just very weird. My younger sister, however, could be my twin. We are so much alike, it’s scary. We always got along as kids, and plotted against our mean older sister!
My oldest son is, too, an absent minded professor. I know better than to send him after something, because he either forgets what he was going after or looks blankly into the room for five minutes, only to return and declare he can’t find whatever it is I sent him after. My youngest, however, is very responsible and loves to enforce rules and follow schedules.
My girls. 14 months apart. Both have Z as their first initial. They look almost identical. They are exact opposites. Exact freakin’ opposites.
My guess is the fetus is the most like you!! My brother and I have always liked the same things, music, bad habits, but he’s lazy, and I’m so anti-lazy that I scare myself. My sister has my personality but ratcheted way up in a scary way, and she lets things bring her down way too much. We all have the same smartass dark humor and are loyal to a fault. Oh, and we all swear like drunken sailors.
Well, I think it’s a mix. My daughters are VERY different, but they also share many traits. My brother and I are the same.
Seeing as I have no offspring, I will discuss me and my siblings.
My brother and sister are both more ballsy, confrontational and outspoken than I am – so it is only logical that I became the lawyer. I am more nurturing, sensitive and forgiving.
My brother and I are pretty conservative whereas my sister lives like she is still in college. My brother has a not-so-secret love for gangsta rap. My sister loves the whiny Emo music. I can often be found rocking out to Barry Manilow and Niel Diamond. (Gotta love the middle aged Jewish singers!)
But all in all we are similar. We have the same values, respect for family, love for sushi, work ethic, etc.
Does the fetus have big, hairsprayed bangs? If so, then it is most definitely like you.
My brother and I are very different people, but get along extremely well. We have the same sense of humour and the same musical likes, but as people that’s about all we have in common. I don’t know how we manage to be so close, but I’m glad we are.
My first two were different in many ways but the third? Oh my God. From the moment of CONCEPTION (and I am not exaggerating) everything was completely different. And those differences did not disappear at birth. She was, how you say? THE MOST DIFFICULT CHILD I COULD IMAGINE RAISING AND IT’S A MIRACLE THAT WE’RE BOTH STILL ALIVE! Although now, at the age of 22, she’s a delight and we have a great relationship and she’s a hard worker, newly married to a great guy, and wants nothing more than her own home and four babies- just like her mama.
I describe these kids as “the sun, the moon, and a completely different universe.”
Now the fourth was more like the first two in that she was a relatively normal (albeit incredibly easy) child.
Interestingly, the third was my only conscious conception. The others were all delightful surprises. I don’t think baby number three was ready to come back to earth and was pissed off for being called while the other three were so ready they slipped in at the merest hint of an opportunity.
Since I’m an only child and I only have one child for the moment, I guess I’m not much help on this one…
My two could not be any more different (besides the fact that they are both girls). Faith was afraid to go down the playground slide until she was 5, and Ava would hang glide off Mt. Everest if I didn’t have her tied up in the closet right this very moment. She bought the ticket and everything already, ya know.
My kids look similar — my husbands freaking genes won every genetic game of rock/paper/scissors during conception, apparently. (Yeah, I’m bitter. I got all sorts of STITCHES and weight gain and whatnot from pregnancy, and they can’t even look a like my side of the family …)
Where was I? Oh yeah, they look similar, but so far they act nothing alike.
My brother and I are twins, but the only thing we have in common is that we both like boys.
Although I have three kidlets, they all come from different mommas and daddies so I’m no help. My sister and I are four years apart and completely different. However, we’re the best of friends and really appreciate one another and our differences.
My brother and I are extremely alike, almost twin-ish….
Except there’s 13 years between us.
i say more alike, you know, gene wise.
They are all alike…They think alike and they act like…Most importantly they don’t do things by accident. Everything is planned out in order to make your life more complicated.
My sisters and I are WAY different. I think I’m the only one who has her head on straight. As for my kids, they’re alike in in the same way that pizzas have basic elements (crust, sauce, cheese, and toppings), but man…those toppings sure make them each different people.
My two (4 and 8) are more alike than not. They look the same, were both really easy going as babies…and take after their mama in the ‘tude department.
I think out of myself and my 3 siblings, we are all very different, in interests, looks, life goals etc. But we definitely share some of the same traits, such as OCD, bad eyesight and a tendency to gain too much weight. (2 boys 2 girls). One bro is blonde, one has black hair. I am the only one with brown hair and brown eyes. I’m the only one with a single child, the only one who’s been divorced. My sister has all the medical problems in the family, and my younger brother is the “dumb one”, my older bro is the selfish one, and I was daddy’s girl. I don’t think any of us even have the same taste in music or literature even. (I’m not sure my younger bro can even read.) And my parents were like night and day too, so maybe we learned to be an eclectic bunch from them.
Well, lets go down my list of sibellings (descending age):
Older Brother – 1 year older. ex-navy seal, now morbidly obease working on getting into the guiness book of worlds records for most number of possible medical conditions
Me – Computer geek without a degree. Nice house, good job, and generally exceeding my own expectations on a daily basis.
Younger Sister 1 – Lawyer in chicago. Married to a guy who makes enough money to meet her standards. Had a lot of therapy. needs more.
Younger Sister 2 – Ex Heroin addict who cleaned up her act, and now has two wonderful kids and a good husband. Struggling, but doing OK.
Younger Sister 3 – wannab internet porn star who’s husband whores her out, and she doesnt mind. Has 3 kids and apparently #4 is on the way. Oh, and she is 24
Younger Brother – Not to bright, not to dumb…first year in college. thinks about nothing but Beer and Breasts (and cant decide which is better).
No, I would have to say the only thing we have in common is one parent or the other (younger sister 1 and I share a mother, the rest come from my father and various women).
Well I am an only child but I am a carbon copy of my dad.
I only have one son but when I do have another I hope that (if I have a girl) she will be different. If not she will be running around farting and praying for arm pit hair.
If I have another little boy I hope that he is exactly like my son because (i think) he is the most humerous child on the planet.
I could not be more different than my brothers. If we didn’t look alike, I would swear we weren’t related at all.
I’m the eldest of four. (Or seven, or nine, or ten. Those are all true – I would explain, but I’ll just sum up: four of us are Mom’s, five of us are Dad’s, five of us are steps… never mind. Just take my word for it, OK?) There are four of us who matter for this response.
And no. We’re almost nothing alike. The only thing we all have in common is claustrophobia and an addiction to homemade pasta e fagioli. When people would ask my Mom how many kids she had, she’d say, “I have four only children.”
I’ve never heard anyone say that kids are more alike than different! My kids have similarities (they both like books and talk too much) but for the most part they are as different as – you know, day and night. Boo is all “Get outta my way you asshat!” and Monkey is more like, “Oh, you want to walk all over me? Be my guest!”
I am NOTHING like my brother, we are complete opposites. And if we didn’t look somewhat similar, I would even think that maybe one of us (hopefully me!) was adopted.
My sister and I couldn’t be any more different!
from nclm.
HA! My Ben too is the absent minded professor. Thanks to his daddy. I’m certain my next child will be crazy and loud like me!
According to my psych text books, siblings are supposed to be more similar to each other thanks to shared genes and shared environments, so if you take two random people and compare their similarities to the similarities of two siblings, the siblings should be the more similar pair.
However, siblings don’t have identical genes unless they’re identical twins (studies have shown that identical twins are more alike than other siblings are), and their environments differ more than most people think. For instance, my brother spent four years as an only child, whereas I’ve never been an only child. I spent six years as the youngest child, whereas my sister has always and will always be the youngest child. Has that, and the millions of other subtle differences in our genes and environments, affected our personalities? I think so.
My sister and I are not alike. I inherited the backbone, but she did not. I got the resiliency and humor.
Okay, she got the boobs. In more ways than one.
My two daughters are night and day. Can’t wait to see what the third one is like!
my sister & i are much alike.
our brother is from another planet much of the time.
Sorry, there’s really no way to tell. M. and his sister are like complete strangers. My sibs and I have many similar likes and dislikes, but how to tell whether it’s genetic or just because we’ve been together so long? No idea.
well, developmental science says they are alike in general ways…
but as mother you notice the subtle distinctions in personality and skills.
At 18 mths which is where the youngest one is now they are quite different but i think that is just the difference in development between boys and girls. He is taking much less than she did – she was on to sentences by now. He is much better physically – climbing, running etc. He is gentler too – she was more feisty at this age. In 3 years time I think will have a better idea.
Don’t spare the rod… 😀
My brother and I used to be alike. Now not so much. My sister and I have always fought and still do to this day. I think it is the 7 year age gap and the fact she is teenager and I am not. I only have one child (he is 2)thankfully so there i cannot help out.
My kids are all extremely different from one another, though there are certain traits shared by 2 kids at a time, but never all 4 and not often do 2 kids share more than a couple traits. That was as clear as mud…
I have 3 sisters and as children we were all quite different, but as adults we seem to be more and more alike. Or at least we find more in common.
Hope you are doing well tonight, thinking of you.
I only have one itty bitty guy, so I can’t comment from the mom’s perspective… but from the sibling perspective, my brother and I are very different. Sure we are alike in important ways (e.g. never been incarcerated), but also opposites in major aspects as well (e.g. he manages 40 people at work, and I can hardly manage myself).
Can’t compare kids, but comparing pregnancies? Well, they’re both human (we hope). That’s about all the similarities.
I have one sister – very much like me, and one sister very much not like me. I have no idea how that happened, we all have the same parents.
Although my mother calls the first child a lumpy pancake (you know, cause the first one never comes out as good as the rest of them.) and the oldest is the oddball in our family.
My brother and I might as well be from different planets.
Of course, part of that could be his mental/addiction stuff. But my guess is even if he were sober as a Prohibition teetotaler, we’d have about 3 sentences to say to one another per year.
My brother and I look very much alike – so much so that people often thought we were twins growing up (even though he’s two and a half years older than I am) – but that’s where the similarity ends.
I am deeply spiritual and also deeply crazy (shut up, they’re not related!!) and he’s an atheist and as steady as they come. I can’t work a proper job, and he’s been employed since he could stoop to pick a strawberry. I can barely turn my computer on, and he can reprogram it from anywhere in the world he happens to be (whether it’s on or not, I sometimes think).
He is a touch odd, though, and I like to think we’re more alike than you’d think at first blush. Dude’s one of the few people I can talk quantum physics with without garnering blank stares. Even though he’s an atheist, I’ve blessed every house he’s lived in, at his request, and he never laughs at me when I give him things like stone owls to put in his kids’ rooms to keep bad dreams away. Yeah, yeah.
He likes peanut butter and sardines on Saltines. I don’t. I DO like peanut butter and marshmallow fluff on Wonder bread, though.
Sorry I went long – been away a week, missed ya.
Shade and Sweetwater,
K
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