It can be really difficult growing up in a family where there are large age discrepancies between the children.
In my house, I am the oldest of five.
Unfortunately, the five of us were not born in any kind of logical span of time. In fact, I am 20 years older than my youngest sibling. If you want to know how uncomfortable this is… It is incredibly uncomfortable. Recently, I was forced to confront the fact that my mom is a much better parent with each subsequent child. When I was growing up she really didn’t care much about what I was doing. She wasn’t concerned about my extracurricular activities, my socialization, or even my indoor air quality. When we were growing up we had a single AC window unit that was supposed to cool down the indoor air for our entire house. In the winter we were lucky if she put a space heater in our bedroom before she closed the door at night. Was she concerned about our respiratory health, indoor comfort, or safety? Not really. Today, she is so concerned with indoor air quality affecting her precious baby that she is constantly calling the heating and cooling repair shop up the street. If they aren’t working on her central heating and cooling system she is asking about air purification devices and HEPA filters. Most recently, I found out that she was so concerned about her child burning himself on her furnace that she was actually going to replace the entire heating system. Heaven forbid the kid learn a thing or two about consequences and the inherently hot nature of furnaces.