older sibling essay

Being The Oldest Sibling: Personal Narrative

Show More Being the oldest is not really easy. I come from a family of four in which I am the oldest, my sister is almost 6 years younger than me. It was never my choice to be the oldest sibling, it just happened. There are many responsibilities and high expectations that come with being the older sibling. There are many pros and cons when you are the older sibling. My life changed dramatically when my sister was born. It all started on a clear spring day. My mother was at the hospital because today was the expected delivery day. Everyone was very excited about my new sibling that was about to be born. I was sitting next to my grandparents that day because I was not allowed inside the room until they were finished with the operation. I could remember,

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13 Undeniable Truths About Being The Oldest Sibling

Senior Reporter, HuffPost Life

The best of friends. Frenemies at best. Our relationships with siblings are some of the most complicated we’ll ever have. Stuck With You is a HuffPost series that explores the nuances of sibling relationships.

Your birth order can shape your childhood in ways that follow you into adulthood. While not every oldest child grows up the same way, there are certain similarities in terms of personality and life experience that you tend to see among firstborns.

A large 2015 study from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign found that “the importance that is generally attached to sibling position in shaping one’s character is exaggerated,” according to Scientific American . However, anecdotally speaking, firstborns are thought to be independent individuals, perfectionists and high-achievers who sometimes struggle with parentification and may have trouble asking for help when they need it.

We asked HuffPost readers to share some of the truths of being the oldest sibling that stand out in their minds. Read on to see what they had to say.

Responses have been lightly edited for clarity and length.

Your parents relied on you — sometimes too much — to help take care of younger siblings and other household duties.

“The oldest is held to a higher standard. Parents just want you to ‘grow up,’ so your childhood is shorter. I was expected to be the best all the time, so there was a lot of criticism. I was also given more chores and responsibilities at an earlier age than my sibs, even as they got older. As the unpaid babysitter for my two younger brothers, I missed out on opportunities to socialize with my peers.” — Becky

As an adult, you are often in charge of caring for your aging parents.

“I am more responsible for parental caregiving than my three siblings.” — Melissa K.

You’re responsible and independent as a result of your upbringing.

“Having everything thrust upon me as the oldest child made me fierce. Most people compliment me and say they have never met anyone like me. I laugh it off and say it’s firstborn syndrome. Our parents expected the most from us and it forced us to be reliable, responsible and independent. A lot of firstborns I know are go-getters, as am I. I am supportive of my siblings like a parent and a sister. I will get on them where my mother won’t, yet I am their biggest cheerleader. The dynamics of the firstborn are amazing and if the firstborn is a girl, sky’s the limit!” — Samaya B.

Your parents were a lot harder on you.

“I’m the oldest of three. Parents were much stricter with me. My youngest sibling could’ve set the house on fire some days and my parents wouldn’t have blinked. But I was terrified to bring home a C [grade].” — Olivia H.

“I had chores and curfews and expectations, and my younger two siblings had a free-for-all. My parents were better off financially when they were raising the younger two and I think that somehow relaxed them? They had more time, more money — and that lessened their anxiety maybe?

No curfews or ‘groundings’ for the younger siblings because they had access financially to do things that us older sisters did not. Maybe it was easier to say that I couldn’t go because I didn’t get my chores done in time than it was for my mother to say that we couldn’t afford for me to go bowling or to the movies that weekend. Or maybe the younger siblings had more freedom because my mom was tired. I don’t know. These are the things I tell myself though.” — Jessica S.

Sometimes it feels like you had a completely different upbringing than your siblings.

“It was like I had different parents than my brother and sister did. My parents were much freer and happier around them, and complete anxiety and rigidity with me. In fairness, we grew up in a trauma household because our father is a Vietnam vet with PTSD so it was tough on me because I spoke up for myself. The other two just kept their mouths shut to keep the peace. That said, the resilience and independence I have are huge assets to me as an adult so I’m grateful now.” — Christine D.

You got a lot of attention from your parents and relatives, at least early on.

“You were the most doted on by the whole family until the next child or grandchild came along.” — Ash L.

“I am sure I received more one-on-one attention up until the age of three than my brother did when he came along. There’s nobody to blame of course, but when you have two children, you obviously have to split your time. Attention was also a con as I grew up because there are standards I was held to that my younger brother was not.” — Gini H.

You were the ‘first-draft’ kid.

“You are basically the experiment, so you get all the big reactions and punishments, then watch them handle things differently with your siblings.” — Melanie H.

“Oldest of four. All of the younger sibs are overachievers. I was the wonky pancake. You know when you make pancakes, and you’re trying to get the heat and the pour right and the first one is always...wonky. Not bad, just not right. The one for all the mistakes and test runs and the learning curve for the parents. Add in being a completely undiagnosed neurodivergent girl in the late 70s and 80s — forget it. Still the wonky pancake, just on my own terms at 51.” — Tara W.

As a kid, you were told you were wise beyond your years.

“I’m the oldest of three girls to a single mum. I can take on too much, feel guilt if I don’t step up enough and am super responsible and reliable. My mum always said I was an old soul.” — Deb F.

“Being the oldest meant maturing earlier than you think you should be, learning things that most people learn later on in life and feeling the need to be rational and wise beyond your age. Always feeling the need to fit in with the older crowd.” — Chloe L.

You got to witness your younger siblings grow up.

“A pro is getting to watch your siblings grow up and vividly remembering all those special moments. Also learning responsibility, empathy and creativity while helping watch and raise the younger kids. A con: Feeling responsible for much more than a kid should be. Feeling responsible for younger children’s mistakes (because I didn’t teach them, watch them, correct them well enough). This carries into adulthood as well.” — Lindsey T.

Or, if there was a large age gap, you may feel like you missed out on their childhood.

“There is a 9-year age gap between my younger sister and me. We get along great, but we definitely both see the world differently from one another. I definitely feel like I missed out on my younger two siblings growing up. I was a young adult establishing myself in the workforce while also trying to attend college. Sometimes, visiting around the holidays felt awkward because I didn’t seem to know my little brother and little sister completely.” — Elizabeth S.

You pine for an older brother or sister yourself.

You’re a people pleaser..

“As the oldest child, my parents’ grip was tightest on me. There was no space to become my own person when everything I did was to earn their approval. My siblings had more freedom to rebel and make mistakes and grow from them. They’re better for it, and I’m still an anxious people-pleaser. I know my parents did their best with what they knew at the time, but sometimes it’s hard to be the first-draft kid.” — Lizz A.

You felt a lot of pressure to impress your parents and set a good example for your siblings.

“I’m the oldest of four and the only girl. I took to the pressure well — at least, I can say that now — but my siblings struggled living up to my parents’ expectations based on me as the example. According to my brothers, my parents put me on a pedestal. I could do no wrong. They suffered as a result.” — Sindie K.

“Being the oldest child, I always felt pressure — mostly internalized — to set a good example for my siblings.” — Jessica I.

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Essay on Siblings

Students are often asked to write an essay on Siblings in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Siblings

The importance of siblings.

Siblings are like lifelong friends. They are the ones we share our childhood memories with. They teach us about teamwork, sharing, and caring.

Life Lessons from Siblings

Siblings can be our role models. We often learn from their experiences and mistakes. They help us understand the world better.

Siblings and Personality Development

Having siblings can shape our personalities. Interactions with them help us develop social skills and empathy.

In conclusion, siblings play a crucial role in our lives. They are our companions, guides, and friends, making our journey of life more enriching.

250 Words Essay on Siblings

The significance of siblings.

Siblings, often our first peers, play a monumental role in shaping our personalities, values, and understanding of the world. They are our constant companions in the journey of life, offering a unique blend of shared history and mutual growth.

Shared Experiences and Emotional Bonding

The shared experiences between siblings foster a deep emotional bond. From family holidays to mundane household chores, these shared moments build a sense of camaraderie and mutual understanding. This emotional bonding often serves as a safety net, providing emotional support during times of crisis.

Siblings as Socialization Agents

Siblings also act as significant agents of socialization. They contribute to the development of social skills, such as conflict resolution and empathy. Interactions with siblings can teach one to negotiate, compromise, and express emotions, skills that are crucial in navigating social scenarios in later life.

The Influence on Personal Development

The influence of siblings extends to personal development as well. Older siblings often serve as role models, influencing younger ones’ behavior, aspirations, and attitudes. Conversely, the responsibility of guiding younger siblings can foster maturity and accountability in the elder ones.

In conclusion, siblings play a multifaceted role in our lives. They are companions, confidants, and teachers, leaving indelible impacts on our personalities and life choices. The sibling relationship, marked by shared experiences, emotional bonds, and mutual growth, is indeed a significant aspect of human life.

500 Words Essay on Siblings

Introduction.

Siblings are an integral part of our lives, shaping our identities, influencing our behaviors, and playing a significant role in our personal development. They are our first friends, rivals, role models, and confidants, providing a complex and rich tapestry of interactions that significantly impact our social, emotional, and cognitive growth.

The Role of Siblings in Personal Development

Siblings serve as agents of socialization, contributing to the development of social skills and emotional intelligence. They provide a platform for learning about conflict resolution, cooperation, and negotiation. Siblings often engage in role-playing games, which are crucial in understanding social roles and norms. As such, siblings can be instrumental in shaping our social identities and interpersonal skills.

Sibling Rivalry and Its Implications

Sibling rivalry, often seen as a negative aspect of sibling relationships, can have constructive outcomes. It can foster resilience, as siblings learn to manage conflicts and stand up for themselves. The competition can also stimulate personal growth and ambition, leading to improved performance in various life domains. However, unchecked rivalry can lead to feelings of inadequacy and low self-esteem, demonstrating the importance of parental intervention in managing sibling conflicts.

Siblings as Role Models

Older siblings often serve as role models for their younger counterparts, influencing their attitudes, behaviors, and aspirations. They can model positive behaviors, such as studying diligently or engaging in healthy habits, which younger siblings are likely to emulate. However, they can also model negative behaviors, highlighting the need for older siblings to be conscious of their influence.

The Impact of Birth Order

Birth order plays a significant role in shaping sibling dynamics and individual personalities. Firstborns, often burdened with more responsibilities, may develop leadership skills and a higher level of conscientiousness. Middle children, striving to differentiate themselves from their siblings, may become more creative and flexible. Youngest children, often the center of attention, may develop strong social skills but may also become dependent.

Siblings and Mental Health

Siblings can significantly impact one’s mental health. Strong sibling bonds can provide emotional support, reduce feelings of loneliness, and foster a sense of belonging, contributing to improved mental health. Conversely, negative sibling interactions, such as bullying or neglect, can lead to mental health issues like anxiety and depression.

In conclusion, siblings play a pivotal role in shaping our lives. They contribute to our personal development, provide emotional support, and influence our behaviors, attitudes, and aspirations. While sibling relationships can be complex and challenging, they are also a source of learning, growth, and companionship. Therefore, understanding the dynamics of sibling relationships is crucial in fostering healthy familial bonds and promoting personal and social development.

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Being the oldest sibling is the greatest life lesson, having six younger siblings taught me some important things that i cherish in the future..

Are you the oldest or youngest of the family?

Some people know this fact, but most people do not know this: I have three younger brothers. All three of them are teenagers and they can be a huge pain sometimes. Also, after my mother and father separated, my mother met someone else. In this relationship, I have gained two more teenage (step) brothers and younger (step) sister. Whether blood or not, I love them all the same yet they make my job as being the older sister a challenge.

As you can tell, being the oldest in this crowd is not an easy task. There are some difficult days and there are some days that can seem like the best days ever. Having this many siblings has taught me things that will be helpful in life. Some of these lessons you may have already found out.

Check them out:

1. You learn to share.

I cannot express how much I hated this! I was the oldest child growing up. I was the only girl for eighteen years. Why would I have to share with my brothers? They were boys. They did not need my stuff. Mom and Dad had to be the unfair ones and explain to me why I had to share. They explained to me that my brothers look up to me and they want to do what I am doing. Also, I will eventually share my stuff with someone else in the future. Whether a significant other, possible future offspring, or just someone needing to borrow something, there will be someone that you will share with.

2. "Life is not fair!"

This is the best argument that I could come up with when I was six years old. Sadly, this one line may be the most important and most life altering lesson that a child can learn. Although most people learn this, the oldest child in family will generally learn this statement before their siblings. Some of the things that I would get in trouble for would have a different result when my brothers did the same thing. My parents were learning their rules while I was growing up. The boys knew this too. So, they would push limits to see how differently they would get into trouble. This frustrated me so often.

3. Set an example for your siblings.

Have you ever heard your parents saying, "They look up to you. Act right."? Normally, the answer is yes. Eldest children have the problem that their parents want them to have manners, be responsible, do well in school, be social, and be interactive. Not knowing this, the oldest child has a lot of pressure pushed on them to act a certain way. This pressure is not even necessary because many of the younger siblings will find themselves and act however they want. This is normally different than the oldest sibling.

4. Be inclusive with your siblings.

Parents always want the oldest child to let their younger siblings "play" with them and their friends. My parents lucked out. My two youngest brothers were best friends and did their own thing. The oldest of the three was (and still is) my best friend. We confide in each other, spend time with each other, and help each other when needed. Also, many of my friends are also friends with my brother. Normally, we spend time with our friends together. Including your siblings in activities is helpful in the long run. If I was ever in a problem, my brothers would respond and help me out before anyone else would.

5. You are the leader.

Being the oldest helps build traits that are important for leaders to hold. You must learn to be focused which helps when you have easily distracted siblings. Confidence is key in being able to influence siblings into doing what you want. Also, when you are giving advice and are confident, siblings will lean to trusting and "holding onto every word" that you tell them. Being honest with your siblings helps you create trust and keeping the trait of honesty with others creates a trustworthy bond. For example, if a manager trusted you, they would give you more important tasks. The list goes on. Each of the items on the list is easily accessible and practicable when you are the oldest sibling.

My mom gave me the nickname "Drill Sergeant" when I was little because she was amazed at how well I was a leader when it came to my brothers. In high school, I joined the JROTC program and eventually worked my way up to the highest ranking position in the program and was leader to all the other high school students. Many of them looked up to me and were friends with me. My brothers helped me become the person who can accomplish goals as a leader.

6. Teach skills and new ideas.

Each of my brothers and I had different approaches and reactions to school subjects. I excelled in all subjects without any struggles. One of my brothers is dyslexic and he has trouble with the different aspects of English however, he is a pro at figuring out mathematical problems. Another brother is decent at school work. My youngest brother has issues with school. He despises the classes and the homework (even more than the classes).

Knowing how each of my brothers react to school, I was the one who always helped with their homework. Practicing reading and writing with the oldest brother helped him create tricks and tips to pass the English classes however, he still has some issues when it comes to reading. The youngest brother and I would sit down for hours going through his packets. I figured out how to make the information fun for him using different incentives which helps him get through all the work.

With the previous "tutoring" that I did with my brothers, I can easily determine how people focus and the patterns that they utilize to help them learn subjects. My best friend and I had an algebra class together, and he struggled in the class. So, after the teacher finished the lesson and we were able to work on our problems, I would go through the problems with him explaining how to solve them while wording the explanation a little differently. It seemed to click with him and two other boys who sat in our corner of the room. To this day, he still admits that I am the one who helped him in math.

7. Teamwork is key.

How many people hate working in groups? Group projects will never go away. There will be group projects in middle school, high school, college, and even careers.

Learning how to work in a group of four with my brothers helped me prepare for the group projects that I had to face in high school and the projects that I still have today. If I can work with my brothers on a project, any group is possible. My brothers were the worst group members to work with when they were all together.

8. Learn how to manage frustration.

A house that is full of all males is terrible. Being one of the few females in the house was not easy. My brothers would do things just to annoy me and see how I would react (They STILL do this!). They knew exactly which buttons to press. Fighting and arguing with them never worked. That only fueled them to continue their actions. Managing my frustration and staying calm annoyed them more than it annoyed me. So, they would eventually give up and find something else to do.

Now, I can go through the day without issues with classmates, professors, or coworkers. Any frustration that I have would be contained and calmed without an outburst.

9. Welcome to being the elected lawyer of the family.

Although my passion is being an international lawyer, the process of being a lawyer was introduced to me at a young age. If my brothers and I wanted something, I was the delegate who would talk to the parents. My brothers would listen to my argument and nod in agreement or say, "Yeah."

I was able to reason why we should be able to do something to the point that it made sense and was difficult to argue against. Also, it was a vice versa situation. I discovered that I was able to argue and reason my way out of getting us in trouble, as well.

10. Being the encouragement that they need.

My brothers, sister, and I go through this often. Any activities or events that my siblings participate in is my priority. I encourage them to follow their dreams and do well. One of my brothers was in archery a couple years ago. He was great at this sport, but he had some issues with grades. Now, he works on getting his grades up and is thinking about rejoining archery.

Another brother participated in JROTC Drill Team with me, and we both worked hard and cheered for each other when we competed. My little sister loves playing with hair and I willingly let her tangle my hair in unimaginable knots (The talented child got a comb and two different types of brushes stuck in my hair back-to-back one night!). This helps encourage her to continue playing with hair and creating beautiful up-dos. Even the smallest act can encourage and show others that you care. Whether in academic affairs or other extracurricular activities that my siblings participate in, I will always cheer for them and be there to motivate them.

So, what did you learn from being the oldest child? OR...What did you learn from being the youngest child?

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Grateful beyond words: a letter to my inspiration, i have never been so thankful to know you..

I can't say "thank you" enough to express how grateful I am for you coming into my life. You have made such a huge impact on my life. I would not be the person I am today without you and I know that you will keep inspiring me to become an even better version of myself.

You have taught me that you don't always have to strong. You are allowed to break down as long as you pick yourself back up and keep moving forward. When life had you at your worst moments, you allowed your friends to be there for you and to help you. You let them in and they helped pick you up. Even in your darkest hour you showed so much strength. I know that you don't believe in yourself as much as you should but you are unbelievably strong and capable of anything you set your mind to.

Your passion to make a difference in the world is unbelievable. You put your heart and soul into your endeavors and surpass any personal goal you could have set. Watching you do what you love and watching you make a difference in the lives of others is an incredible experience. The way your face lights up when you finally realize what you have accomplished is breathtaking and I hope that one day I can have just as much passion you have.

SEE MORE: A Letter To My Best Friend On Her Birthday

The love you have for your family is outstanding. Watching you interact with loved ones just makes me smile . You are so comfortable and you are yourself. I see the way you smile when you are around family and I wish I could see you smile like this everyday. You love with all your heart and this quality is something I wished I possessed.

You inspire me to be the best version of myself. I look up to you. I feel that more people should strive to have the strength and passion that you exemplify in everyday life.You may be stubborn at points but when you really need help you let others in, which shows strength in itself. I have never been more proud to know someone and to call someone my role model. You have taught me so many things and I want to thank you. Thank you for inspiring me in life. Thank you for making me want to be a better person.

Waitlisted for a College Class? Here's What to Do!

Dealing with the inevitable realities of college life..

Course registration at college can be a big hassle and is almost never talked about. Classes you want to take fill up before you get a chance to register. You might change your mind about a class you want to take and must struggle to find another class to fit in the same time period. You also have to make sure no classes clash by time. Like I said, it's a big hassle.

This semester, I was waitlisted for two classes. Most people in this situation, especially first years, freak out because they don't know what to do. Here is what you should do when this happens.

Don't freak out

This is a rule you should continue to follow no matter what you do in life, but is especially helpful in this situation.

Email the professor

Around this time, professors are getting flooded with requests from students wanting to get into full classes. This doesn't mean you shouldn't burden them with your email; it means they are expecting interested students to email them. Send a short, concise message telling them that you are interested in the class and ask if there would be any chance for you to get in.

Attend the first class

Often, the advice professors will give you when they reply to your email is to attend the first class. The first class isn't the most important class in terms of what will be taught. However, attending the first class means you are serious about taking the course and aren't going to give up on it.

Keep attending class

Every student is in the same position as you are. They registered for more classes than they want to take and are "shopping." For the first couple of weeks, you can drop or add classes as you please, which means that classes that were once full will have spaces. If you keep attending class and keep up with assignments, odds are that you will have priority. Professors give preference to people who need the class for a major and then from higher to lower class year (senior to freshman).

Have a backup plan

For two weeks, or until I find out whether I get into my waitlisted class, I will be attending more than the usual number of classes. This is so that if I don't get into my waitlisted class, I won't have a credit shortage and I won't have to fall back in my backup class. Chances are that enough people will drop the class, especially if it is very difficult like computer science, and you will have a chance. In popular classes like art and psychology, odds are you probably won't get in, so prepare for that.

Remember that everything works out at the end

Life is full of surprises. So what if you didn't get into the class you wanted? Your life obviously has something else in store for you. It's your job to make sure you make the best out of what you have.

Navigating the Talking Stage: 21 Essential Questions to Ask for Connection

It's mandatory to have these conversations..

Whether you met your new love interest online , through mutual friends, or another way entirely, you'll definitely want to know what you're getting into. I mean, really, what's the point in entering a relationship with someone if you don't know whether or not you're compatible on a very basic level?

Consider these 21 questions to ask in the talking stage when getting to know that new guy or girl you just started talking to:

1. What do you do for a living?

What someone does for a living can tell a lot about who they are and what they're interested in! Their career reveals a lot more about them than just where they spend their time to make some money.

2. What's your favorite color?

OK, I get it, this seems like something you would ask a Kindergarten class, but I feel like it's always good to know someone's favorite color . You could always send them that Snapchat featuring you in that cute shirt you have that just so happens to be in their favorite color!

3. Do you have any siblings?

This one is actually super important because it's totally true that people grow up with different roles and responsibilities based on where they fall in the order. You can tell a lot about someone just based on this seemingly simple question.

4. What's your favorite television show?

OK, maybe this isn't a super important question, but you have to know ASAP if you can quote Michael Scott or not. If not, he probably isn't the one. Sorry, girl.

5. When is your birthday?

You can then proceed to do the thing that every girl does without admitting it and see how compatible your zodiacs are.

6. What's your biggest goal in life?

If you're like me, you have big goals that you want to reach someday, and you want a man behind you who also has big goals and understands what it's like to chase after a dream. If his biggest goal is to see how quickly he can binge-watch " Grey's Anatomy " on Netflix , you may want to move on.

7. If you had three wishes granted to you by a genie, what would they be?

This is a go-to for an insight into their personality. Based on how they answer, you can tell if they're goofy, serious, or somewhere in between.

8. What's your favorite childhood memory?

For some, this may be a hard question if it involves a family member or friend who has since passed away . For others, it may revolve around a tradition that no longer happens. The answers to this question are almost endless!

9. If you could change one thing about your life, what would it be?

We all have parts of our lives and stories that we wish we could change. It's human nature to make mistakes. This question is a little bit more personal but can really build up the trust level.

10. Are you a cat or a dog person?

I mean, duh! If you're a dog person, and he is a cat person, it's not going to work out.

11. Do you believe in a religion or any sort of spiritual power?

Personally, I am a Christian, and as a result, I want to be with someone who shares those same values. I know some people will argue that this question is too much in the talking stage , but why go beyond the talking stage if your personal values will never line up?

12. If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would it be?

Even homebodies have a must visit place on their bucket list !

13. What is your ideal date night?

Hey, if you're going to go for it... go for it!

14. Who was/is your celebrity crush?

For me, it was hands-down Nick Jonas . This is always a fun question to ask!

15. What's a good way to cheer you up if you're having a bad day?

Let's be real, if you put a label on it, you're not going to see your significant other at their best 24/7.

16. Do you have any tattoos?

This can lead to some really good conversations, especially if they have a tattoo that has a lot of meaning to them!

17. Can you describe yourself in three words?

It's always interesting to see if how the person you're talking to views their personal traits lines ups with the vibes you're getting.

18. What makes you the most nervous in life?

This question can go multiple different directions, and it could also be a launching pad for other conversations.

19. What's the best gift you have ever received? 

Admittedly, I have asked this question to friends as well, but it's neat to see what people value.

20. What do you do to relax/have fun?

Work hard, play hard, right?

21. What are your priorities at this phase of your life?

This is always interesting because no matter how compatible your personalities may be, if one of you wants to be serious and the other is looking for something casual, it's just not going to work.

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Challah vs. Easter Bread: A Delicious Dilemma

Is there really such a difference in challah bread or easter bread.

Ever since I could remember, it was a treat to receive Easter Bread made by my grandmother. We would only have it once a year and the wait was excruciating. Now that my grandmother has gotten older, she has stopped baking a lot of her recipes that require a lot of hand usage--her traditional Italian baking means no machines. So for the past few years, I have missed enjoying my Easter Bread.

A few weeks ago, I was given a loaf of bread called Challah (pronounced like holla), and upon my first bite, I realized it tasted just like Easter Bread. It was so delicious that I just had to make some of my own, which I did.

The recipe is as follows:

Ingredients

2 tsp active dry or instant yeast 1 cup lukewarm water 4 to 4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour 1/2 cup white granulated sugar 2 tsp salt 2 large eggs 1 large egg yolk (reserve the white for the egg wash) 1/4 cup neutral-flavored vegetable oil

Instructions

• Combine yeast and a pinch of sugar in small bowl with the water and stir until you see a frothy layer across the top.
• Whisk together 4 cups of the flour, sugar, and salt in a large bowl.
• Make a well in the center of the flour and add in eggs, egg yolk, and oil. Whisk these together to form a slurry, pulling in a little flour from the sides of the bowl.
• Pour the yeast mixture over the egg slurry and mix until difficult to move.
• Turn out the dough onto a floured work surface and knead by hand for about 10 minutes. If the dough seems very sticky, add flour a teaspoon at a time until it feels tacky, but no longer like bubblegum. The dough has finished kneading when it is soft, smooth, and holds a ball-shape.
• Place the dough in an oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and place somewhere warm. Let the dough rise 1 1/2 to 2 hours.
• Separate the dough into four pieces. Roll each piece of dough into a long rope roughly 1-inch thick and 16 inches long.
• Gather the ropes and squeeze them together at the very top. Braid the pieces in the pattern of over, under, and over again. Pinch the pieces together again at the bottom.
• Line a baking sheet with parchment and lift the loaf on top. Sprinkle the loaf with a little flour and drape it with a clean dishcloth. Place the pan somewhere warm and away from drafts and let it rise until puffed and pillowy, about an hour.
• Heat the oven to 350°F. Whisk the reserved egg white with a tablespoon of water and brush it all over the challah. Be sure to get in the cracks and down the sides of the loaf.
• Slide the challah on its baking sheet into the oven and bake for 30 to 35 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through cooking. The challah is done when it is deeply browned.

I kept wondering how these two breads could be so similar in taste. So I decided to look up a recipe for Easter Bread to make a comparison. The two are almost exactly the same! These recipes are similar because they come from religious backgrounds. The Jewish Challah bread is based on kosher dietary laws. The Christian Easter Bread comes from the Jewish tradition but was modified over time because they did not follow kosher dietary laws.

A recipe for Easter bread is as follows:

2 tsp active dry or instant yeast 2/3 cup milk 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour 1/4 cup white granulated sugar 2 tbs butter 2 large eggs 2 tbs melted butter 1 tsp salt

• In a large bowl, combine 1 cup flour, sugar, salt, and yeast; stir well. Combine milk and butter in a small saucepan; heat until milk is warm and butter is softened but not melted.
• Gradually add the milk and butter to the flour mixture; stirring constantly. Add two eggs and 1/2 cup flour; beat well. Add the remaining flour, 1/2 cup at a time, stirring well after each addition. When the dough has pulled together, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic, about 8 minutes.
• Lightly oil a large bowl, place the dough in the bowl and turn to coat with oil. Cover with a damp cloth and let rise in a warm place until doubled in volume, about 1 hour.
• Deflate the dough and turn it out onto a lightly floured surface. Divide the dough into two equal size rounds; cover and let rest for 10 minutes. Roll each round into a long roll about 36 inches long and 1 1/2 inches thick. Using the two long pieces of dough, form a loosely braided ring, leaving spaces for the five colored eggs. Seal the ends of the ring together and use your fingers to slide the eggs between the braids of dough.
• Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place loaf on a buttered baking sheet and cover loosely with a damp towel. Place loaf in a warm place and let rise until doubled in bulk, about 45 minutes. Brush risen loaf with melted butter.
• Bake in the preheated oven until golden brown, about 30 minutes.

Both of these recipes are really easy to make. While you might need to have a day set aside for this activity, you can do things while the dough is rising or in the oven. After only a few hours, you have a delicious loaf of bread that you made from scratch, so the time and effort is really worth it!

Unlocking Lake People's Secrets: 15 Must-Knows!

There's no other place you'd rather be in the summer..

The people that spend their summers at the lake are a unique group of people.

Whether you grew up going to the lake , have only recently started going, or have only been once or twice, you know it takes a certain kind of person to be a lake person. To the long-time lake people, the lake holds a special place in your heart , no matter how dirty the water may look.

Every year when summer rolls back around, you can't wait to fire up the boat and get back out there. Here is a list of things you can probably identify with as a fellow lake-goer.

A bad day at the lake is still better than a good day not at the lake.

It's your place of escape, where you can leave everything else behind and just enjoy the beautiful summer day. No matter what kind of week you had, being able to come and relax without having to worry about anything else is the best therapy there is. After all, there's nothing better than a day of hanging out in the hot sun, telling old funny stories and listening to your favorite music.

You know the best beaches and coves to go to.

Whether you want to just hang out and float or go walk around on a beach, you know the best spots. These often have to be based on the people you're with, given that some "party coves" can get a little too crazy for little kids on board. I still have vivid memories from when I was six that scared me when I saw the things drunk girls would do for beads.

You have no patience for the guy who can't back his trailer into the water right.

When there's a long line of trucks waiting to dump their boats in the water, there's always that one clueless guy who can't get it right, and takes 5 attempts and holds up the line. No one likes that guy. One time my dad got so fed up with a guy who was taking too long that he actually got out of the car and asked this guy if he could just do it for him. So he got into the guy's car, threw it in reverse, and got it backed in on the first try. True story.

Doing the friendly wave to every boat you pass.

Similar to the "jeep wave," almost everyone waves to other boats passing by. It's just what you do, and is seen as a normal thing by everyone.

The cooler is always packed, mostly with beer.

Alcohol seems to be a big part of the lake experience, but other drinks are squeezed into the room remaining in the cooler for the kids, not to mention the wide assortment of chips and other foods in the snack bag.

Giving the idiot who goes 30 in a "No Wake Zone" a piece of your mind.

There's nothing worse than floating in the water, all settled in and minding your business, when some idiot barrels through. Now your anchor is loose, and you're left jostled by the waves when it was nice and perfectly still before. This annoyance is typically answered by someone yelling some choice words to them that are probably accompanied by a middle finger in the air.

You have no problem with peeing in the water.

It's the lake, and some social expectations are a little different here, if not lowered quite a bit. When you have to go, you just go, and it's no big deal to anyone because they do it too.

You know the frustration of getting your anchor stuck.

The number of anchors you go through as a boat owner is likely a number that can be counted on two hands. Every once in a while, it gets stuck on something on the bottom of the lake, and the only way to fix the problem is to cut the rope, and you have to replace it.

Watching in awe at the bigger, better boats that pass by.

If you're the typical lake-goer, you likely might have an average-sized boat that you're perfectly happy with. However, that doesn't mean you don't stop and stare at the fast boats that loudly speed by, or at the obnoxiously huge yachts that pass.

Knowing any swimsuit that you own with white in it is best left for the pool or the ocean.

You've learned this the hard way, coming back from a day in the water and seeing the flowers on your bathing suit that were once white, are now a nice brownish hue.

The momentary fear for your life as you get launched from the tube.

If the driver knows how to give you a good ride, or just wants to specifically throw you off, you know you're done when you're speeding up and heading straight for a big wave. Suddenly you're airborne, knowing you're about to completely wipe out, and you eat pure wake. Then you get back on and do it all again.

You're able to go to the restaurants by the water wearing minimal clothing.

One of the many nice things about the life at the lake is that everybody cares about everything a little less. Rolling up to the place wearing only your swimsuit, a cover-up, and flip flops, you fit right in. After a long day when you're sunburned, a little buzzed, and hungry, you're served without any hesitation.

Having unexpected problems with your boat.

Every once in a while you're hit with technical difficulties, no matter what type of watercraft you have. This is one of the most annoying setbacks when you're looking forward to just having a carefree day on the water, but it's bound to happen. This is just one of the joys that come along with being a boat owner.

Having a name for your boat unique to you and your life.

One of the many interesting things that make up the lake culture is the fact that many people name their boats. They can range from basic to funny, but they are unique to each and every owner, and often have interesting and clever meanings behind them.

There's no better place you'd rather be in the summer.

Summer is your all-time favorite season, mostly because it's spent at the lake. Whether you're floating in the cool water under the sun, or taking a boat ride as the sun sets, you don't have a care in the world at that moment . The people that don't understand have probably never experienced it, but it's what keeps you coming back every year.

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Drops of Ink

The Role of Being an Older Sister

Ellie George , Editor in Chief | December 3, 2021

Sadie Parvis

One of the last things my grandpa ever told me, as I was standing with my younger sister, was to “take care of each other.” 

Of course, this statement left me with a plethora of unanswered questions.

Why did he choose this to be the last thing he told me? My grandpa was a man of very few words, so when he spoke, people listened. That is why these five words meant the world to me, and because of his words, my perception of what it meant to be an older sister changed as I entered high school.  

Originally, I didn’t want to be an older sister. I was the star of the family- not only am I my parents’ first child, I was the first grandchild for both of my grandparents, and first niece for all of my aunts and uncles. The wall of pressure to maintain a marker of success was slowly built, brick by brick, after each birth of my two siblings, and eventually nine cousins.

Was this pressure pushed upon me by my adult family members, or by myself? Being the eldest sibling holds enough responsibility on its own, but being the eldest daughter carries a level of duty and dependability that being an eldest son does not. I am the built-in babysitter of my family and the example in school for my siblings to follow. 

Why is being an eldest daughter so different from being an eldest son? Why was my experience of growing up with younger siblings so different from my male classmates with younger siblings? 

It is scientifically proven that a child’s personality directly corelates with the birth order and gender of the children in their family. In the novel “The Eldest Daughter Effect,” Lisette Schuitemaker and Wies Enthoven explore birth order, and the effects of being the oldest sibling in a family, specifically targeting the journey and challenges of being an older sister.

After interviews and surveying eldest daughters, they had compelling results. Eldest daughters commonly grow up to be ‘people pleasers’ and perfectionists. Consequently, this phenomena affects all relationships an eldest daughter will have, even past their life of living at home with their parents and siblings.  

Societally, matriarchs or older women are usually tagged as caregivers, or the heart of the familial center. Therefore, consciously or unconsciously, parents push a version of this pressure onto their eldest daughters. 

Furthermore, older siblings are the easiest family members for a younger sibling to follow. They are old enough to set a good example, but young enough to be respected as one would respect a friend. 

That is a BIG responsibility. Especially for older sisters. Not only do you have to set a good example academically, you have to be a good role model in a society of extreme body expectations and standards. 

I have a younger sister, and as I have gotten older, being a body positive role model for her has slowly become important to me. I had to navigate middle school drama, self esteem issues, and social media influence without an older sister’s example to follow. So I wanted to give the support to my younger sister that I never had.

This isn’t to say that young boys don’t experience a similar phenomenon, but girls experience an extreme amount of expectations that boys do not. 

Being a ‘good’ older sibling is different for every family dynamic. Being a good older sister, to me, is promoting a healthy mind and body and highlighting the importance of good mental health and self esteem. 

As I grow older, and bloom into my older sister role, I have begun to understand, and almost appreciate the responsibilities that come with it. I am proud to have been given this opportunity to help my younger siblings grow into beautiful people. I love being an older sister, and all of the responsibilities that come with it. 

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Terrie Jeschke • Mar 21, 2022 at 5:16 pm

What a wonderful article! I am the grandmother of a young lady who just became stepsister to two boys and half sister to another boy. She is the oldest by a year. I already see these characteristics developing – she is a people pleaser; she watches out for the 3 year old; she’s caring. It is nice to know this is a role she will come to enjoy.

Janet George • Dec 8, 2021 at 8:04 am

Great article!

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The Plight of the Eldest Daughter

Women are expected to be nurturers. Firstborns are expected to be exemplars. Being both is exhausting.

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This article was featured in One Story to Read Today, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a single must-read from The Atlantic , Monday through Friday. Sign up for it here.

Being an eldest daughter means frequently feeling like you’re not doing enough, like you’re struggling to maintain a veneer of control, like the entire household relies on your diligence.

At least, that’s what a contingent of oldest sisters has been saying online. Across social-media platforms, they’ve described the stress of feeling accountable for their family’s happiness , the pressure to succeed, and the impression that they aren’t being cared for in the way they care for others . Some are still teens; others have grown up and left home but still feel over-involved and overextended. As one viral tweet put it, “are u happy or are u the oldest sibling and also a girl”? People have even coined a term for this: “eldest-daughter syndrome.”

That “syndrome” does speak to a real social phenomenon, Yang Hu, a professor of global sociology at Lancaster University, in England, told me. In many cultures, oldest siblings as well as daughters of all ages tend to face high expectations from family members—so people playing both parts are especially likely to take on a large share of household responsibilities, and might deal with more stress as a result. But that caregiving tendency isn’t an inevitable quality of eldest daughters; rather, researchers told me, it tends to be imposed by family members who are part of a society that presumes eldest daughters should act a certain way. And the online outpour of grievances reveals how frustratingly inflexible assumptions about family roles can be.

Research suggests some striking differences in the experiences of first- and secondborns. Susan McHale, a family-studies professor emeritus at Penn State University, told me that parents tend to be “focused on getting it right with the first one,” leading them to fixate on their firstborn’s development growing up—their grades, their health, the friends they choose. With their subsequent children, they might be less anxious and feel less need to micromanage, and that can lead to less tension in the parent-child dynamic. On average, American parents experience less conflict with their secondborn than with their first. McHale has found that when firstborns leave home, their relationship with their family tends to improve —and conflict then commonly increases between parents and their younger children, because the spotlight is on them. Birth order can also create a hierarchy: Older siblings are often asked to serve as babysitters, role models , and advice-givers for their younger siblings.

Read: The longest relationships of our lives

To be clear, birth order doesn’t influence personality itself—but it can influence how your family sees you, Brent Roberts, a psychology professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, told me. Eldest kids, for example, aren’t necessarily more responsible than their siblings; instead, they tend to be given more responsibilities because they are older. That role can affect how you understand yourself. Corinna Tucker, a professor emerita at the University of New Hampshire who studies sibling relationships, told me that parents frequently compare their children—“‘This is my athlete’; ‘this is my bookworm’; … ‘so-and-so is going to take care of me when I’m old’”—and kids internalize those statements. But your assigned part might not align with your disposition, Roberts said. People can grow frustrated with the traits expected of them—or of their siblings. When Roberts asks his students what qualities they associate with firstborns, students who are themselves firstborns tend to list off positives like “responsible” and “leadership”; those who aren’t firstborns, he told me, call out “bossy” and “overcontrolling.”

Gender introduces its own influence on family dynamics. Women are usually the “kin keepers,” meaning they perform the often invisible labor of “making sure everybody is happy, conflicts are resolved, and everybody feels paid attention to,” McHale told me. On top of that emotional aid, her research shows, young daughters spend more time, on average, than sons doing chores; the jobs commonly given to boys, such as shoveling snow and mowing the lawn, are irregular and not as urgent.

Daughtering is the term that Allison Alford, a Baylor University communication professor who researches adult daughters, uses to describe the family work that girls and women tend to take on. That can look like picking up prescriptions, planning a retirement party, or setting aside money for a parent’s future; it can also involve subtler actions, like holding one’s tongue to avoid an argument or listening to a parent's worries. Daughtering can be satisfying, even joyful. But it can also mean caring for siblings and sometimes for parents in a way that goes above and beyond what children, especially young ones, should need to do, Alford told me.

Read: When kids have to act like parents, it affects them for life

Research on eldest daughters specifically is limited, but experts told me that considering the pressures foisted on older siblings and on girls and women, occupying both roles isn’t likely to be easy. Tucker put it this way: Women are expected to be nurturers. Firstborns are expected to be exemplars. Trying to be everything for everyone is likely to lead to guilt when some obligations are inevitably unfulfilled.

Of course, these conclusions don’t apply to all families. But so it is with eldest daughters: Although not all of them are naturally conscientious or eager to kin-keep, our cultural understanding of family roles ends up shaping the expectations many feel the need to rise to. The people describing “eldest-daughter syndrome” are probably all deeply different, but talking about what they share might make their burdens feel a little lighter. And the best-case scenario, Alford told me, is that families can start renegotiating what daughtering looks like—which should also take into account what eldest daughters want for themselves.

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Sibling Relationships in Older Adulthood: Links with Loneliness and Well-being

Clare m. stocker.

Department of Psychology, University of Denver

Megan Gilligan

Department of Human Development and Family Studies, Iowa State University

Eric T. Klopack

Department of Sociology, University of Georgia

Katherine J. Conger

Department of Human Ecology, University of California, Davis

Richard P. Lanthier

Graduate School of Human Development and Education, The George Washington University

Tricia K. Neppl

Catherine walker o’neal.

Department of Human Development and Family Sciences, University of Georgia

K.A.S. Wickrama

Associated data.

Researchers have documented associations between family relationships and a variety of well-being outcomes. Yet, sibling relationships, the longest lasting relationships in most people’s lives, have received very little research attention beyond young adulthood. The goals of the current study were to: provide descriptive information about sibling relationships in later adulthood, investigate predictors of individual differences in sibling relationship quality, and examine associations among sibling relationship quality, loneliness, and well-being in later adulthood. The sample included 608 older adults (329 men, 279 women) who were 64.6 years old (SD = 4.58) on average. Participants provided self-report data about their relationships and well-being. Results showed that older adults reported high levels of sibling warmth and low levels of sibling conflict and parental favoritism. Sister-sister pairs had warmer sibling relationships than other gender-compositions. Sibling conflict and parental favoritism were positively associated with symptoms of depression, anxiety, hostility and loneliness. Sibling warmth was negatively associated with loneliness. Loneliness partially mediated the associations between sibling relationship quality and well-being. Results from this study highlight the importance of sibling relationships in older adults’ health and well-being.

Researchers working from life course ( Elder, 2001 ), family systems ( Cox & Paley, 1997 ; Fingerman & Bermann, 2000 ) and attachment ( Bowlby, 1980 ; Cicirelli, 1989 ) perspectives have documented associations between family relationships and a variety of well-being outcomes. Yet, sibling relationships, the longest lasting relationship in most people’s lives, have received less research attention than other family relationships. Recent demographic changes indicate that Americans are living longer, having fewer children, divorcing later in life, and spending more of their lives as widows or widowers ( Brown & Lin, 2012 ; Furstenberg, Hartnett, Kohli & Zissimopoulos, 2015 ; Suitor, Gilligan & Pillemer, 2016 ). Given that about 85% of Americans have at least one sibling, these demographic shifts suggest that relationships with brothers and sisters may become increasingly important as Americans age. However, sibling relationships in older adulthood have been understudied compared to other life stages. The goals of this study were: first, to provide descriptive information about the nature of sibling relationships in older adulthood, second, to examine predictors of individual differences in older adults’ sibling relationships, and finally, to investigate associations among the quality of sibling relationships, loneliness, and well-being in later life.

In childhood and adolescence, most siblings live together and have emotionally intense relationships characterized by high levels of both warmth and conflict ( Dunn, 1985 ; McHale, Updegraff & Whiteman, 2012 ). In young adulthood, levels of sibling conflict and rivalry are lower and sibling warmth is comparable or higher than in adolescence ( Conger & Little, 2010 ; Jensen, Whiteman & Fingerman, 2018 ; Milevsky, Smoot, Leh & Ruppe, 2005 ; Scharf, Shulman & Avigad-Spitz, 2005 ). Young adult siblings also spend less time together and have less contact than earlier in development ( Jensen et al., 2018 ; Lindell, Campione-Barr, & Killoren, 2015 ; White, 2001 ). In midlife, adults may become increasingly involved with their procreative families and careers. The little research available on this developmental period suggests that sibling relationships in midlife are emotionally meaningful although less intense than sibling relationships earlier in the lifespan ( Suitor et al., 2016 ). As individuals move into older adulthood, they may no longer have spouses to rely on, and their adult children may be busy with their own families. Thus, in later adulthood, do sibling relationships fill a role that other family relationships may no longer play? Do warm and supportive sibling relationships help ameliorate stress and loneliness and contribute to improved adjustment? Is sibling conflict in older age linked to adjustment difficulties? Or do brothers and sisters grow apart in later life and have little impact on each other’s well-being?

The little research to date on sibling relationships in later adulthood suggests that, in general, older adults report having positive relationships with their siblings ( Bedford & Avioli, 2012 ; Cicirelli, 1995 ; Connidis, 2010 ; White, 2001 ), and brothers and sisters often maintain contact with each other ( Connidis & Campbell, 1995 ; Paul, 1997 ; Spitze & Trent, 2006 ). In a large national panel sample of adults aged 16 – 95, contact between siblings declined during early adulthood and remained stable in midlife and later life ( White, 2001 ). In later adulthood, siblings report exchanging both emotional and instrumental support ( Campbell, Connidis, & Davies, 1999 ; Connidis & Campbell, 1995 ; White, 2001 ; White & Reidmann, 1992 ). Giving and receiving help from siblings declined in early adulthood, stabilized in midlife, and increased slightly after age 70 for those with siblings living nearby ( White, 2001 ). In addition, research has shown that older adults often avoid negative interactions and focus on maintaining positive contact with the people they are closest to ( Carstensen, Issacowitz & Charles, 1999 ; Gold, 1987 ; 1989 ; Lang & Carstensen; 1994 ) and tend to have positive global views of family relationships ( Winkeler, Filipp & Boil, 2000 ). Given these findings, we anticipated that the older adults in the current study would report that their relationships with siblings were generally positive and that they would be in regular contact with each other.

Predictors of Individual Differences in Older Adults’ Sibling Relationships

A variety of factors including structural features of families may be associated with individual differences in older adults’ sibling relationships. In numerous studies, and in fact across the life course, sister-sister sibling pairs had closer relationships than brother-brother or brother-sister pairs ( Connidis, 1989 ; Milevsky et al., 2005 ; White & Riedmann, 1992 ). In a sample aged 16–95, siblings who were married had lower levels of contact, support, and exchange than siblings who were not married ( White, 2001 ; White & Riedmann, 1992 ). In contrast, in a sample of young adults assessed at age 25, and again at age 30, there were no effects of marital status on sibling relationship quality ( Jensen et al., 2018 ). Many older adults’ parents are deceased. One large panel study of Dutch families found that sibling contact increased after the death of a parent and both contact and conflict increased after the death of a second parent. However, these increases were short lived and over time, siblings whose parents were deceased had lower levels of contact and conflict than siblings whose parents were alive ( Kalmjn & Leopold, 2019 ). In studies of American families, scholars have found that adult siblings had warmer relationships, more contact, and supported one another more when one or both parents were alive compared to siblings whose parents were dead ( Khodyakov & Carr, 2009 ; Spitze & Trent, 2018 ; White & Reidmann, 1992 ). In the current study, we tested whether individual differences in sibling relationship quality were predicted by: gender, sibling gender composition, age spacing between siblings, marital status and whether participants’ parents were alive or deceased.

In older adulthood when siblings typically live apart from each other, the amount of contact they have may be related to individual differences in their relationships ( Conger & Little, 2010 ; Volkom, 2006 ). In young adulthood, sibling contact was positively associated with warmth and negatively associated with rivalry ( Stocker et al., 1997 ). And, in the age of increasing options for connection through technology and social media, siblings have multiple opportunities for maintaining contact regardless of proximity ( Conger & Little, 2010 ; Lindell et al., 2015 ). In the current study, we examined associations between several types of contact and sibling relationship quality.

Life course ( Antonucci, Akiyama & Takahasi, 2004 ; Elder, 2001 ), family systems ( Cox & Paley, 1997 ; Fingerman & Berman, 2000 ) and adult attachment ( Cicirelli, 1989 , 1995 ) theories suggest that sibling relationships are likely to be associated with well-being across the life-span. A central tenet of life course theory is that individual development needs to be considered in the context of socio-historical events and close social relationships that can affect the individual and family. In a complementary fashion, family systems and adult attachment theories examine the links among family interactions and individual well-being. Family systems theory posits that family relationship dynamics are linked across various family subsystems (e.g., there is spillover between the parent-child subsystem and sibling subsystem). Attachment theory, which focuses on the nature of emotional bonds between parent and child ( Bowlby, 1980 ) or between siblings (e.g., Bank & Kahn, 1982 ; Stewart, 1983 ), suggests that siblings can provide emotional support and mitigate feelings of loneliness in adulthood and later life ( Cicirelli, 1989 ).

Numerous studies have documented associations between sibling relationship quality and psychological adjustment in childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood. Hostility and conflict between siblings has been linked with internalizing problems such as anxiety and depression as well as with externalizing problems such as risky and antisocial behavior (see Feinberg, Solmeyer & McHale, 2012 & McHale et al., 2012 for reviews). Some research has shown that siblings can act as positive influences and sources of support for one another ( Davies, Parry, Boscoe, Martin & Cummings, 2018 ; Hollifield & Conger, 2014; Jenkins & Smith, 1990 ). Finally, a large body of work has demonstrated that feelings of rivalry and perceptions of parental favoritism are negatively associated with psychological well-being in childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood ( Jensen, Whiteman, Fingerman & Birditt., 2013 ; Richmond, Stocker, & Rienks, 2005 ; Young & Ehrenberg, 2007 ).

To date, few studies have examined the associations between sibling relationship quality and adjustment past young adulthood. However, one study found that for middle-aged women, conflict with siblings was linked to more negative self-concept and more symptoms of psychological distress ( Paul, 1997 ), and a recent study found that tension in sibling relationships was associated with depressive symptoms in middle aged adults ( Gilligan et al., 2017 ). Similarly, in a small sample of 61 to 91 year-olds, perceptions of closeness to a sister were associated with lower levels of depression ( Cicirelli, 1989 ). In addition, research has demonstrated the deleterious impact of parental differential treatment on psychological well-being in adulthood ( Davey, Tucker, Fingerman, & Savla, 2009 ; Peng, Suitor, & Gilligan, 2016 ; Pillemer et al., 2010 ; Suitor, Gilligan, Peng, Jung, & Pillemer, 2015 ; Suitor et al., 2016 ).

Research has shown that loneliness and social isolation are common among older adults and are linked to both physical health problems and psychological difficulties ( Cacioppo, Hughes, Waite, Hawkley, & Thisted, 2006 ; Cornwell & Waite, 2009 ; Hawkley & Cacioppo, 2010 ; Ong, Uchino, & Wethington, 2015 ). Loneliness is defined as, “a subjective feeling that accompanies the perception that one’s social needs are not being met by the quantity or especially the quality of one’s social relationships” ( Hawkley & Cacioppo, 2010 , pg. 1). Loneliness has been conceptualized as an emotional pathway that may connect social isolation, and poor quality relationships to health and well-being difficulties ( Ong et al., 2015 ; Steptoe, Ahankar, Demakakos, & Wardle, 2013 ). Thus, in the current study, we explored whether poor sibling relationship quality in older adults was associated with higher levels of loneliness, which in turn, would be linked to poor well-being outcomes.

These associations among sibling relationship quality, loneliness and well-being could differ for various subgroups of siblings. For example, previous research has shown that sister-sister pairs have closer relationships than other gender compositions ( Connidis, 1989 ; Connidis & Campbell, 1995 ), so it is possible that the links between sibling relationships and well-being are stronger for them than for other sibling gender combinations. It is also possible that individuals’ gender, marital status and their parents’ alive or deceased status could influence these associations. Thus, we explored the roles of these variables as moderators of the associations among sibling relationship quality, loneliness and well-being.

In summary, given that Americans are living longer than in previous generations and that sibling relationships may take on increased salience as we age ( Uhlenberg, 1996 ), coupled with the fact that loneliness is linked to poor health and well-being, it is important to learn more about associations between sibling relationships and adjustment in later life. The first aim of this study was to describe characteristics of sibling relationships in later life. We predicted that older adults would report high levels of warmth and low levels of hostility and parental favoritism. The second aim was to examine predictors of individual differences in sibling relationship quality in later life. We expected that sister-sister pairs would have the most positive sibling relationships. We tested the effects of age, age spacing between siblings, number of siblings in the family, marital status, and whether participants’ parents were living or deceased on sibling relationship quality, but we did not make a priori hypotheses about these associations. We predicted that contact between siblings would be associated with more positive and less negative sibling relationships. The final goal was to investigate associations among sibling relationship quality, loneliness, and well-being. We predicted that warmth would be associated with fewer symptoms of depression, anxiety, and hostility and with lower levels of loneliness, and that conflict and parental favoritism would be positively associated with depression, anxiety, and hostility and loneliness. Based on the idea that sibling relationships could provide support and ameliorate loneliness among older adults, we tested a structural equation model in which loneliness mediated the link between sibling relationship quality and well-being. Finally, we examined the moderating roles of gender, sibling dyad gender composition, marital status, and parents’ living status on the hypothesized paths in the SEM.

The sample included 608 older adults (329 men, 279 women) who participated in the Later Adulthood Study ( Wickrama, et al., 2017 ). These participants were initially recruited for a larger longitudinal study of families in rural Midwestern United States ( Conger & Conger, 2002 ). The subsample used in the current study were all participants in the LAS (N = 758) who completed questionnaires about their relationships with a living sibling. Participants were white, were 64.6 years old on average (SD = 4.58), had an average of 13.8 years of education ( SD = 2.06), and the mean household income was $96,000 (SD = 97,971). Five hundred and two participants were married (251 men, 251 women), 35 were widowed (30 men, 5 women), and 61 were divorced (41 men, 20 women). Of the 502 married participants, 406 were married to other participants (i.e., 203 couples). The gender composition of sibling pairs included: 166 brother-brother pairs, 148 older brother-younger sister pairs, 143 older sister-younger brother pairs, and 151 sister-sister pairs. The average age spacing between siblings was 2.97 years ( SD = 2.29). On average, participants had 3.74 siblings ( SD = 2.36), 1.41 of whom were still living. Four hundred and ninety participants (80.46%) had both parents deceased, 69 (11.33%) had both parents living, and 50 (8.21%) had one living parent and one deceased parent. Table 1 provides descriptive statistics of all study variables.

Descriptive Statistics of Study Variables

Note: N = 608.

Consistent with the data collection procedures established in the early years of the larger project ( Conger & Conger, 2002 ), participants were interviewed in their homes and completed questionnaires about their relationship with the living sibling closest in age to them during a two-hour home visit. In cases in which married couples participated, each partner was interviewed and completed questionnaires in a separate room in order to maintain confidentiality. Participants were paid $110 on average for their participation. Data for this report were collected in 2015. This study received approval from the institutional review board of the University of Georgia.

Adult Sibling Relationship Questionnaire - very short form.

Participants completed the ASRQ-VSF ( Lanthier & Stocker, 2014 ) about their relationship with the living sibling closest in age to them. The ASRQ-VSF is a shortened version of the 81-item ASRQ ( Stocker, Lanthier, & Furman, 1997 ). (See supplemental Table 1 for a list of ASRQ-VSF items). It consists of 18 items that loaded on three scales: warmth (6 items), conflict (6 items) and parental favoritism (6 items). Warmth and conflict items were rated on 5- point Likert scales that ranged from 1 = hardly at all to 5 = extremely much. Parental favoritism items were about perceptions of mothers’ and fathers’ favoritism toward the participant and his or her sibling. These items were rated on 5- point scales (1 = participant is usually favored, 2 = participant is sometimes favored, 3 = neither participant nor sibling are favored, 4 = sibling is sometimes favored, and 5 = sibling is usually favored). Parental favoritism items were recoded as absolute discrepancy scores (0 = neither sibling is favored, 1 = parent sometimes favors one sibling over the other, and 2 = parent usually favors one sibling over the other). Scale scores were created by taking the mean of the 6 items that made up that scale. If participants’ parents were deceased, they were asked to make their ratings based on their relationships with parents and siblings, “during your adult years.” If participants’ parents were alive, they based their ratings on their relationships, “during the last year.” (There were no mean differences on parental favoritism scores for participants whose parents were alive compared to those whose parent(s) were deceased.) Warmth, conflict, and parental favoritism scales had adequate variability and were internally consistent: Cronbach alphas were: .93 for Warmth, .88 for Conflict, and .86 for Parental favoritism. Correlations between warmth and conflict and parental favoritism were significant and negative ( r = −.12 and r = −.22 respectively). Conflict and parental favoritism were significantly positively correlated ( r = .23).

Because the ASRQ-VSF had not previously been used for older adults, we conducted a Confirmatory Factor Analysis to examine the factor structure. Results supported the predicted factor structure with three independent factors: warmth, conflict, and parental favoritism (see Supplemental materials, Figure S1 ). The model fit the data adequately (CFI = .90, SRMR = .06). Because many of the participants were married to each other, robust standard errors were calculated using a sandwich estimator to account for clustering effects using the “CLUSTERING IS” command in Mplus ( Muthén & Muthén, 1998–2015 ). In this procedure, individual level variances are corrected for cluster level (here couple level) variances. This method has been used extensively throughout sample survey literature and has been shown to be unbiased for clustered data regardless of setting ( Williams, 2000 ). All factor loadings in both the first and second order factors were significant (p < .001). Second order indicators were relatively well balanced, with no standardized loading absolute value below .35 or above .64.

Contact between Siblings.

Contact between siblings was measured by two questions: “During the past 12 months, how often did you see this sister or brother in person?” and “During the past 12 months, how often have you had contact with this sister or brother by phone, email, text, Facebook / other social media, by video chat (like Skype or Facetime) or by writing letters?” Both items were answered using 6-point Likert scales that ranged from 1 = every day to 6 = never. The inter-item correlation for the two items was r = .62, p < .001. Each item was reverse scored so that high scores indicated more contact. The mean of the two items made up the contact score. The scale was internally consistent, Cronbach alpha = .76.

Loneliness.

Participants completed the 20 item UCLA Loneliness Scale, version 3 ( Russell, 1996 ). Sample items include: “How often do you feel that no one knows you well?” and “How often do you feel there are people you can turn to?” Items were reverse coded when necessary such that higher scores indicated greater loneliness. Responses range from 1 = (never) to 4 = (often). Items were summed and divided by 20 to create a total score. The scale was internally consistent, Cronbach alpha = .92.

Well-being.

Participants reported on symptoms of depression, anxiety, and hostility on the Symptom Checklist-90-Revised (SCL-90-R) ( Derogatis, 1983 ). Participants indicated their degree of discomfort regarding adjustment problems on a scale of 0 = (not at all) to 4 = (extremely) during the past week. Example items include: “feeling blue” and “low in energy or slowed down” (depression); “nervousness or shakiness inside” and “feeling tense or keyed up” (anxiety); and “temper outbursts you cannot control” and “having urges to beat, injure, or harm someone” (hostility). Items corresponding to each subscale were averaged together to create scale scores of depression, anxiety, and hostility. The 13-item depression subscale was internally consistent ( α = .89), as was the 10-item anxiety subscale ( α = .86), and the 6-item hostility subscale ( α = .65).

Family Structure and Control Variables.

Participants’ reported their gender, their sibling’s gender, their age and their sibling’s age, number of siblings in the family, marital status, whether their parents were alive or deceased, years of education, and household income. Sibling gender dyad composition was a 4- level categorical variable in which 1 = brother-brother dyad, 2 = older brother-younger sister dyad, 3 = older sister-younger brother dyad, and 4 = sister-sister dyad. Age spacing between siblings was represented by the absolute difference between the two siblings’ ages. Marital status was coded as: 1 = married, 2 = widowed or divorced. Parents’ alive / deceased status was coded as: 1 = both parents alive, 2 = one parent alive and one parent deceased, 3 = both parents deceased. Household income was calculated as (business income - business expenses) + (income from employment) + (farm income - farm losses) + (income from other sources). Therefore, some participants had negative incomes if they lost money in business or farming.

Characteristics of Sibling Relationships in Older Adulthood

Means, associations, and MANOVAs reported below were conducted using Stata 14.2 ( StataCorp, 2015 ). The mean level of warmth in the sibling relationship was 2.75 ( SD = 1.11) on a 5-point Likert scale. The average level of conflict was lower than the mean level of warmth, 1.32 ( SD = 0.56) on a 5-point Likert scale. Reports of conflict were highly skewed toward “no conflict.” The mean level of parental favoritism was also relatively low, 0.59 ( SD = 0.59) on a scale that ranged from 0 – 2. The average amount of contact between siblings was 2.72 ( SD = 1.07), which fell about mid-way between “once a week” and “more than once a week” but was less than “every day.”

We produced a MANOVA (not shown) to examine the associations between the independent variable, sibling gender composition, and three dependent variables, sibling warmth, conflict, and parental favoritism. (Sibling gender composition had four levels: 1 = brother-brother, 2 = older brother-younger sister, 3 = older sister-younger brother, and 4 = sister-sister). F -tests for conflict and parental favoritism were not significant. The global F -statistic for warmth was significant ( F = 16.55, df = 3, 632 ,p < .001). Post-hoc analysis showed that sister-sister sibling pairs had higher levels of warmth in their relationships than all other sibling gender combinations. No other sibling pair comparison was significant. Mean sibling warmth for brother-brother, older sister-younger brother, older brother-younger sister, and sister-sister dyads were 2.46 (1.05), 2.66 (1.05), 2.64 (1.08), and 3.26 (1.09) respectively (standard deviations in parentheses).

Participants’ age was negatively correlated with parental favoritism, and there was a positive correlation between age spacing between siblings and parental favoritism. Women reported warmer sibling relationships than men (see Table 2 ). There were no significant effects of marital status (married vs. widowed or divorced) or number of siblings in the family on sibling relationship quality. We produced another MANOVA (not shown) examining the association between the independent variable, parents’ living status (1 = both parents alive, 2 = one parent alive and one parent deceased, 3 = both parents deceased) and the dependent variables: sibling warmth, conflict, and parental favoritism. Parents’ living status was not linked to scores on conflict or parental favoritism. The global F -test for warmth was significant ( F = 5.57, df = 3, 602 , p < .01). Post-hoc tests indicated that participants with both parents living reported greater warmth in their sibling relationships than participants with one living parent and participants with both parents deceased. Mean sibling warmth for respondents with both parents living, one living parent, and both parents deceased were 3.07 (1.05), 2.42 (1.03), and 2.74 (1.11) respectively (standard deviations in parentheses).

Zero Order Correlations of Study Variables (N = 608)

Results from correlational analyses indicated that the amount of contact between siblings was positively associated with warmth and negatively associated with parental favoritism (see Table 2 ).

Associations among Sibling Relationship Quality, Loneliness, and Well-being

As expected, sibling conflict and parental favoritism were positively correlated with measures of loneliness and symptoms of depression, anxiety, and hostility. Sibling warmth was negatively associated with loneliness and was not associated with measures of well-being. Loneliness was positively correlated with symptoms of depression, anxiety, and hostility. (See Table 2 ).

For the next step in the analyses, we tested a structural equation model (SEM) using Mplus 7.4 (Muthén & Muthén, 1998–2015). Because many of the participants were married to each other, robust standard errors were calculated using a sandwich estimator to account for clustering effects (as described earlier). Results from the SEM analysis (shown in Figure 1 ) in which loneliness partially mediated the association between sibling relationship quality and wellbeing outcomes showed that the model provided an adequate fit to the data (χ 2 (37, N = 608) = 104.63, p < .001, CFI = .94, RMSEA = .06). Gender, age, marital status, years of education, and household income were entered as controls in this model. None of the control paths were significant with two exceptions; being married was associated with less loneliness (β = −.16, p < .001), and education was negatively associated with loneliness (β = −.11, p < .01). We also tested a model including a number of additional controls (not shown), including sibling dyad gender composition, age spacing between siblings, contact, and parental living status. This model with additional controls produced nearly identical results as the original model (no standardized estimate changed by more than .05 and pattern of significance was the same). Results from the trimmed model are presented below.

Structural Equation Model: Associations Among Sibling Relationship Quality, Loneliness and Well-being

Note: N = 608; χ 2 = 104.63(37)***; RMSEA= .06, CFI = .94; †p<.10, **p<01, ***p<.001, two-tailed p-tests; standardized estimates shown, all controls used for all endogenous variables.

Each of the three sibling relationship scales loaded significantly on the latent factor, sibling relationship quality (warmth = .33, conflict = −.37, and parental favoritism = −.63), and each of the three indicators of well-being loaded significantly on the latent factor, well-being (Depression = .93, anxiety = .78, and hostility = .67). Sibling relationship quality was significantly associated with loneliness (β = −.23 , p < .01), and loneliness was significantly associated with well-being (β = .58, p < .001). These associations represent medium and large effects respectively ( Cohen, 1988 ). The path between sibling relationship quality and well-being was significant (β = −.29 , p < .05) when associations with loneliness were held to zero (i.e., a direct model with no mediator). This unmediated association was a medium effect size ( Cohen, 1988 ). This path became nonsignificant (β = −.15, p = .053) when loneliness was included in the model as a mediator. These paths were near to Cohen’s medium effect size. Because we would not expect indirect effects to have a normal distribution, we used a bootstrapping procedure to estimate 95% confidence intervals for the indirect effect estimate without using normal theory ( Bollen & Stine, 1990 ). In this procedure, 1000 resamples were drawn to construct a bootstrap distribution. This distribution was corrected for bias, and the confidence interval was constructed using the quartiles from this distribution. The indirect path from sibling relationship quality to well-being mediated by loneliness was significant (β = −.14, p < .001; unstandardized 95% CI [−5.13 - −1.01]) and explained 47.06% (specific indirect effect / total effect) of the total association between sibling relationship quality and well-being.

To assess potential moderators of the associations described above, we conducted a series of group difference tests (not shown) in Mplus ( Muthén & Muthén, 1998–2015 ). We estimated a model with parameters fixed to be the same for both groups and a model with parameters for hypothesized regression paths freed between groups for each moderator. If the χ 2 value was significantly lower in the second model, that is evidence that the models differed by group ( Dimitrov, 2010 ). We began by comparing men and women. The model with freed parameters did not significantly improve on the model with fixed parameters (Δ χ 2 = 107 (3), p > .05). Thus, there was no evidence that the associations above varied by gender. We also compared sister-sister dyads to all other gender compositions and found no significant differences between these groups (Δ χ 2 = 6.11 (3), p > .05). In addition, there were no significant differences between respondents with both parents living versus all other respondents (Δ χ 2 = 1.17 (3), p > .05). Finally, we compared married to unmarried respondents and found a significant difference between these groups (Δ χ 2 = 12.25 (3), p < .01). However, Wald tests comparing parameter estimates for married and unmarried participants showed no significant differences in individual paths at the .05 level ( Cohen, Cohen, West, & Aiken, 2003 ).

Americans are living longer than in previous generations ( Bedford & Avioli, 2012 ; Furstenberg et al., 2015 ). Thus, the sibling relationship, the longest lasting relationship for most people, may become increasingly relevant for older adults and may be linked to their well-being. Key findings from our study are as follows. Sibling relationships among older adults were characterized by high levels of warmth and low levels of conflict and parental favoritism. Some family structural variables (gender, sibling gender composition, age, age spacing between siblings, and parents’ living status) were associated with individual differences in dimensions of sibling relationship quality. Sibling conflict and parental favoritism were positively associated with symptoms of depression, anxiety, hostility, and loneliness. Sibling warmth was negatively correlated with loneliness. Loneliness partially mediated the association between sibling relationship quality and older adults’ well-being. Implications of these findings as well as suggestions for future research are presented in the following sections.

Participants’ reports of warmth were about mid-level on the 5-point warmth scale, and they reported low levels of conflict in their relationships with brothers and sisters. These levels of conflict were lower than typically found in childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood ( Furman & Buhrmester, 1985 ; McHale et al, 2012 ; Stocker et al., 1997 ). Previous research has noted that older adults, compared to middle aged adults, tend to have a global positive bias toward family members ( Winkeler et al., 2000 ). Thus, they may rate their sibling relationships more favorably than during earlier stages of development. It may also be the case that in later adulthood, rather than simply having a ‘rose tinted’ view of family relationships, siblings no longer engage in much conflict, or they choose to avoid negative interactions. It should be noted that participants rated their relationship with the living sibling closest in age to them, not with the sibling they felt closest to emotionally. Thus, one would expect a range in the quality of these relationships, yet these older adults rated their sibling relationships as more positive than negative.

Participants’ reports of parental favoritism were also quite low, although they were similar to levels reported by young adults ( Stocker et al., 1997 ). Many of the participants had one or both parents who were deceased, yet there were no significant differences between the amount of parental favoritism reported by those whose parents were alive or deceased. Research on sibling relationships in young adulthood and midlife has shown that it is common for adults in these developmental stages to perceive favoritism (or differential treatment) by their parents ( Jensen et al., 2013 ; Peng et al., 2016 ; Pillemer et al., 2010 , Suitor et al., 2015 , 2016 ). Taken together, this pattern of findings suggests that even in later life, and regardless of whether parents are alive or deceased, adult children are sensitive to perceived differences in parental favoritism.

Participants were in contact with each other in a variety of ways such as in person, over the phone, or on social media between once a week and several times a week, on average. These findings align with previous research that indicates that older adult siblings often maintain regular contact with each other ( Connidis & Campbell, 1995 ; Paul, 1997 ; Spitze & Trent, 2006 ). The current data were collected in 2015, and contact was greater than the once or twice a month that was reported by White (2001) and may be due in part to increases in social media and cell phone use since White’s data were collected.

Individual differences in sibling relationship quality were predicted by several family structure variables. Women reported more warmth than men, and similar to findings from other developmental periods, sister-sister pairs had warmer relationships than all other gender combinations ( Connidis, 1989 ; Milevsky et. al., 2005 ; White & Riedmann, 1992 ). These findings are consistent with previous research that suggests that women tend to be the “kin-keepers” of families and more relational than men ( Gilligan, 1982 ; Salari & Zhang, 2006 ). Age was negatively correlated with parental favoritism, indicating that with increasing age, older adults reported less parental favoritism. This finding is consistent with other research that has shown that perceptions of negative aspects of family relationships tend to decrease as adults age ( Charles & Carstensen, 2008 ). Interestingly, greater age spacing between siblings was associated with higher levels of parental favoritism. This finding is somewhat counterintuitive given that widely spaced siblings should have fewer similarities or issues that might promote sensitivity to parental favoritism. Participants were in the “young-old” age group; 90% were between ages 59 and 70 and most were married and still working. It will be important for future research to examine the impact of age and age-spacing across a wider range of later adulthood, particularly in later stages of older age when retirement and spousal illness or death are more common.

The number of siblings in the family was not significantly associated with the quality of the sibling relationship. Also, marital status was not associated with the quality of the sibling relationship. This finding did not support previous results that older adults who are unmarried were closer to their siblings than married individuals ( Campbell et al., 1999 ; White, 2001 ; White & Riedmann, 1992 ). Whether participants’ parents were alive or deceased was not associated with reports of parental favoritism but was significantly associated with sibling warmth. Participants with both parents alive had warmer sibling relationships than those with one or both parents deceased. These results suggest that parents may play a kinkeeping role for their adult children that might contribute to higher levels of warmth among siblings with living parents than deceased parents ( Kalmijn & Leopold, 2019 ).

Consistent with results from an earlier study with young adult siblings ( Stocker et al., 1997 ), we found that frequency of contact between siblings was positively associated with warmth and negatively associated with parental favoritism. As the role of technology and social media grows and as older Americans become more facile with these forms of communication, the opportunity to exchange information and support with siblings who do not live close by may increase. Moreover, recent research suggests that the type of technological communication (i.e., synchronous, in real time such as texting and talking vs. asynchronous, not in real time such as email and Facebook) may be differentially associated with sibling relationship quality ( Lindell et al, 2015 ). In addition, in older adulthood, one sibling may adopt new technology (e.g. texting) and another may not, thus creating the potential for less personal communication. These issues deserve further study.

As predicted, the quality of older adults’ sibling relationships was associated with their well-being. Conflict and parental favoritism were positively associated with depression, anxiety, and hostility symptoms. However, sibling warmth was not significantly associated with adjustment outcomes. These results are similar to those found at younger developmental stages in that there tend to be stronger ties between the negative aspects than the positive features of sibling relationships and psychological adjustment ( Feinberg et al., 2012 ; McHale et al., 2012 ). The fact that older adults’ perceptions of parental favoritism was the highest loading scale on the sibling relationship factor and was associated with poorer adjustment is noteworthy because one might predict that at this late stage of development, adults would no longer be sensitive to perceived inequities in parental behavior, from either earlier in adulthood or currently. However, the associations between parental favoritism and adjustment were consistent with findings from studies that range across childhood, adolescence, young adulthood and midlife ( Jensen et al., 2013 ; McHale et al., 2012 ; Peng et al., 2016 ; Pillemer et al., 2010 ; Suitor et al., 2015 ) and suggest that issues having to do with parental favoritism continue to be at play in older adulthood

Given that levels of loneliness are high in older adults and that numerous studies have found connections between loneliness and poor physical and mental health in older adults (see Cacioppo et al., 2018; Cornwell & Waite, 2009 ; Hawkley & Cacioppo, 2010 ; Steptoe et al., 2013 ), we examined loneliness as a mediator between older adult sibling relationship quality and well-being. Results from a SEM analysis showed that loneliness partially mediated this association; thus, future research could investigate the role of loneliness as a mechanism that connects family relationships and well-being. For example, do poor quality relationships contribute to feelings of loneliness, which in turn contribute to low well-being, or is the direction of influence the reverse? In addition, it would be interesting to study older adults’ sibling relationships in conjunction with other close relationships. Do sibling relationships have a unique role in relation to older adults’ loneliness and well-being or could another relationship substitute for the sibling relationship?

Moderation analyses showed that there were no significant differences in results from the SEM between men and women, sister-sister dyads and all other sibling gender compositions, and respondents with both parents living vs. those with one or both parents deceased. There was a significant difference in the fit of the SEM for married and unmarried participants, but follow-up tests showed no significant differences in individual paths for married and unmarried participants. This deserves further study because the nature of associations among sibling relationships, loneliness, and well-being may vary for those with and without spouses.

In addition to the contributions of this research, there are several limitations. The sample consisted of white adults from the Midwest; thus results may not generalize to other ethnic groups. However, previous findings from this sample have been replicated across other more diverse samples such as African American ( R. D. Conger et al., 2002 ), Mexican American ( Parke et al., 2005 ), and Finnish families ( Solantaus, Leinonen, & Punamaki, 2004 ), giving us greater confidence in the generalizability of our results. Specific to studies with siblings, previous research has shown that “familism” (one’s sense of family obligation) contributes to the nature of adolescent sibling relationships in Mexican Origin families ( Updegraff, McHale, Whiteman, Thayer & Delgado, 2005 ). Clearly, research is needed on older adult sibling relationships in a variety of ethnic groups and cultural settings. There were several measurement issues that could have affected our findings. First, data were based on one sibling’s self-reports. Future research should include both siblings’ perspectives and incorporate other methodologies, such as observations. Second, because the ASRQ-VSF was not designed for older adults, there could be other dimensions of the sibling relationship in later life that our measure did not capture. Third, the ASRQ-VSF assessed parental favoritism on an absolute scale, results could have differed if the direction of parental favoritism has been measured. Finally, these data were from one point in time; longitudinal research is needed to examine both the direction of associations among sibling relationships, loneliness, and well-being, as well as how these associations change or remain stable across adult development.

Results from this study have several implications for policy and practice. As our population ages, policy makers should attend to the role that sibling relationships play in older adults’ health and well-being. Furthermore, professionals working with families in applied settings might design interventions that decrease sibling conflict and perceptions of parental favoritism as well as promote sibling relationships as sources of companionship and support for older adults. Moreover, the relationships between siblings in midlife should be considered as many adult siblings will need to cooperate in managing their aging parents’ health and well-being.

In conclusion, results from the current study increase our understanding of sibling relationships in later adulthood and provide directions for future research. Demographic changes in the United States indicate that Americans are living longer, having fewer children, divorcing later in life, and spending more time as widows and widowers than in previous generations ( Brown & Lin, 2012 ; Furstenberg et al., 2015 ; Suitor et al., 2016 ). Moreover, loneliness is high among aging Americans and is linked to poor mental and physical health ( Cacioppo et al., 2006 ; Cornwell & Waite, 2009 ). In later life, sibling relationships may become increasingly important as sources of support and may mitigate feelings of loneliness and contribute to well-being.

Supplementary Material

Supplemental material, acknowledgments.

This research is currently supported by a grant from the National Institute on Aging (AG043599, Kandauda A. S. Wickrama, PI). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the funding agencies. Support for earlier years of the study also came from multiple sources, including the National Institute of Mental Health (MH00567, MH19734, MH43270, MH59355, MH62989, MH48165, MH051361); the National Institute on Drug Abuse (DA05347); the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (HD027724, HD051746, HD047573, HD064687); the Bureau of Maternal and Child Health (MCJ-109572); and the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Successful Adolescent Development Among Youth in High-Risk. Some of these data and ideas were presented at the National Council on Family Relations annual conference in San Diego, CA, 11/8/2018.

Contributor Information

Clare M. Stocker, Department of Psychology, University of Denver.

Megan Gilligan, Department of Human Development and Family Studies, Iowa State University.

Eric T. Klopack, Department of Sociology, University of Georgia.

Katherine J. Conger, Department of Human Ecology, University of California, Davis.

Richard P. Lanthier, Graduate School of Human Development and Education, The George Washington University.

Tricia K. Neppl, Department of Human Development and Family Studies, Iowa State University.

Catherine Walker O’Neal, Department of Human Development and Family Sciences, University of Georgia.

K.A.S. Wickrama, Department of Human Development and Family Sciences, University of Georgia.

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Brother, Sister, Rival, Friend: The Longstanding Effects Of Sibling Relationships

Research is bringing an unexpected truth to light: Siblings may have as powerful an effect on one another's lives as parents do.

Growing up with siblings profoundly alters a kid’s childhood — and everything that follows. Brothers and sisters are, more often than not, a child’s first playmate and an adult’s oldest friend. Brotherhood and sisterhood can teach social skills and help us learn to resolve conflicts . At the same time, unhealthy sibling relationships can cause life-long social dysfunction.

Depending on whether you have an older brother or younger sister, your sibling relationship may yield different psychological impacts. But new research that attempts to sort through so-called Sibling Effects keeps falling back on one key point: The effects of sibling relationships in childhood echo through the rest of our lives.

How Sibling Effects Shape Relationships

“Sibling relationships influence children’s adjustment and development about as much as parenting does,” says Mark Feinberg, Ph.D. , a professor of human development at Pennsylvania State University.

Sibling Effects impact a surprisingly broad spectrum of the human psyche. Studies (some more rigorous than others) have identified a handful of consistently positive and negative effects of having a brother or sister. Some have even ventured into the fraught science of predicting sibling relationship quality. It’s important work because the key to parenting siblings effectively is understanding what makes this unique relationship tick. “Cognitively, emotionally, socially — there are just a lot of influences that siblings have on one another,” says Laurie Kramer, Ph.D. , a clinical psychologist at Northeastern University.

What the Studies Say — And Don’t Say — About Sibling Relationships

There is ample research out there on how siblings affect one another. Studies have shown that younger siblings teach empathy to their older brothers and sisters. And siblings who report feeling close to one another tend to either both graduate college or both drop out, as a unit. We even know that the best sibling arrangement — tied to the highest educational and economic attainment for all children in the family — is XB-S , code for when the eldest child of any gender (X) is born two years before a brother (B), who is born five or more years before a sister (S). Less optimistic research has linked sibling bullying to depression, anxiety, and self-harm .

Even among studies that highlight significant sibling effects, however, there are serious limitations in what we can confidently conclude. A handful of studies have attempted to demonstrate that single children are developmentally stunted. But researchers agree that most of these disadvantages are short-lived.

“By the time we reach adulthood, we have gained enough other formative experiences in the world that any actual differences between siblings and singletons are pretty negligible — overridden by differences in temperament, personality, and personal preference,” says Susan Doughty, Ph.D. , a psychologist at Anderson University. “A lack of siblings may still shape your life in some ways, but it is only one influence among many.”

So how do we square the idea that having siblings profoundly affects people with the idea that the effects of having siblings are often negligible from a statistical perspective? To put it simply, very volatile relationships have effects that are far from negligible. And one quirk of the sibling bond is that it leads to a disproportionate amount of strong positive and strong negative relationships.

“Moderate to high levels of both positive and negative sibling relationship dimensions are typical,” says Sarah Killoren, Ph.D. , who studies sibling relationship dynamics at the University of Missouri. “Most differences in adjustment are seen between siblings who have very positive relationships — high intimacy, low negativity — versus those who have very negative relationships — low intimacy and high levels of conflict.”

So although it’s true that sibling relationships are only one influence among many, they still can have profound, lingering effects. In other words, there are few influences more meaningful than a brother or sister.

The Positive Effects of Sibling Relationships

“Siblings are often a child’s first play partners,” says Nina Howe, Ph.D. , research chair of early childhood development at Concordia University. “I think of the sibling relationship as a natural laboratory for learning how to get along with people.”

Very young children with older siblings tend to develop a theory of mind (or, the ability to put themselves in someone else’s shoes) a bit earlier than their peers. “If you have siblings yourself, it makes sense,” Doughty says. “No one knows how to push your buttons better — or earlier — than a sibling… That’s a skill that requires a well-developed theory of mind.”

Because siblings are often our first peers, sibling relationships tend to follow fairly predictable patterns. Younger siblings are fascinated by older siblings and eager to learn their customs and games; older siblings test out leadership skills and conflict resolution on their younger brothers and sisters. These interactions are largely positive: Older sibling-younger sibling power dynamics melt away over time, Killoren says, when younger siblings hit late adolescence. After that, everyone is equal, which leads to better conflict resolution.

“Whatever jealousy or anger that siblings may feel toward one another,” Howe says, “there’s pretty good evidence that it doesn’t last very long.”

Of course, the positive effects of sibling relationships change over time. In toddlerhood, siblings help each other “in language development, social interactions, how to stand up for yourself, learning to share,” Howe says. As children mature, siblings take on more practical responsibilities, helping one another with schoolwork or with navigating friendships outside the family. These effects can also vary with gender. Boys with older sisters tend to endorse more egalitarian gender roles, perhaps reflecting their experience “growing up with a female peer who was always older, bigger, faster, stronger, and smarter than you,” Doughty says.

Siblings can also serve as sources of comfort in adulthood. “Very often, in older age, as people near the end of their lives, they reconnect with their siblings,” Howe says. “This is the person that you have known longest in your life, and you have a shared history, remembering, what was mom like? What was dad like?”

The Negative Effects of Sibling Relationships

If your relationship with your sibling isn’t all sunshine and roses, you aren’t alone. Good sibling relationships are the norm, but bad sibling relationships happen. And they can have strong negative effects.

“Difficult, conflictual, and even violent sibling relationships interfere with development,” Feinberg says. “Children learn coercion, develop peer problems, and become exposed to negative influences with a range of outcomes: depression, substance abuse, low educational attainment.” Feinberg cites one study that found that sibling relationships are among the most critical factors influencing adult well-being — and disturbing evidence that 10% of family homicides (and 1.5% of all murders) are attributable to sibling conflict .

Indeed, sibling relationships are also the most violent relationships between family members. And although a lot of that is normal sibling roughhousing, therapists and scientists agree that parents should treat sibling aggression as potentially harmful, especially when there’s a significant age difference. Sibling bullying is a real problem, with some studies suggesting that up to 80% of children report being bullied by their brothers or sisters. In extreme cases, sibling bullying can lead to depression and self-harm — or teach victims to bully others, in turn.

One of the best ways to discern normal from problematic sibling conflict is to watch its trajectory. In most cases, sibling conflict “tends to increase over childhood to early adolescence, and then decrease around mid-adolescence,” Feinberg says. If it persists, that’s a red flag.

What compounds sibling relationship problems? For one, parental favoritism (perceived or actual). “When parents treat kids differently, in ways that kids feel are unfair, that’s associated with worse sibling relationships and lower self-concept,” Kramer says. “It’s not just the act of treating them differently, but doing it in ways that kids feel are unjustified and unfair.”

Predicting Sibling Relationships’ Health

Given the benefits of a good sibling relationship and the dangers of a bad one, trying to predict how outside factors might influence the interactions between brothers and sisters is a priority. One of the major factors at play is the age difference. “If siblings are born more than about six or seven years apart, in a lot of ways they are essentially two only-children,” Doughty says. “They are in such different developmental places that they don’t relate to one another the same way.”

There is limited evidence that adversity helps bring siblings closer to one another. “After the period of divorce , which is a terribly stressful time for everybody, siblings in some cases actually become closer,” Howe says, “because they join together as a team, particularly if they’re going back and forth between parents.” Poverty may have similar cohesive effects. “There is some literature suggesting that siblings help each other with schoolwork when the parents themselves are not well-educated, or cannot help because they don’t speak the language…It doesn’t take a lot to imagine that, in cases of great adversity, siblings may pull together.”

Kramer is fascinated by the science of predicting sibling relationship quality. She has dedicated much of her career to identifying predictors and helping parents implement positive changes. One of her long-term, longitudinal studies that followed children from birth through high school found that although gender and age gaps made some difference, the single greatest predictor of positive sibling relationships were positive social interactions with unrelated peers.

“The quality of a relationship that a preschooler has with a friend is a strong predictor of what they’ll do with their siblings,” Kramer says. “If they coordinate their behavior, play games, and don’t freak out when there’s a conflict, those are really positive predictors of sibling relationships.” The trend held through high school. “The qualities of friendship turned out to be even more important predictors than the relationship kids had with their fathers and mothers.”

In a word, the best way to figure out whether a child or teen will make a good sibling is to look at how they treat their peers. Getting along with others is a transferable skill.

Parents Can Help Siblings Be Good to Each Other

Since reaching these conclusions, Kramer has incorporated what she learned into an online program that teaches parents and children how to optimize sibling relationships. “The most important thing is teaching kids how to look at a situation not only in terms of what they want, but also from a sibling’s point of view, to appreciate that there are different perspectives that are equally valid.” Going to school for parenting is not always necessary, however, and there are a few basic changes parents can make that will help foster the healthiest sibling relationships.

First, set a good example. “Demonstrate how to resolve conflicts peacefully, and speak positively about others in the family,” Feinberg says. Set high expectations — do not make the mistake of considering sibling bullying inevitable, and stress that you expect your children to maintain close friendships with one another throughout their lives. “Expect that siblings are going to treat each other well,” Feinberg says. “Make it clear that verbal and physical aggression is unacceptable.”

Crucially, try to coach siblings to resolve their problems independently, amongst themselves. “Help children define the problems that they are having with each other, think about solutions together, and agree upon a way to resolve the issue,” Feinberg says. Because that’s what the sibling relationship is for, after all. It’s a learning laboratory — and the lifelong journey toward understanding others and interacting positively with one’s peers often starts right at home.

This article was originally published on Jan. 23, 2019

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Blog > Common App , Essay Advice > Should you write your college essay about siblings?

Should you write your college essay about siblings?

Admissions officer reviewed by Ben Bousquet, M.Ed Former Vanderbilt University

Written by Kylie Kistner, MA Former Willamette University Admissions

Key Takeaway

Siblings. Love them or hate them, they shape who you are, especially as a high school student.

If your relationship with your sibling(s) has significantly impacted your life, then you may be considering it as a topic for your college essay.

But how do you decide if writing about siblings is right for you? If it is, what’s the best way to write about them in a college essay?

Like a fight with your sibling, let’s get into it.

When should you write a college essay about your siblings?

Essays about siblings have a lot of potential as personal statements because your personality and values can implicitly shine through your relationship with your sibling(s).

They can also be downright adorable. In fact, one of the essays I remember most fondly from my time as an admissions officer was about the student’s close relationship with her sibling. I could tell that she was a really sweet, caring person from how she wrote about their good memories together.

But “adorable” isn’t always the message you want your admissions officers to take away from your essay.

Students commonly err by spending too much valuable essay real estate describing their sibling or relationship and not enough on themselves.

At the end of the day, your college essay needs to be a genuine reflection that tells the admissions committee who you are and why they should admit you.

If your own relationship with your sibling(s) does that for you, then go for it. If not, consider another topic that does.

Dos and don’ts when writing about siblings in your college essay

Once you’ve determined whether you should write about your siblings, you’re likely asking how you should write about them. Consider the following advice before you begin writing your essay.

Do write about a memory or tradition that significantly shaped who you are.

One way to write a successful essay about siblings is to hone in on a specific memory or tradition.

Focusing on a specific event gives your admissions officer insight into what your life has actually been like. It’ll also help keep you on track and prevent you from going on too many tangents.

You can set the scene through your language and extract broader meaning from those special moments with your sibling.

The key is that the memory or tradition has to have had a concrete and prominent effect on who you are today. Otherwise, why write about it?

You could write about how you and your sister are renowned tennis stars, how you hiked the Pacific Crest Trail with your three siblings, or how yearly Groundhog Day celebrations with your brother led to your interest in physics.

Choose a memory or tradition that molded your values or dramatically changed something about you.

Do explain how a specific part of you exists because of your sibling.

Another effective approach is to explain how your sibling directly influenced you.

Beware of focusing too much on your sibling. But sometimes the only way we can truly explain who we are is by discussing the events or people that affected us.

If your sibling’s personality, activities, or behavior made you into who you are today, then this approach may be for you.

Probably the most common version of this essay is about sibling competition. Students like to write about how they have always competed with or lived in the shadow of a sibling. This approach can sometimes work, but it’s a common topic that tends to be too negative, so you may consider alternatives.

Better methods might include: identifying an impactful activity you did together, reconciling different beliefs, or analyzing how your personality developed in response to theirs.

Whichever approach you choose, try to avoid the following common mistakes.

Don’t write a college essay about how great your siblings are.

Your college admissions essay isn’t Yelp. Don’t just write a glowing review of your sibling rather than a college essay about yourself. Your sibling should not be the main character of your essay. You should.

Your essay also shouldn’t provide a simple or generic explanation of why you love, hate, admire, etc. them.

Think about it: does an essay on those topics actually advocate for you to be admitted? Likely not. That’s why it’s important that your essay is, at its core, about you.

Don’t get lost in negative emotions.

While you may have been negatively impacted in some way by your sibling, your college essay isn’t a burn book, either. And its goal isn’t to get your sibling into (or out of) college.

Your college essay needs to serve you.

While it’s okay to explore the darker sides of life in a college essay, you don’t want to write something that ultimately leaves your admissions officer with a negative taste.

You want them to envision you as a happy, engaged college student. However you write about your relationship with your sibling should, in the end, help your admissions officer to make these positive connections.

Final Thoughts

College essays about siblings don’t always work in your favor. They can be too much about your sibling, too superficial, or filled with too much emotion that doesn’t serve a clear purpose.

So if you’re going to write about your siblings, make sure that you are doing so because it is the best way to tell the admissions committee about you.

If you’re ready start writing your college essay about siblings, check out our How to Write a College Essay guide.

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15 Ways Being An Older Sibling Defines You As A Person

Posted: January 29, 2024 | Last updated: January 29, 2024

1. You learn to adapt to change.

2. You’re taught to make room for others.

3. You understand what it means to share (not just toys and space).

4. You inherit the permanent title of “chauffeur.”

5. You’re expected to be the wisest, sharing your experience.

6. You have someone to share life with.

7. You have someone who understands your childhood.

8. You have a big family to introduce your growing family to.

9. You develop parental instincts young.

10. You can know you’re never alone.

11. You were shaped by your role as the “guinea pig.”

12. You’re forced to reckon with jealousy.

13. You’re provided with an irreplaceable relationship.

14. You can always be one-upped.

15. You have a built-in best friend.

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500 words essay on my sister.

Sisters are a blessing for everyone in this world. Many of us have sisters whom we love unconditionally. Some have elder sisters while others have younger sisters. Nonetheless, we all are lucky to have been blessed with sisters. Through my sister essay, I will tell more about my sister and my unconditional love for her.

My Younger Sister

I have a younger sister who is five years younger than me. She is my whole world and I cannot live without her. When I first found out that I’m a big sister, I couldn’t contain my happiness . I remember playing with her all day when she was an infant.

My sister used to stop crying whenever I came back from school. As she started to grow up, we became even closer. Somehow, the age gap between us started to lessen and she turned into a friend of mine.

I can share all my secrets with my younger sister. Even though she is younger than me, she does not act like it. She is a very mature girl who handles all my moods and whims accordingly.

Moreover, she is the one who makes me understand things sometimes when I cannot see them clearly. Moreover, she also makes everyone in our family laughs with her cute little antics. Everyone in my family adores her as she is the youngest member of our family.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

My Sister’s Personality

My sister has a very unique personality which is not seen commonly in today’s world. She never judges anyone for their deeds. She is a religious person who believes we humans must not judge someone else as God will take care of it.

She has a bubbly personality and can brighten up the room wherever she goes. My sister is a sweet person who always tries to help out others. I have seen her help her friends all the time, even if they are acquaintances, she helps them equally.

Moreover, she is very lively. You will always find her playing around or goofing around with someone. She does not like sitting in one place, thus she is always all over the place. Further, she is very creative.

She has a solution to almost anything and everything. My sister has the special talent to find easy ways to do a difficult job. All of us always ask for her advice to simplify any kind of work.

I respect my sister for standing out of the crowd and always doing her own thing. Even if no one is doing it, she does not back off from doing the unique thing. She is my support system and inspiration.

Conclusion of My Sister Essay

All in all, I adore my sister a lot. She inspires me to become a better person and not judge anyone. As she is always empathetic towards animals , I also try my best to feed them and take care of them whenever possible. I hope to be a good sister to her and bring all the joy in her life.

FAQ of My Sister Essay

Question 1: Why are sisters so important?

Answer 1: Sisters are an essential part of everyone’s lives. When we have sisters, we tend to not feel lonely and fearful. Moreover, they love us unconditionally and accept us without any judgement. Thus, we feel someone is always there for us.

Question 2: What is the role of a sister?

Answer 2: A sister acts as a role model and teacher who help the younger siblings to learn about many things. Just like parents, older sisters have a positive influence on their siblings. Similarly, younger sisters bring joy and help us never lose our childish side.

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You’re more likely to make more money if you’re an older sibling—and now researchers think they know why

In sibling birth order, who’s the winner? The debate between pressured-but-successful older children or free-spirited but overlooked younger siblings has consumed many over the years, even leading to the rift between psychology founder Sigmund Freud (a firstborn child) and his middle-child colleague Alfred Adler . When it comes to corporate success, though, the data is unquestioned: Older children have it made.

Older kids, on average, have slightly higher IQs than their younger siblings, do better in school , and tend to earn more money as adults, as abundant research has shown. A CareerBuilder survey found that older children were more likely to achieve six-figure salaries, while the oft-overlooked middle children are most likely to be in entry-level jobs earning $35,000 or less. 

Now, new research in an NBER working paper has proposed a reason for the small but persistent pay gaps between the first and the rest. It’s not because parents love one child more than the other—rather, it has to do with how frequently kids fall ill, and how much siblings can influence that. 

By looking at all first and second children born in Denmark between 1981 and 2017, health economists have isolated one factor that affects youngsters more than their siblings: Sickness.

Of course, any parent can confirm that kids get sick all the time. But where you fall in the line of succession makes a big difference on your susceptibility to germs, finds the paper from health economists N. Meltem Daysal, Hui Ding, Maya Rossin-Slater and Hannes Schwandt. And in the critical first months of life, second siblings are much more likely to end up in the hospital than older peers. 

“In the first year of life, second-born children have 2 to 3 times higher likelihoods for being hospitalized for a respiratory condition,” Rossin-Slater, an associate professor in the health policy and economics departments at Stanford University, told Fortune . It’s especially visible in the first three months of a second child’s life, and “the difference basically disappears after age one,” she said.

“It made sense but was shocking to look at how big the differences are” between first and second kids, coauthor Schwandt, associate professor of Human Development and Social Policy at Northwestern University, told Fortune.

Denmark’s generous social safety net allowed the researchers to pinpoint the differences between siblings. In Denmark, parents typically have one year of paid leave, after which time kids start public preschool. So, while the firstborn child spends their first year at home with the parents and has limited contact with the outside world, the second sibling’s first year is marked by an older sister or brother coming and going from an environment with many other kids. 

The researchers also found that kids are more prone to sickness if they’re born in the fall and winter months, as well as when the younger and older sibling are closer in age.

That higher risk of sickness early in life translates to less money down the road. Those sicker second kids, “when they’re between ages 25 and 32, they have lower incomes. They’re not [less] likely to work, they just earn less in the jobs that they do have,” Rossin-Slater told Fortune .  

For kids and their parents in the U.S., Schwandt said, the effects could be even more pronounced. More Americans than Danes lack basic health care access, and the U.S. has no national parental leave —the most privileged working parents can expect a few months at most . “Because parental leave is so short, people sometimes put their kids into daycare very early, even at two months or one month,” Schwandt said. “The effect for diseases for those kids will be only bigger, if anything.”

The good news for panicked parents, though, is the differences are small. The sickest and healthiest kids are separated by just under 1% of income. (At today’s typical pay levels, that’s like an older sibling earning $59,400 a year while their kid brother brings home $58,271.) Same goes for IQ — while older kids, on average, have higher scores, the difference amounts to just 2 or 3 points. In fact, Schwandt explained, while statisticians looking at millions of kids over several decades can tease out average patterns over time, averages don’t mean much for predicting a particular individual’s success in life. Rossin-Slater said she hopes this research can guide public-health policy—such as ensuring young parents vaccinate their kids and have access to parental leave.

And after all, they say, money isn’t everything.

“It’s a pretty narrow set of outcomes we’re talking about when we say firstborns have an advantage–income and education,” Rossin-Slater said. “There’s a whole other set of measures of wellbeing, happiness and life satisfaction, that we’re not even touching on.” 

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Student Opinion

What Have You Learned From a Grandparent or Elder?

Do you wish you had closer relationships with the older people in your life?

By Jeremy Engle

Have you had close relationships with grandparents or other elders? What memories come to mind when you think of them? What life lessons have you gained from your time together?

Do you ever wish you could be closer to the older people in your life?

In a Modern Love essay, “ At 93, Teaching Me About Possibility ,” Richard Morgan writes about what happened when he abandoned “grayspeak” — talking to elders as if they are toddlers — and embraced real conversations with his grandmother:

Awake from a nap in her favorite chair, my grandmother ran her fingers through her wavy white hair, looked out her window at the English Channel, and asked me what I would wish for if I had just one wish. She often asks this, and I always answer the same way because it will make her happy — “To have Granddad back” — which usually gets her reminiscing about him. But on that day a few months ago, she shook her head, then said with a sigh: “Richard, we had our innings. Good innings. Make a wish for yourself, dear.” I wish I knew we could have been like this sooner. For decades I had the same kind of grandmother many people have: a money-filled birthday card in the mail; a phone call on Christmas; a pleasant little song and dance so polite and practiced that it became like the way people say “Bless you” after sneezes. Then, about a decade ago, she began to lose her hearing precipitously. The phone calls got harder. And I noticed that if I asked what she had for lunch, she might say, “Oh, the weather has been lovely today.” So accustomed to the family’s same few questions, she seemed to recycle the same handful of answers. Our time together was diminished. She was diminished. This is called “grayspeak” or “elderspeak,” a shift in the way we address elders that treats them less like sages and more like toddlers or pets. We say things like, “Today was rainy. Did you see the rain?” and “Was your dinner yummy?” It’s a bogus, tedious and stupid way to interact, so I fought it. I started to show up for her more, in person, despite her living in Dover, England, and me in New York City. During my visits, I started throwing her curveballs: What did you do with your first-ever paycheck? What did you think about when you were hiding in caves during the war? What was the best invention of your lifetime? Her answers: Buying electricity for her parents’ house so she wouldn’t have to scrape candle wax off the stairs. Eating oranges. Running water (with microwaves a close second). More than answers, they were springboards into unexpected conversations.

Students, read the entire article and then tell us:

Have you ever had a close connection with a grandparent or an elder? What is, or was, your relationship like? What life lessons, big or small, have you learned from them?

What is your reaction to Mr. Morgan’s essay? What moments, conversations or lines were most memorable, surprising or moving? Did any remind you of your own experiences with the older people in your life?

Have you ever spoken to your grandparents in what Mr. Morgan calls “grayspeak” or “elderspeak”? Does the essay make you think differently about doing so?

Mr. Morgan said that to form a deeper relationship with his grandmother, he started asking her curveball questions, such as, “What did you do with your first-ever paycheck?” and “What was the best invention of your lifetime?” What is a “curveball question” you would like to ask an elder in your life? Why?

Mr. Morgan writes, “We are each other’s best gift.” Does reading the essay make you wish you had deeper connections with older people? If so, what might you do to move past a “relationship of polite predictability” with them?

Bonus: Write a story of no more than 100 words about a grandparent or an elder who has been a part of your life. Post it in the comments, or submit it to Tiny Love Stories .

Students 13 and older in the United States and Britain, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public and may appear in print.

Find more Student Opinion questions here. Teachers, check out this guide to learn how you can incorporate these prompts into your classroom.

Jeremy Engle joined The Learning Network as a staff editor in 2018 after spending more than 20 years as a classroom humanities and documentary-making teacher, professional developer and curriculum designer working with students and teachers across the country. More about Jeremy Engle