Personal Narrative: Growing Up Without Siblings

Being an adopted child, the idea of a reunion is always lingering in the back of my mind. I always wondered if my biological father had a very loud laugh like I do, or if my mother liked to shop as much as I do. When I was younger I really didn’t think much about me being adopted, I just knew that I was different from my family. Well,l obviously I was different because I was from South Korea while my adoptive parents were from New Jersey. I never really knew anything about my birth parents, other than the fact that my mother was very young when she had me and my father wasn’t in the picture at the time, so my mother put me up for adoption so I could have the best life possible. At a young age I didn’t ask about my adoption because I didn’t have the ability to identify my experience and articulate my feelings yet, but now since I’m coming to an age where I’m about to start my life as adult, I think it’s time to confront my feelings and thoughts on my adoption.

Life is unpredictable and no one ever knows what it will end up like. This has been true for me since I was little. I was only for two years old, and then my little brother was born into the world. I am aware that there is not as big as an age gap between my brother and I, which is good and bad at the same time. However, being the older sister it is hard to relate with my little brother with most things.

Being the oldest sibling you need to be more responsible. Needing to balance out the immaturity that your sibling may have, and because they are not as mature as you are you need to be the “bigger” person and be more responsible and take on the responsibilities of a mature older sibling. For instance, I was in the car with my two younger siblings. I’m sitting in the front seat while they are in the back. My younger brother started to kick my chair. When I ask him to stop he began to mimic me. Now being the oldest out of the two I had to be mature and handled the situations maturely. For one thing, I had to set a good example for my brother who is also setting an example for my younger sister, so that would mean that I’m dealing with setting an example for both my younger siblings not just my younger brother. Therefore, I didn’t turn around and mimic him back or yell at him.

I can recognize this feeling in my everyday life. Being the oldest child, I have the unspoken responsibility of taking care of my siblings and expected to be the most mature out of all of my siblings. For example, this summer I was home alone with my grandma and all of the sudden she was not feeling well. I immediately called my dad and told him what was going on; I explained that she was shaking and he told me to call for the ambulance. I did what I was told right away and waited for the ambulance to come. My dad came home at the perfect time so he could also go to the hospital with my grandma. While all this occurred, my mom told me to wait for my siblings to come home and to feed them dinner. As soon as my siblings came home, I explained everything to them and made them alfredo pasta for dinner. Additionally, my siblings and I had school the following day, and my parents did not come home until past midnight. Being the responsible young adult, I packed their lunches and put them in bed at an appropriate time; I also made sure they completed their homework. I did not want the kids to call our parents and bother them, so I made sure to take the responsibility of my parents’ and keep the house in order and out of chaos while they were gone. This experience portrays that I have lived up to the meaning of my name by being responsible and stepping up to take the position of authority when my parents are

When growing up with siblings it can be both, amazing and terrorizing. Coming for a girl with three older brothers it has its ups and downs at times. We all have different ways of doing things. Our lives have differed from the years being apart, parent control, and being spoiled. Although, a lot of siblings fight and have their aggravating moments, we do but we don’t fight a lot.

As the youngest of four siblings, it has put more pressure on me to do greater than them. My siblings were alike in the sense that they all had a dream of attending and graduating college, however was not the case in the long run. What they all had in common was that they encountered obstacles that led them further from what they knew was success. Within my four siblings, I have three brother and one sister. All of my brothers have attended college, however later dropped out due to self-doubt and finances. As for my sister, she decided to enroll in the army with the mentality that college was not worth the money.

I wasn’t there to see my siblings being born, but I was there when I got to visit them, and when my mom was pregnant, but wasn’t there for their birth. They aren’t twins, they are 4 years apart, if there was any confusion. When my nine year old sister was born, we were living in the state known as Texas. We only got to see her for a few minutes before we had to leave. When my mom was pregnant, I couldn’t wait to be a big sister, and that was a mistake, (she scares me). When my mom was pregnant with my five year brother, I was the one to know first, and she didn't tell us what gender, I just knew, she kept denying it, but I was the one who had that feeling that he was there, she never told me she was pregnant and I knew

Growin up with a Twin is amazing in so many ways. Never being lonely and always having a friend right by your side is one of the many reasons. Sadly, there can also be some challenges. Now, these challenges may not be anything extreme. But this particular challenge I'm about to explain is one I know a lot of twins face. Rather be a Set of boys, girls or boy and girl. And that challenge is one Twin growing up with the responsibility of the other. Now that may not sound so bad but It did affect me growing up taking the responsibility of my Twin sister, Jonesha.

Have you ever had that feeling?That feeling where your life changes so much at once you think you are dreaming?I have!It wasn’t just the first day of school ,or something either.It was the first time I saw my sister!

Growing up with my siblings was very challenging. I was the only girl with three brothers and we had plenty of fights growing up; in the meantime my mom was a single parent for a short time. We misbehaved, as far as not listening and not doing what we were told to do, therefore times had changed when my mom started dating my step-father, James. When James dated my mother, he was very understanding and helpful to her. As their relationship progressed, my youngest brother was born. James was very strict on us children, or at least we thought that he was mean, in the meantime James kept us in line, like any good father would do. There was a total of six of us in the family eventually, I was the chosen one who always had to do the cooking.

     Being an only child though is not filled with simply a positive side. It can also be a bad effect on the child’s personality. The child being the center of attention all the time to the parents makes them feel very special and important. They soon begin to believe that they may be the center of the world since everything in their household is revolved another them. They never have to face the problem of sibling rivalry so no one ever becomes more significant then them. Having all this praise and interest about these only children all the time will make them to be self-centered at times. Being self-centered is not a good trait to have because they have to be aware that there are other people in the world. The only children must consider how to care about other people and their feelings. Living as an only child it is hard to learn these lessons because they have no friends from the start like a brother or sister to teach them how to interact with their peers. Nonetheless only children are not hopeless and once they head into school they learn their lessons of socializing with others. (Sulloway, 1997)

Only children, though they have some of the same characteristics as firstborn, will at times be self-centered from the outpouring of undivided attention received by parents. Also, because only children do not grow up in environments with other siblings, they usually never learn to share or overcome family conflict. Most become unforgiving of themselves and others and also develop selfishness and anger from being the only kid in the family to please parents. Very high expectations do usually come from parents, which put extreme pressure and stress on an only child's life. Along with first-borns, only children are seen leading in the outside world and succeeding in

During chapter one the two things that stuck out me was nature vs nurture and correlation is not causation because I can easily associate this to my childhood growing up. When I was a baby I lived with my birth parents for a few months. My birth parents had a few issues, including bipolar, drugs and alcohol addiction, violence, which lead them to prison and treatment. Not long after they were sent I was put into foster care. At 18 months old I was adopted. I grew up in a huge family in a protective home, where I was taught many life lessons by my parent and siblings. Growing in a huge family was beneficial for me because I always had someone to rely on and help me through rough patches. They taught me and show me how to be a better person than

For the past seventeen years of my life minus a few months, I have lived in the United States. I grew up skiing and bicycling in Grand Rapids, Michigan, until my family decided to move all the way out west to Flagstaff, Arizona. Many eleven-year-olds might become stubborn and defensive in response to such a massive, life-changing move, but I remember embracing it because I was with my family, and I was ready to face any obstacle that unveiled itself to me because I knew that my late comedic father, my worrisome mother, and my troublesome brother would be right by my side. As we made the two-day drive from Michigan to Arizona in our SUV together, we watched the numbers on the odometer crawl up more and more until there were 2,000 more miles on the car than there were when we started, and we

Devastated, I ran to my room gushing my eyes out. All these emotions going through my head of how my life would be without my parents in the same room or even house. From what I remember it all started about mid-June, the weeks before that were crucial. My parents would always argue over how to deal with a situation between me and my brother, Skyler. They hardly spoke to one another, but when they did they would just start bickering. I remember, one night after dinner they both went into ''their'' room with the door locked yelling at one another. Skyler and I didn’t know what to do, so we went downstairs and tried to figure out what was going to happen. With a scared tone I asked if mom and dad were going to get a divorce?" He answered back '' No, they love each other, they wouldn’t do that to us." That following night, was a school night everything was quiet except for my crying. I couldn’t sleep; all I was thinking about how it's going to affect my family.