All The Joy That Fits In A Big Age Gap

My family tree has always felt more like an orchard. I have two half-siblings who are unrelated to each other, but I’m so close to both of them you’ll never catch me using that term again. Ashley is nine years older than me, and my little brother Garrett is 20 years my junior. Now that I’m a mom to a 4-year-old boy, I hear many parents wondering if they should have more kids now, “you know, so they’re close in age.”

I’m not sure where that comes from, this pervasive idea that in order for siblings to have a close relationship, they have to be close in age. That has never been my reality. When I was a baby, our mom had to tell Ashley to stop carrying me everywhere or I’d never learn how to walk. She continued her diligent older sister duties in new ways, though, teaching me to read and write before I’d started preschool, my bubbly big letters matching hers almost exactly.

Early on, we quibbled like all siblings do. When I was a toddler, she convinced me my family had rescued me from a dumpster behind the hospital; that’s why I didn’t look like her or mom. I repaid her on other occasions, like the time I slammed her face into an alphabet peg puzzle. She was trying to convince me the M was a W so I hissed, “Don’t mess with the baby,” and let her have it.

Once everyone’s frontal lobe developed more fully, we didn’t fight much at all. I think this was because, at nine years apart, there was never any competition between us. I coveted everything she owned, sure, from her Abercrombie & Fitch clothes to the Bath & Body Works Cucumber Melon body spray she was allowed to wear to school. It didn’t matter that my mom said it smelled like stale fruit salad and made her roll down her window for the whole drive. To me, Ashley was the epitome of everything pretty and cool and I wanted to be just like her. When she’d let me sit in her room while she straightened my hair, and I didn’t even care how many times she clamped the tops of my ears with the hot iron in the process, I was at the height of my glory.

Like all siblings, we had secrets just between us. After she’d moved out of the house and gotten a car — a decrepit Ford Taurus with a hole in the bumper — she’d pick me up from fourth grade or drive me to our grandparents’ house. We’d cruise across the causeway between the barrier island and Florida’s mainland, windows down, Ash rapping the lyrics to an absolutely vile Nate Dogg song I knew Mom would loathe. (I tracked it down and put it on my iPod as soon as I got one.)

If you have another baby in five, seven, 10 more years, your firstborn will still be close with their sibling — just not in age.

Sometimes I blabbed her secrets, like once when I was 7 and she had her boyfriend over to hang out when she was supposed to be watching me. I’m pretty sure she’s never told a single one of mine though. Once she had a job and was all moved in with Jason, her high school sweetheart and now husband, in their first apartment, cobbling together her own life, she still came to all of my award ceremonies, birthday parties, and science fair events. My favorite picture of my college graduation is one my friend snapped of my face on the Jumbotron while crossing the stage, my mom and sister’s hands thrown up to the sky in front of it, both of them screaming I’m sure.

Then, when I was 20, my little brother was born — my dad and the woman I considered my stepmom had told me she was pregnant shortly after my 19th birthday. I was shocked but excited. I spent my entire spring break hanging around their house, waiting for him to come. When I met him in the hospital, I thought he was the cutest thing I’d ever seen.

From then on, I spent many weekends there just to be with him, and then more, to babysit. We’d play in the dirt outside then have a bubbly, giggly bath; we watched Monsters, Inc. so many times I can still tell you Sully’s locker number from memory (193). The first year of his life is when I realized I might want kids of my own one day.

That chunky, joyous little baby is 12 now, a kind and intelligent boy who loves movies, video games, and history. He comes to stay on the weekends and we build Legos and play Super Smash Bros. Last Sunday, I picked him up for sushi lunch and a matinee of the Minecraft movie. We no longer have contact with our dad, but when we’re together, it feels like we still have all the good parts of him we need.

Now, Ashley always seems to be the happiest person of all when I tell her I’m going to see my little brother. I think she knows that because of our age difference I’m able to help him digest the way our dad was, and is — just like she did for me. I also think it takes her back in time to picking up her favorite little twit from school, or straightening her hair, or getting her ready for homecoming, and she’s thrilled I get to love him the way she loves me. I am constantly trying to do just that.

So have your kids whenever you want. Our age gaps stripped away some things, yes — sibling rivalries and fights over toys and clothes — but the important parts remained: the shared experience of our parents, the protectiveness and the devotion, the gangster rap and the Disney movies. A part of me is sad that my only child might not have this relationship with anyone. But if I had to have a second child right now, my nervous system couldn’t handle it, and the bonding they’d do about me would probably be about how much I yelled or wanted to get away. Instead, I remind myself what I know, and what I want you to know, too: If you have another baby in five, seven, 10 more years, your firstborn will still be close with their sibling — just not in age.