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That’s what I’ve always been after but it’s eluded me my whole life.
I had an interesting position between my sibling and the rest of our extended family. A lot of my 1st generation cousins are much older than me, the youngest is like 12 years older or something like that, and they would always be hanging around themselves or our parents. They’d encourage me to spend time with them and a lot of times I did, but I was clearly out of their age bracket from being able to meaningfully associate with them. The younger half was much younger than me. The oldest was within 2 years of me and the rest between 5-20 years younger. So I always stood on an island that was the middle ground, where nobody else my age was. My sibling always associated with my 1st cousins, I was always the “big brother” and mentor to my 2nd cousins and I stuck with them.
My friends interestingly enough were born the same year as me or the year prior. But they also had big families and whenever we’d spend time, their parents would encourage them to tag along with us and we’d also be in charge of them. So they participated in many of the same activities we did and we never treated them as a separate class most of the time (but not always). They always looked up to us as well.
A big, extended, and physically close family is a nice thing to be a part of. I'm from large extended families on both sides myself. I did happen to notice that my desire for children increased as I moved much farther away from the family area, as I missed the family atmosphere that similar aged "child-free" friends could not provide.
For me the desire was always there. I had my head on straight from a pretty young age as far as that was concerned. Nobody ever had to coax me into it.
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