Family Composition

[joette]

As people postpone having children until they are older & limit the size of their families I see the demise of the family which spans a twenty year + gap.
When I first started on my family tree when I would find a gap of twenty years + I would be thinking "Surely some mistake how can there be twenty eight years between the eldest & youngest"?
Having worked out that the first child was born when the Mother was twenty & the last when she was forty-eight it scanned& the wean was hers as far as I can tell.
My own Mother's family spanned a sixteen year gap so I had Uncles who were only 12&13 years older than me.It meant I had handsome,trendy Uncles who introduced me to The Beatles & sixties culture in a way that my parents earning a living & bringing up a family couldn't.They would babysit us & we were taken to their Works Christmas "Do's"etc.
The same gap exsists in my own sibling group with our "wee bonus" being 15 years younger than the eldest.
It means that my brother& nephew have only eight years between them & are like brothers(my brother's son calls my nephew his Uncle Cousin).
I think it helps to bridge the so-called generation gap.My Mother's home is
rarely lacking a youngster about the place& as I have no children I am kept conversant with the latest in baby-feeding,child discipline,university fees,the difficulty of being a first-time home buyer& off course music& fashion.
I don't know if we would be so close if it weren't for these gaps.
Life & it's pace has changed.Women have more opportunities re education & employment.People have to be more flexible about their working lives& where they live.
Now I wouldn't like to go back to the "Good old days"-when were they anyway? where parents were old at forty through the stress& strain of bringing up a large family.
Just my experience has been a mainly happy one & it is one which I think will become as dead as a dodo in the future.
It has also been such a boon in family research as you oftimes find a grandwean or two spending Census night with Grandparents& Aunties and/or Uncles & can tie families together especially when their names are less than unusual.

[Bertha]

I too have experience of similar age gaps down the generatons. There was a 15yr gap between my grandfather and his oldest brother yet he was not the youngest in the family. It came down to the next generation too, my oldest aunt being about 18 when her wee brother was born in turn, he was only about 8/9 when his eldest niece was born.
I myself am only 13yrs younger than my youngest uncle and he introduced my to rock & roll, Elvis etc at a very young age. He also introduced me to books mostly of the boy adventure kind, even today I'm not into romantic novels. I had dolls but due to his influence preferred his hand me down cars. guns & cowboy stuff. His girl pals used to love taking me out for walks with them to the local cafe.
On my husbands side, his niece's daughter is in the same class at school as his youngest niece. I also know of a girl who was in the same class as her niece, the niece actually being the elder by a few days!
So things haven't changed all that much.
Bertha

[David Lang]

My Grandfather is one of 12 (MAYBE 13!!!) and th eoldest is 28 years older than the youngest.

In my mother side there are 11 years between the oldest and the youngest.

My cousin being 50 this year while the youngest cousin is only 22ish

The next lot though are pretty tight together all within about 5 years of each other