This Trauma Expert Says No Siblings Have The Same Childhood

One night, over some wine, my sister and I had a very real, honest conversation about our parents. We loved our mom and dad, of course, but we, like any kid, had a gripe or two. As we chatted, my sister was recounting times that I could never even remember happening in our house, but (according to her), I was there. She is the oldest. I am the youngest. The more we talked, the more we shared, the more we realized that we had very different childhoods crafted by very different parents.

Author and trauma expert, Gabor Maté, says this is totally normal.

While chatting with self-help guru Mel Robbins on her podcast, Maté noted that no two siblings grow up in the same family, despite growing up in the same house with the exact same parents.

“No siblings grow up in the same house. No siblings have the same parents. No siblings have the same family. No siblings have the same childhood,” he says before breaking down the four major ways that this phenomenon occurs.

Birth order

Eldest daughters, this one is for you! Maté says that there is no way for a parent to relate to their first child the way they do their second and so on. I think every parent can relate to this, and every eldest daughter as well. When parents become first-time parents, their world is rocked in a way that just doesn’t hit the same with the second, third, or (god forbid) fourth. It’s just a totally different vibe and life stage for everyone, and birth order matters.

Gender differences

This one stings a little, but it’s true. Typically, boys and girls are treated differently in a household. This is how we ended up with an entire culture of toxic boy moms. Maté assures that this has nothing to do with how much love a parent has for a child, but rather “what actually happens.”:

“The child doesn’t experience the parents’ love. The child experiences the way the parent shows up,” he says.

Parents’ relationship status

A marriage goes through ebs and flows. There are peaks and valleys in a marriage, and sometimes, those valleys come along with a newborn (which is totally normal, TBD), but there’s no question that a strain in a marriage can have a huge effect on how a child experiences their childhood and shapes their perspective.

“The parents might be in a different economic situation. The parents’ lives might be different. Then each child will evoke a different response from the parent. You have two daughters and a son, I have two sons and a daughter. It’s not that I loved or we loved any one of them more than the other, but we responded to them differently,” he explains.

Child temperments

Obviously, children with different temperaments and personalities will view and navigate the world differently, including their familial relationships and childhood memories.

“So, even if I could be the same parent to all my kids, which I couldn’t be, they still had three different parents because they would experience me differently,” Maté explains.

In her post on Facebook, Robbins extrapolated on her podcast guest’s point, writing, “When Dr. Gabor Maté, MD, told me this, it stopped me in my tracks…Siblings may grow up in the same house, but that doesn’t mean their childhoods were the same. Not even close. Same parents? Nope. Same family? Nope. Same childhood? Absolutely not. Parents show up differently for each child depending on the season of their life, their relationship, and even their financial situation. It’s not about who is loved more. It’s about how that love is expressed — and how each child experiences it.”

After the clip went viral, several people commented on Maté’s take.

“It’s like a car wreck, everyone was there but we all had a different seat in the car and the impact was different,” one user said.

Another wrote, “As the oldest daughter I felt this.”

“so true. what’s sad is when as the oldest you see your siblings having different parents from you right in your face ☹️” another noted.

One parent said, “He left out that the parents themselves grow and learn from their parenting mistakes and change as they go. Even if we could start over and apply all we’ve learned, they STILL wouldn’t have the same experiences. Because parents are people too and we learn and grow.”