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by markmak. Used with permission.Being the only son or daughter in a family with three or more children often comes with some resentment and loneliness. The other siblings are presented as a pair or group that the outnumbered sibling can't relate to, leading to them feeling left out. For example, a lone sister might not be invited to her brothers' treehouse because Girls Have Cooties, or a lone brother doesn't have as many toys as his sisters, who share their stuffed animals with each other. The resentment is often played along gender roles, where it's portrayed as difficult for a guy to relate to dolls and tea parties, or for a girl to relate to sports and toy cars. If not, it might be around the quirks of growing up with male and female bodies, for example, a guy is disgusted by his sisters talking about periods around him.
The character might also resent their parents for this situation, especially if their same-sex parent is out of the picture. While an only child might say Siblings Wanted, a character in this situation might want a sibling of their own sex that they can hang out with. Alternatively, they might be closer with their same-sex parent or other relatives than their own siblings.
Birth order often factors into this. Middle Child Syndrome might be exacerbated if they are also outnumbered in terms of sex. If they are the youngest and the only boy or girl, this might come with favoritism from their parents, but they might feel even more left out because their older siblings have more in common with each other and might even be on the receiving end of bullying from them. In addition, Massive Numbered Siblings might add to the drama — who is more likely to feel left out, a guy with two sisters, or a guy with eight?
Contrast I Have Brothers, where having siblings of the opposite sex is used to justify character traits (e.g. tomboyishness or being In Touch with His Feminine Side), and Single Sex Offspring, where a family either only has sons or only has daughters. See also A Boy, a Girl, and a Baby Family, where the baby is of either sex but too young to make either their brother or sister feel 'outnumbered'.
Examples:
- Cardcaptor Sakura: Syaoran has four older sisters (who are either quadruplets or very close in age, in any case they're all much older than him) back in Hong Kong. When they show up in the story he is annoyed because they all treat him like something cute.
- Wagnaria!!: Souta is the only boy of the Takanashi siblings, and his older sisters didn't exactly treat him well while growing up (along with giving him their hand-me-down clothes so he'd have to dress as a girl). Quite a few of his quirks stem from this, such as his dislike of older women.
- The Beano used to have a strip called Tom, Dick, and Sally, about three siblings. Tom and Dick would gang up on their sister Sally because she was a girl, such as trying to get her to do something for them (often household chores) or blame her for their naughty behaviour. Of course she'd either get revenge or make sure they get found out so that the boys always ended up worse off.
- Peanuts: When Linus and Lucy's mother gives birth to a baby boy, Lucy is annoyed that she still doesn't have a sister and she even calls their new brother a "rerun". Since then, their brother has always been called Rerun.
- Bambi: As the only son in the family, Thumper finds his five sisters (four in the midquel) annoying and would rather hang with with his friends Bambi and Flower than them.
- In the 2008 film adaptation of Horton Hears a Who!, Jojo's the only son in a family but has 96 younger sisters. No wonder he feels a little left out.
- She Shoots Straight: Mina's husband, Inspector Huang, is the only male sibling in a family of cops with four sisters around him, which gives him pressure as his mother would constantly urge him to start a family in order to carry the Huang surname, despite his recently-promoted wife's protests.
- A Song of Ice and Fire: Sansa Stark has two older brothers, two younger brothers, and a younger sister, but feels alienated all the same because Arya is extremely tomboyish and hangs out with their brothers while Sansa herself is a Proper Lady-in-training. Emphasized when her narration mentions she'd always wanted a sister like the princess-like Margaery.
- In From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, part of Claudia's motivation for running away from home is annoyance at being the eldest and only girl in the family and having to do household chores while her three little brothers do nothing.
- Nina Tanleven: Nina's friend Chris Gurley has six brothers, which she compares to "living with a football team" in the first book, and while she never outright says that she hates it, it's clear that she finds the situation irritating because of how loud and obnoxious they all are (Nina can understand, as she compares dinner at the Gurley house to "a cross between Saturday Night Live and feeding time at the zoo") and is far happier having a quiet dinner for three at Nina's house. Nina also notes in The Ghost in the Big Brass Bed that when Chris is asked how many brothers she has, she typically says "About five more than I need."
- Vorkosigan Saga: Ekaterin has several older brothers and no sisters, and this is mentioned as being common among Barrayarans of her generation as the result of newly-obtainable sex-selection technology. She specifically mentions this as being part of the reason why she's a Shrinking Violet. She then defies this in her own marriage to Miles with two sets of twins followed by one girl to balance her eldest son Nikki Vorsoisson.
- The Brothers García: Lorena is the only girl among the Garcia siblings and her dislike of this situation is occasionally touched on. The best example is the episode "You Go Girl", where Lorena says that she sometimes wishes she was born to a family of girls.
- Crash & Bernstein: Wyatt Bernstein has three sisters and he's the only boy. He's annoyed by his sisters' behavior (Amanda is a Big Sister Bully, Cleo is a Deadpan Snarker, and Jasmine is a Bratty Half-Pint) and wishes he had a brother, but he gets his wish when he befriends Crash.
- Daphne from Frasier has eight brothers. She generally gets along with most of them, with the exception of Simon, but occasionally notes that it wasn't always pleasant being the only girl. Apparently her brothers considered it a rite of passage to peek in on her in the shower which has led to her being very defensive of her privacy. A later episode implies that her grandmother told her that only female members of the family had "psychic powers" to make Daphne feel better about being the only girl in the family.
- The Nanny: Brighton Sheffield is both the middle child and only son in the Sheffield household, and when the series started, these, along with his mother's death, contributed to him being a mouthy prankster.
- 7th Heaven: The Camden family starts out with two sons and three daughters, but Matt was already moved out by the time that Annie was on her final pregnancy. One episode focuses on Simon's fear that the baby would be a girl, leaving him alone in the house with four sisters. As it turns out, Annie has twin boys.
- Jyrras from Dan and Mab's Furry Adventures has six older (and much larger) sisters who tend to treat him as a living doll. In his words, "Hell is full of estrogen."
- Joyce from the Walkyverse is the little girl of her family, outnumbered by her five brothers. This is explored a bit in Dumbing of Age where, although she only has three siblings, she laments on one strip that she didn't grow up with any sisters. Played With when one of her "brothers" turns out to be a trans girl.
- Arthur: Grandma Thora was the youngest sibling to three older brothers; the flashback in "Clarissa is Cracked" showed that at times, Thora was not particularly content with not having her own toys and having to settle for playing with hand-me-downs from her brothers.
- Codename: Kids Next Door: The villain of "Operation: F.U.T.U.R.E", Madam Margie, grew up with multiple brothers, who often mistreated her. This led to her trying to wipe out all boys in the world.
- Gravity Falls: Wendy Corduroy is shown to be the only female member of her immediate family, due to having a Missing Mom, and she has three younger brothers. In the episode "Society of the Blind Eye", she mentions that she only pretends to be as "laid-back" as she acts because, in reality, her family apparently drives her insane.
- On The Loud House, Lincoln sometimes resents having only sisters (he has ten of them and he's right in the middle).
- The Simpsons: "O Brother, Where Bart Thou?" focuses on Bart wanting a brother after Lisa convinces him that she and Maggie have a special bond that he can never share. First he tries to trick Marge into getting pregnant but she catches on and, while sympathetic, notes that a new baby could well be a third sister. As a result, he instead "adopts" a brother from the local orphanage. In the end, the orphan boy ends up being adopted by a family with six daughters.
