I have 3 brothers. I love them all dearly.

And while, I wouldn’t swap any of them, I do feel growing up exclusively with male siblings had a certain impact on my life. An impact that probably isn’t spoken about too frequently but one I feel needs to be addressed. Here are the 11 ways I feel most affected.

1. Trying to wee standing up

Look, my only exposure to biology was my older brother. There’s only 18 months between us and we spent our formative years living in a manor in Mayo. We only had each other and this other friend Tom who may or may not have been imaginary. We were constantly outdoors and my brother saw the vast countryside as his potty. I just wanted to be like him and insisted on trying to wee standing up. Everytime.  

2. Not knowing the correct terminology for the female anatomy

Learning about puberty/sex/shifting was like Chinese Whispers. I gathered my information from my older brother who gathered it from some young one on the yard. But I of course thought everything my brother taught me was golden. I called my private parts my China for a really long time. Like, really long.  

3. Attaining generally unladylike characteristics

My brother and his friends were my idols. I wanted to be just like them. Seriously, just like them. So I burped, farted, wore snapbacks, baggy jeans, vans and Adidas. I was mistaken for a boy on one than one occasion.  

4. Pizza, pizza & more pizza

Every Take-Away was a pizza. I was over powered, 3-1 and boys need their carbs.  

5. I never got to play the PlayStation

Boys don’t share.  

6. Friends fawned over my brother

It was inevitable when we got to secondary school that friends began to take a shine to the older bro. He was pretty stylish and some pals were wooed, shifted and dumped – leading to much heartbreak. I won’t get into details.  

7. Repeatedly falling victim to “I’ll time you”

I knew deep down I would never be as fast as the boys but a weird innate competiveness led me to try repeatedly. And fail, repeatedly.  

8. Makeup DISASTERS

Imagine the horror of growing up in a world pre-YouTube Tutorial. I had to figure makeup out on my own from products robbed from my mothers makeup bag. Obviously it was disastrous. I mistook gradual tan for moisturiser on too many an occasion and often went to school with a streaky face, blatant makeup lines or on one formative occasion; distinctly lined lips. I was 12.  

9. Being unable to bring dates home

I need to preface this point with the fact that although my two younger brothers are 4 and 7 years younger than me, they each exceed 6’3. Despite being absolute softies, from the outside one could mistake them as being intimidating. They do however individually think they’re hilarious and whenever a potential date is brought home they delight in telling the tales of the previous fallen lovers.  

10. Blatantly being Daddy’s favourite

There were no qualms about it. I still have a special place in my dads heart.  

11. Secretly being Mammy’s favourite too

We all know it Trish.