Alex the imaginery sibling - Real Mum story on MoM

16 Comments

My daughter is one of the many single children around. She was a surprise child for me at 40 and I couldn’t imagine a better thing to happen to me!
My daughter would LOVE a sibling (and I would love her to have a sibling) but at my age (now 45) it is not an option. I was so lucky to have her and for some reason life planned for me just to have her.
So, to deal with the fact she had no sibling she decided she would find her own brother. She didn’t have to look far for him – just brought her imagination to life and there he was. Alex started at 4 but quickly became 8 (glad real life doesn’t go that fast) and there he was – part of our life.
Now I was happy to go along with having two children. Let’s face it, an imaginary son is cheap to keep, doesn’t make a real mess and doesn’t talk back (well not that I can hear anyway). However, I was soon to find there were many challenges with having Alex come into our lives.
Alex was there 24/7 but the problem was I didn’t know exactly where “there” was. I was constantly being told off for sitting on Alex when I went to cuddle my daughter, for leaving him behind when we hopped in the car to go to preschool and for letting him fall from a climbing frame at the park. This Alex was making me feel like a neglectful mum.
There were also the times when I had to talk to Alex while out in public and pretend to hold his hand. My daughter wouldn’t accept me pretending to quickly whisper and then move on. Oh no I had to audibly discipline Alex in public, ask him what sort of drink he wanted while standing in a line to order and pick him up to put him in the shopping trolley. I do believe I was on many people’s list for help from the mental health services and possibly they thought Zara was not in the best hands.
Why did I play along with this game (and yes I asked myself this many times)? Two reasons came to mind – (1) because it gave my daughter so much joy and (2) my own guilt at not being able to give her the sibling she craves.
I know Alex will never replace a real sibling (just like the cat we got her who we now know doesn’t actually like people much didn’t) but for now we have fun together – just the three of us!

Posted by gillmanfergus, 1st April 2014

16 Comments

- - june11 said
  - 15 Mar 2016
    10:17 pm
I don’t think my brother or I had one. Dad would have very briskly wiped out the idea anyway. I am sure the son and daughter of a girl I worked with did.

- - mom107723 said
  - 04 Dec 2015
    7:05 pm
I loved my kids imaginary friends its great escapism and sometimes a great educational tool us parents can use.

- - mom93821 said
  - 13 Jun 2015
    12:52 pm
An interesting and unique story-thanks for sharing Alex with us!

- - mom113055 said
  - 07 Apr 2015
    11:59 am
top story to read

- - mom56842 said
  - 30 Sep 2014
    3:32 am
What a cute and lovely story, I hope you come back in and tell us more about Alex, I’m wondering if he will be going to school one day.

- - mom57522 said
  - 30 Aug 2014
    10:10 pm
Ah the things we do for our kids!

- - catgrrl3 said
  - 21 May 2014
    4:08 pm
imaginary friends can be so much fun, I can rmemeber mine

- - scottie said
  - 11 May 2014
    9:08 am
Good job Hope Alex has been behaving himself!

- - mel1 said
  - 30 Apr 2014
    4:33 pm
So funny. My second daughter had an imaginary friend who came to play whenever her big sister went to kinder. It was so cute and helped her as she missed her sister, I still remember tea parties and having to make two little sandwiches, one for my daughter and one for her little friend.

- - hopefullyheidi said
  - 21 Apr 2014
    9:11 am
I really loved this light hearted story. It made me laugh. I would like an imaginary friend to vent to at times lol!

- - BellaB said
  - 20 Apr 2014
    5:59 pm
How lucky your daughter is that you go along with this.

- - shazzbot said
  - 12 Apr 2014
    9:10 am
Thanks for posting your story, it made me laugh, my son had an imaginery friend but not to this extent.

- - cinta said
  - 02 Apr 2014
    8:52 am
Hahaha, Loved Reading This, I Am The 3Rd Child Out Of Four, And I Had A Pretend Friend For Many Years, My Mum Had To Cook For Him And Take Him EveryWhere As Well, My Older Siblings Also Went A Long With It. I Am Glad The Three Of You Are Happy

- - arcticwynta said
  - 02 Apr 2014
    1:55 am
I loved your story and it made me laugh picturing in my head someone doing the things you had to do lol but imagination is a wonderful thing

- - colleen b. said
  - 01 Apr 2014
    11:24 pm
My eldest has a sibling and still had an imaginary friend or two for several years. It can be quite common and children who have imaginary friends are said to be more intelligent. Best of luck to you both, and here’s hoping you don’t get taken to the local mental health service.
- hopefullyheidi replied
  
  16 Apr 2014 , 9:30 pm
  I was going to say I thought I read an article about children who have imaginary friends having a high level of intelligence. Lol I did have a giggle at some of the things Alex gets up to in this article and mum sitting on him