My SS just turned 22 and my DS just turned 3 - their birthdays are a week apart. I don't have huge issues with my SS, all in all he's a decent kid just totally used to getting everything he wants. He got a new car when he turned 16 and then another new casr for HS graduation 2 years later. He has every gadget known to man and pre-orders all the latest greatest stuff. That's fine by me, BM foots the bill for all of it, the cars, the insurance and all the gadgets - well everything but the college tutition. He rarely asks us for money because usually BM handles everything. But I think because he has to spend so much time and effort making sure that BM is happy, we get the short end of the stick and we rarely see him. I think we've seen him maybe a total of 4 times so far this year.
DH of course talks him up huge when he's coming over to our DS about his big brother and all that kind of stuff but my question is how do I explain the importance of family and being a big brother to DS (we also have DD who is 14 weeks old) when his only role model is someone he never really sees.
When SS is here, DS and him are stuck together at the hip which is good to see but I wonder about all those in-between times. Am I making a mountain out of a mole-hole and how do you handle these relationships when the skid really isn't that bad of a kid?