A Boy, a Girl, and a Baby Family



Or a Boy, a Girl and Baby siblings. Not only are families with three kids common in TV land, but often they are made with a boy, a girl and a baby of either sex (nearly 50/50 ratio).

And that kind of family has immutable rules:
 * The two elder siblings are very close in age, between one and three years. The eldest sibling can be either sex, but it is usually a girl.
 * On the opposite, the youngest is far from them, between five and 14 years younger.
 * The boy and girl are between ages 7 and 15 years: not too young children and not too old teens, either.
 * The baby is not an infant: more like a toddler between 6 months and 2 years old, but before the age of learning to talk.
 * Just because one can't walk or talk yet does not mean that the infant sibling is good for nothing or powerless. On the contrary, the infant is often shown to be the most powerful in the family (if applicable), or a Brainy Baby, or a Little Miss Badass. Even when they are only the Plucky Comic Relief for most of the story, the baby can save the day at the very end as the Big Damn Hero.

The reason? Brother and Sister have the target audience's age and allow everyone in the audience to identify with the sibling of the same gender. The baby is a substitute for a child with his siblings as "parents". It also allows the writers to have starring characters for Always Male and Always Female plots or tropes, and the baby as a child substitute, a third man or younger sibling role. The sex of the baby varies as gender doesn't make as much of a difference for infant characters. Alternatively, the baby can take the role of a Team Pet.

See also Sibling Team.

Film -- Animated

 * Dash, Violet and Jack-Jack Parr in The Incredibles.
 * Fievel, Tanya and Tasha Mouskewitz in An American Tail.

Film -- Live-Action

 * Pugsley, Wednesday and Pubert Addams in the second movie of The Addams Family.
 * Nick, Amy and Adam Szalinski in Honey, I Shrunk the Kids franchise (although they didn't appear together).

Literature

 * The Baudelaire siblings from A Series of Unfortunate Events. Yes, these are the same characters as the above Klaus, Violet and Sunny. Also, the three are orphans in both the films and books.
 * The 10-year old twins Kestrel and Bowman Hath and their infant sister Pinto in The Wind Singer. In the later books of The Wind On Fire, the characters age.
 * The Balicki family from The Silver Sword.
 * The Berenstain Bears, at least since the addition of baby Honey Bear.

Live Action TV

 * Robbie, Charlene and Baby Sinclair in Dinosaurs.
 * Good Luck Charlie: With a 5th child on the way, the family will have 2 boys, 2 girls and a baby.

Newspaper Comics

 * Zoe, Hammie and Wren from Baby Blues.
 * For Better or For Worse, back when April was still a baby.
 * For a short time after Rerun was born, there's Lucy, Linus and Rerun van Pelt in Peanuts.
 * The family from FoxTrot would have followed this back when Jason was a baby, although we never get to see that time except in the rare Flash Back.

Web Comics

 * Holy, Polo and Elis in Irregular Elis.
 * Riyuokoan, Mimi and Enigma in Fiyora Nya.
 * Rudy, Lindesfarne and Coney Dewclaw of Kevin and Kell for the first decade or so - but time marches on and Coney has started growing up.

Western Animation

 * Bart, Lisa and Maggie Simpson in The Simpsons.
 * Chris, Meg and Stewie Griffin in Family Guy.
 * Cleveland Jr., Roberta and Rollo in The Cleveland Show.
 * Arthur, DW and Baby Kate in Arthur.
 * Doug, Judy and Cleopatra "Dirtbike" Funnie in Doug when the last one was born in the Disney version.
 * PB and J Otter: Peanut (brother), Butter (baby sister) and Jelly Otter (sister).
 * The Lionhearts also plays this straight.
 * Birdz too.