Interview Summaries

About the Daniels Family

Since I asked each of the siblings to describe the others after describing themselves. Through this I gained a unique perspective into their not only their own view of their family life, but also the view of their life from their sibling’s perspectives as well. Below are my summaries about each of the 5 siblings in the Daniels family. The Daniels family grew up in suburban Northbrook, Illinois. They were fairly wealthy growing up as their father Arthur, worked for a waste management company that was started by his own father. Their mother, Kathy, was a stay at home parent who used a variety of different parenting styles on each of the children. Growing up they had many dogs because Kathy loves dogs like her own children.

Their Backgrounds as Described by Their Siblings

Tammy Daniels:

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Tammy was of course the oldest in the family growing up and was a sort of role model for her two sisters. This meant that she set the tone for everyone. She seemed to excel in school because she worked very hard at it. She along with her sisters attended private catholic schools growing up so religion played a significant role in her life. She would eventually go to a private, all girls, catholic high school called Loyola Academy where she enjoyed her schooling. She maintains many of her friends from high school to this day. She was very straight edge according to her siblings. She was always known as a rule follower and any sort of thing that broke the rules gave her anxiety. According to her siblings my grandparents were the most strict with her in comparison. She never was allowed to be out very late in high school but this never bothered her because she always obeyed without a question. She was willing to listen to her parents without question so she set the bar very high for her siblings because she was seemingly the “perfect” child. She met her eventual husband, Rob Burke, in high school at a small get together with friends. He went to Notre Dame High School which was a private school from a couple of towns over. She said that “he was handsome and was a year older than her so we dated all through the rest of high school and even when he commuted to college for a year.” Then it was time for her to go to college she had the car loaded up and was ready to go but she broke down in tears and said she didn’t want to go anymore. She said that at the time she told her parents that it was because she did not want to be away from home. However, she later confessed that the reason was because she wanted to be closer to Rob. This lead to her commuting to a local community college where she would eventually become a teacher at an elementary school in the Chicago suburbs for about 10 years before she married Rob and decided that she wanted to have kids and retired. They then had three children and she would then spend her time at home taking care of the kids and the house in Glenview, Illinois. According to her siblings, she was the most strict parent of all of them. She as a parent wanted to make sure that she was very involved in her children’s lives and kept a close eye on their every move. Shannon said about her parenting “Tammy keeps a very close leash on all of her children. She wants to make sure that they are succeeding. And even though sometimes she can be over bearing at times, she does it out of love.” To this day she is described by her brothers and sisters as being the most up tight of the children. This could be a direct result of the tough parenting that she received as a child.

Shannon Daniels:

For most of her childhood Shannon was known as the one to break the rules a little bit. She was always wanting to do fun things like hanging out with friends and or simply being outside. She was the middle of the three sisters and definitely had what is referred to as “middle child syndrome”. This is where the middle child in a family is known to act out a little bit from what their older sibling did in order to stand out in the family. This is perhaps a common instinct in humans as we desire attention. When it came time for high school she attended the same high school as Tammy, however she describes this as “the worst year of her life”. She hated every minute of being at an all girls high school and begged her parents to go to public high school. She convinced her parents and transferred into the Glenbrook North High School. She unlike her older sister loved to be out late and to party. At one of the parties she went to she would meet her eventual husband, Tom Schweiger. Shannon was very tall and said that she liked that Tom was taller than her. She said that she liked that Tom was fun and could go out with to parties and have a lot of fun. She then attend Purdue University and a few years later she married Tom and they had four children. She decided that her lifelong love for photography was something that she wanted to pursue so she became a professional photographer. However, she was very willing to put this aside for a few years while she raised her children. She decided to settle down in Libertyville, Illinois to raise her kids. Shannon is certainly more lenient of a parent than her older sister as she allows them to do whatever. Tammy explained that “Shannon is more lenient with her children than me probably because my parents were more lenient with her.” She explains that it is a direct result the increased freedoms she had when she was a kid, which she herself did not receive.

Erin Daniels:

Erin was the middle child in the family but for the majority of her young childhood she was the baby. This was because the age gap between her and Drew was quite significant. She, according to her siblings Tammy and Shannon, had as much freedom as Shannon did. She was a little more quiet as a kid. She was very much reserved and looked up to her older sisters as role models. She was a balance between their personalities where Tammy was very up tight and Shannon was very free spirited. Her parents were still strict with her as they were with Shannon but not nearly as strict as they were with Tammy. She was allowed to go to parties and do whatever but still could not be wild and do whatever she wanted. She then was presented the option of which high school she wanted to go to. She could either go to Tammy’s all girls school or Shannon’s public school. She chose to attend Glenbrook North High School with Shannon and therefore set the precedent for her younger brothers. She then went on to attend Butler University where her freshman year she met a guy on the baseball team named Sean McGould. Sean in her words was “the perfect guy. He fas nice, smart and very funny.” She would then date Sean for the remainder of college and a few years later they would get married. She and Sean moved to Bermuda then for a few years because Sean got a job opportunity there and then was transferred to Palm Beach, Florida when a great opportunity was presented to him. A few years later they decided to have kids and Erin would stay at home in order to take care of the kids and the home. They now have three children however Erin is constantly occupied as a parent. She has often used nannies to take care of her children when she did not have the time to do so herself.

Drew Daniels:

Being a full 8 years younger than Erin, Drew grew up in a different decade than his sisters. Growing up drew was a pretty normal boy. He played sports, video games, watched movies and hung out with his friends like any other kid. However, there was a major difference in the parenting he received between Drew and his sisters. Drew was given a lot more freedom to do whatever he wanted. Drew attended public schools there is whole life and then eventually went to Glenbrook North High School. There he played football and would make friends with some of the biggest partiers in the school. Drew was constantly getting into trouble, however, his parents seem to turn a blind eye to this. They let him party, pull pranks and essentially have all of the freedom in the world. Drew went to college at Western Michigan University and then came back to work at his father’s company. He eventually met a girl at a bar named Brynn Turley, who he began to date because he thought that she was kind, cute and funny. He married her a few years later and then they had children. They moved to a Chicago suburb called Lake Forest and settled down. Brynn works part time as a real estate agent and also stays at home part time to take care of their three younger children.

Todd Daniels:

Todd was the youngest in the family. He was younger than Tammy by 14 years but was only a year younger than Drew. Therefore, growing up Drew was his biggest influence as a sibling. Todd liked to do all of the same things as his brother. He was given the same sort of hands-off parenting as well. His parents allowed him to do whatever he wanted so he followed in Drews footsteps. According to his siblings, he was the baby in the family and was given essentially anything he wanted or needed. However, Todd was a bit skinnier and taller than his older brother so he decided to play basketball at Glenbrook North High School. There he met some of his good friends but still spent most of his time hanging out with his Drew and his friends. He would eventually go to college at the University of Iowa, where he joined their wakeboarding team. One night there at a party he met a girl named Heidi Annetsberger. At the time he did not know that she had actually also attended Glenbrook North and even graduated in the same class as him. They had never met because she was in the advanced group of students that took classes at both Glenbrook North and Glenbrook South high schools. However, Todd liked her because she was a little bit quieter than other girls. He thought that she was very caring and obviously extremely intelligent. After college Todd came back home and worked for his father’s company meanwhile Heidi works as a pharmacist. Todd and Heidi got married and settled back down in their old hometown of Northbrook, Illinois. They now have three very young children.