Finding Peace in Sibling Rivalries

Having grown up with two younger sisters, I am much too familiar with sibling rivalry.  Nothing ever comes in threes—amusement park ride seats come in pairs or fours, Popsicles come in twos, Kit Kats come in fours.  This, of course, made it incredibly hard to divvy up things evenly, which inevitably led to a lot of bickering (or worse).  Add to that destructive mix the raging hormones of three adolescent girls and only one bathroom and you have the formula for Armaggedon on a daily basis.

As a result, when I became pregnant with my second child, I did a lot of praying for a more peaceful combination of personalities and genders. My hope was that my children would actually like each other sometime before the age of 25. My sisters and I finally cultivated friendships after college, but I still feel a little wistful about all the wasted years that we could have been enjoying each other if we had been able to somehow reach that point sooner.

Thus far, I remain optimistic because there have been good omens.  Overheard in my house recently between my 3-year-old dear son (DS) and 6-year-old dear daughter (DD):

DS:  [to his sister] “I like you.”
DD:  “Then stop sticking your tongue out at me.”
DS:  “I think you’re pretty.”

Now I realize they are still young, so it is far too early to tell where the chips are going to fall, especially prior to the turbulence of adolescence.  So I thought I would ask my mother about my history with my sisters, to see if I could gain any tips for preventative action.

Me:  “Mom, did we fight when we were little?”
Mom:  “I don’t remember.”
Me:  “How could you not remember?”
Mom:  “I don’t remember much about you guys when you were little.”

I do know that by age eight, I have memories of getting in catfights with one of my younger sisters to the point that my 80-year-old grandmother would have to physically break us up.  So apparently, it was bad enough that my mother had to block out those good times from her memory.

I have a few friends with older children who match ours in gender and birth order; that is, an older daughter and younger son. I was delighted to see that while in high school, they did seem to get along for the most part. However, I also noticed that there was a tendency in their families for the older sister to do almost everything for the younger brother.  I guess if I had been willing to make sandwiches for my sisters and serve them while they laid on their lazy butts in front of the TV all day, we would have gotten along better too.  Alas, I was not that altruistic.

So I wonder if there is a happy medium, where my daughter and son can both learn to serve each other and still come to consider each other friends.  I am still not sure how best to facilitate that process, but I am hoping that making it a family value and talking about it a lot will be a good first step.