Peace W ill C om e
by L Y N N E M E R E D IT H S C H R E IB E R
Irritating, yes. But sib squabbles are dress rehearsals for life.
t takes 15 minutes to drive to my
1
sister’s house, a drive I make
regularly. We call each other at
least once a day to discuss our
children and our relationships,
and to laugh over shared memories or our
parents’ missteps. When our brother
comes into town, the three of us sit up
late, retelling old stories.
It wasn’t always like this. When we
were kids, my little sister knew exactly
what to say to reduce me to tears. She and
my brother derived silly nicknames that
made me squirm. That’s not to say we were
constantly at each other’s throats. But
more often than not, they were the greatest
source of agony during my formative years.
That’s typical. Siblings are the best and
worst of friends during childhood, which
is right-on psychologically—their sole
purpose is to gain a parent’s attention, and
irking a sib is often the way to do it.
I hated it when my mother refused to
get involved in our spats. “Work it out,”
she’d say. “I don’t want to hear about it.”
But Mom was right. That conflict
resolution she forced us to learn not only
taught us to navigate relationships, it
made us the best of friends as adults.
Many experts say parents shouldn’t
try to eliminate it as much as moderate it.
“Sibling rivalry is a dress rehearsal for
life,” says Elaine Fantle Shimberg, the
Tampa author of
Blending Families
and
a mother of five. “You have to learn to
communicate, and you have to make
compromises.”
Think before stepping in. “Parents,
wishing only to see their kids smiling,
sometimes hijack the process,” says
Chicago psychologist Aaron Cooper,
author of
I Just Want My Kids to Be
Happy! Why You Shouldn't Say It, Why
You Shouldn't Think It, What You Should
Embrace Instead
. “They mix in when sibs
bicker or fight, thinking it’s the way to
promote peace. In fact, it backfires much
of the time.”
Sibling
sayings
► “I think I’m funny
because my family, my
siblings were funny.”
— M a rtin S h o rt
► “My career has always
revolved around what I
do and don’t want my
sisters and brothers
seeing me doing.”
— M e lis s a Jo a n H a rt
► “Big sisters are the
crab grass on the lawn
of life.”
— L in u s v a n P e lt
► “As I have discovered
by examining my past, I
started out as a child.
Coincidentally, so did my
brother. My mother did
not put all her eggs in
one basket, so to speak:
she gave me a younger
brother named Russell,
who taught me what
was meant by ‘survival
of the fittest.’”
— B ill C o sb y
2 6 2
OCTOBER 2009
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