Siblings: I love/hate you

A sibling is one of two or more individuals having one or both parents in common. A male sibling is called a brother, and a female sibling is called a sister. In most societies throughout the world, siblings usually grow up together, facilitating the development of strong emotional bonds such as love, hostility or thoughtfulness. The emotional bond between siblings is often complicated and is influenced by factors such as parental treatment, birth order, personality, and personal experiences outside the family- Wikipedia


I have often wondered why brothers and sisters have such extreme relationships of profound love and also deep hostility, which can often be demonstrated in a matter of minutes, one from another. The reason for this is probably the comfort levels which such individuals share from a very young age, in most cases from birth. I have a younger brother, so my comparison will always be with him and no one else. Nevertheless, I have observed this unique relationship within several combinations, such as only sisters or brothers, twins and even  groups of all brothers and one sister and vice versa. The common denominator in all these combinations is the supreme level of verbal comfort the siblings have between themselves, starting from addressing one another with private nicknames to even jokingly insulting one another paying no regard to the age they grow up to be. 

There are plenty of relationships we develop in our life, out of which a sibling relationship is just one more. However, statistics in the United States have shown that 80 percent of people have at least one brother or sister and such a bond often outlasts marriages, survives the death of parents and reunites after quarrels that would sink many friendships. The marvelous thing is that siblings become stronger through incarnating a thousand times their closeness, distance, warmth, loyalty and even distrust. Most of us would have to actually think hard before describing our relationship with our brothers and sisters, because flashes of incidents often come to mind which anger you to the core, laughter also fills these memories and then there is lots of teasing mischief too.  Essentially it is the one relationship which brings you as much grief and pleasure at the same time and possibly the longest relationship of your life.

I want to describe one such example of siblings where within minutes do a sister and brother go from yelling and almost hitting each other to hugging and the elder one protecting his sister. I speak of my own children who never seize to fascinate me. My daughter is 4 and my son is 7. A lot of the time they are mostly fighting about little things and disagreeing on mindless matters, but it awes me the most when my daughter has an amazing quality on being able to test my son's patience to the absolute limits and he is able to contain his anger with so much resilience. I see his frustration comes out through the occasional slap on her arm and one such incident was on the street when she was wearing a pair of shoes which were half a size too small on her, therefore hurt her feet as she walked with us. Her brother had previously warned her not to wear them as she would probably complain to us later, so much so that he threatened to hit her if she didn't go and change them before we left home. Naturally she disobeyed and found a thrill in getting away with her own decision. In exchange for her rebellion she paid the consequences of suffering the pain in her feet. I was more than happy to let her deal with her problem and let her understand why this was happening to her. 

However, her brother decided to take off his own shoes, give them to her and chose to walk in girley shoes with only half his foot inside the tiny shoes. He explained to me that he couldn't see his sister suffer and it was okay if he wore her shoes for a short while and walked funny. I was moved by his words, literally the world stood still for me at that instance. I realised how much he actually cares and loves his sister, sacrificing his own comfort. This entire episode took place in a matter of 15 minutes and of course we were back to quarrels in no time.

Aside from this example, I experience a myriad of anecdotes in my daily life where I see the two of them project in a very peculiar way the connection they share for each other. It is most endearing to see when both of them will unconditionally defend one another especially when I intervene to punish one of them in any given situation. 

In all this, I  have always wondered how much research has been done to examine this type of relationship and was astonished to discover that it has only been around 15 years or so since the study of siblings has been done. Jeffrey Kluger has looked into this in great depth and written a book called The Sibling Effect. He analyses here why siblings fight, the concept of birth order, parents favouring one child over another, the effects of divorce and stepfamilies. Out of the exhaustive analysis there is one very interesting point I picked up, which was grouping together with your sibling/s to create a power against your parents. This is a common mechanism used by siblings to gang up against their parents and form a unit of strength which actually continues to act up even in adulthood. I smirked at this observation as I admit I have used this weapon many a times with my brother to get away with murder in front of my parents. 

Kluger points out that while other relationships may be complex and rich and have their own rules and rituals, “…there may be no relationships that can run quite as deep or survive quite as long as those among siblings. You know it if you grew up with one. You know it if you’re raising some. You know it if you’ve merely watched a group of them interact.” This is a fact as I pointed out in my introduction and one just knows from  distance when a group of people are siblings. 

A sibling can have a very lasting effect on your own personality, mainly due to the circumstances. From the minute we are born, our siblings are our partners and co-conspirators. In many cases our idols and also our alibis. They can be our protectors, tormentors, playmates, guinea pigs, helpers and even objects of great pride. We often fight our greatest battles with our siblings and they are our first source of teaching on how to become a friend and also teach us to resolve conflicts or walk away from them. Sisters are the first teachers to brothers on how to deal with other girls and brothers help with the puzzle about boys. Bigger siblings learn to parent their younger siblings almost automatically and it's their first taster of early parenthood. Similarly the younger ones absorb as much wisdom from their older sibs and keep this knowledge for life. 

We must not forget that our spouses and our own children arrive in our life much later and sadly our parents leave earlier than we would hope. Therefore, our siblings are the ones to see us grow and later see us age as well. A full circle is what you experience with your brothers and sisters. Based on this fact is how family sociologist Katherine Conger of the University of California, Davis states “ our brothers and sisters are with us for the whole journey.”

To conclude I would like to state the importance of having a sibling in your life, as often we see families with an only child and only then do we value the weight of a sibling in our life. 

Research has indicated that warmth in sibling relationships is an accomplice to lesser loneliness, fewer behaviour problems, and higher self-esteem (Stocker, 1994). Marjut Kosonen (1996) studied the emotional support and help that siblings can administer and found that when they needed help, children first seek out their mothers, but then search out to older siblings for support, even before they would go to their fathers. She also found that for secluded children (as is the case for many children placed into foster care), sibling support is especially crucial. For these children, an older sibling was often their only perceived source of comfort.

I once again defend this argument based on my personal experiences with my younger brother: We both left for boarding school at the ages of 13 and 10 respectively and although at the time neither of us may have realised this, but years later I read the handwritten letters sent to me by him and I could sense a closeness he shared with me which was most definitely disguised under a lot of mischief and amusing curse which was the method of communication he chose to adopt with me, despite being his elder sister. I noted a profound comfort level he shared with me, we depended on each other and although we never complained once to each other about missing our parents, it was just understood that he was there for me and vice versa.

I do not have a sister so I will never know how pure a relationship of two sisters can be, but if it is anything close to what I share with my brother, well I wish everyone had both a sister and a brother to gloat about.