I have been spending a lot of time thinking about sibling interactions and familial relationships lately. Isobel, Eli and Emmy have moments where they fight, but for the most part I can see how much they love each other. They can play together for hours and enjoy every minute of it. I hope that it continues throughout their lives. I know there is nothing I can do to help them maintain a close relationship. I can teach them that family is important and try to instill in them how important it is to love and accept each other regardless of their own beliefs and feelings, but I can't force them to like each other.
I have always found sibling relationships fascinating. I have so many friends who will tell you that their siblings are their best friends. I am actually surprised when my friends tell me that they talk to their siblings and are happy to see them. I am shocked to hear that people go on vacations to visit their siblings... does that really happen?
I think back to my own childhood with my sister and try to think of one good memory. One time when M was kind to me, one time we enjoyed each other’s company. I can't seem to find even a single memory in my mind. I can think of times when we laughed, but it was always followed by her turning mean and saying something hurtful. I honestly cannot remember a time in my life when I wasn't afraid of M's next reaction, which would shift at a single moment. It took me years to realize that she was really just sad and wanted everyone around her to be sad as well. There are so many things I would have liked to have said to her, but never had the courage. I was always afraid that she would attack me... verbally (we never hit each other, I think she may have tickled me once or twice out of spite).
The sad thing is that I worshiped her. I thought she was the coolest person ever. I wanted to be just like her, but happy. I used to sneak into her room when she wasn't home and listen to her music, just hoping that I would like it. When she chose her college and decided that she was going to leave home, I was devastated. I started acting out and even spent a few hours with a psychologist because I didn't know how to deal with this separation. I didn't know how to be Missy and not M's sister. It was easily one of the most difficult moments in my young life. However, I prevailed with the knowledge that it didn't matter because we were sisters and you can't change that... how wrong I was.
Fast forward four years. It is New Years Day and I am recovering from a night of having a little too much fun with my friends (Mom/Dad - you probably shouldn't read this... it may shatter your image of me as the wholesome child - haha). I was hung-over and regretting all the fun I had the night before, but I was up way early in the morning and heading home to start a nice road trip with my big sis. I was going to drive with her to Northampton, spend a week and fly home. I was so excited. I was actually going to get to spend time with M, who by that point had surpassed cool and become super cool (at least in my eyes). Unfortunately, the trip was awful. It was this trip that my sister fell of her pedestal. I know I have said this before but I have never forgiven her for that tumble. She was no longer this super cool feminist idol that I had created, she was an insecure driveling idiot who bowed to the men (well, man) in her life. I realize that most of the time when elder siblings become "human" to the younger, all is forgiven. I think it is typically a moment when the younger thinks to themselves "Wow, they are human? Of course they are human, why didn't I realize that before?” It was not that way for me. Not at all. Since that moment I have tried to forget about that fateful trip.
I have tried to have the kind of relationship that siblings should have. I have tried to visit her and I have asked her to visit me. She has told me many, many times that she would come and visit, but she never shows up. I don't mean she doesn't set a date or it just doesn't happen. I mean I will be sitting around waiting for her to call or waiting for her to show up and she never does. It has happened so many times that my friends even know that she isn't going to show up and they warn me not get excited and not to get my hopes up. There is nothing more embarrassing than telling everyone I know that I can't work tonight because my big sister is finally coming to visit me, telling them how I can't wait for them to meet her. Planning a whole night of where I will take her and what we will do, only to spend the next five hours sitting in one place, alone, waiting for her to show up. Not only did she not show up, she never once apologized for not showing up, in fact she never even mentioned it.
Although I can't remember the nature of the fight or even the premise of it, I remember the moment I decided that I wasn't going to allow her to hurt me anymore. I remember the moment that I realized that just because she was my sister, I wasn't obligated to like her. Of course, I still loved her, but that didn't mean I had to subject myself to her coldness and her ridicule. At that moment, I remembered all of the horrible things she had done to me throughout my life and I forgot all of the good ones. I am sure that my sister has done something nice for me; I can't imagine that she hasn't. I am also sure that the horrible moments are not as horrible as I remember them, but I have not been able to get past them, and I don't think I ever will.
My sister is now a fine upstanding individual. She is a doctor and a mother to two biological children, an adopted child, a step child and is in the process of adopting another. She spends her free time sharing her adoption story with strangers and encouraging them to think about the world. She donates money to a plethora of organizations and spends free time thinking about the world and all of the people in it who are less fortunate than she. She takes action to help make the world a better place. Yet, for some reason, I still don't want to know her.
It is sad to know that my children will never have a real relationship with their cousins. Isobel is always asking when she will see her cousin again. They are the same age and love each other so much, but they don't know each other and I fear they never will. Even that doesn't motivate me to forgive her.
Now, please don't misunderstand, it is not as if my sister is sitting around thinking how nice it would be to have a relationship with me. It is possible that she is less interested in knowing me than I am in knowing her... very possible.
Regardless of my non-relationship with my sister, my parents did everything right. They instilled in us the importance of family. They never favored one of us over the other or harbored a competitive environment that would fuel sibling rivalry. I would even say that they went out of their way not to compare us. They did everything right. Yet, something went terribly wrong.
Which leads to the reason I am writing this post? How can I, as a parent, ensure that my children have a healthy relationship later in life? Is there anything I can do that will prevent my children from ending up like M and I? Is there a way to teach them to forgive no matter what?
I go out of my way to tell my children that destructive relationships are not relationships worth having. I teach them that if someone doesn't want to be their friend, then they are not a friend worth having. I make sure that they realize that mean people or people who make them feel bad about themselves are not worth having in their lives. What happens, though, if the mean person is a family member? Is a destructive relationship worth having if it is family? If so, does that cause confusion in other aspects of the child’s life? Is it realistic to expect them to recognize a destructive relationship outside of the family if they are taught to ignore it within the family?
As much as I want my children to be close and depend on each other, I don't want them to do it at the expense of their own feelings. I hope that none of them will do anything so severe to the other that it is unforgivable, but if that happens, I will have to accept it. After all, I have not set the best example for forgive and forget.
