Thursday, October 7, 2010

Siblings

I've been thinking a lot about siblings lately. I don't really know why, but it seems like I'm constantly having these moments of reflection about what it is to have a brother or sister and how those relationships change over time.

I'll start with my own kids. It started when my wife was pregnant with our middle child. Our daughter had been the only child in our family and the only grandchild on either side of our families for a couple of years. Like most only children, she was enjoying a life of indulgence. She was never without stimulation from adults; no matter where she went, she was the center of attention. Every holiday was an extravaganza of gifts that she didn't have to share with anyone. In fact, for her first two years, she didn't have to share anything. I have to admit, I was nervous about how she would react to having not only a new little brother in the house, but on my side of the family, she was getting a cousin at about the same time. I had heard stories about children in that situation acting out when the new baby came or refusing to accept that the new baby was even part of the family: "Can we take it back?"

When my son was born, everyone made sure that my daughter knew this didn't make her less special or that we would love her any less now that she wasn't the only little kiddo in our lives. My wife and I got her a baby doll as a present for her to open at the hospital when she came out to meet her little brother, and my parents got her a gift as well. We told her that the doll was for her to practice on so she could be a big helper with her little brother. She was beaming. I love to look at the pictures we have of her holding him at the hospital. You can't imagine a happier little girl, but I wasn't ready to let my guard down. I knew that this could just be a "honeymoon" phase and that things could change very quickly after a few days. This never happened. It was quite the opposite as a matter of fact. The days passed by, and instead of distancing herself from her little brother, she became more and more infatuated with him. They were together every minute of every day for a few months. This hadn't occurred to me until one Friday night when I decided to take her to a high school football game.

I was student teaching at the time, and I really thought it would be a good experience to go to a game and see my students outside of the classroom, a teacher's right of passage. My wife and I also decided it would be fun if my daughter went with me. My wife was working, so I dropped my son off with some friends of ours who had agreed to watch him for the evening, and my daughter and I headed to the game. Within a block of dropping my son off, my daughter became completely inconsolable at the thought of being away from her precious little brother. She cried the entire twenty-minute drive to the game. Once we were there and she was able to watch the band play and cheerleaders cheer, everything was okay, but as soon as we got back into the car, she immediately became worried about her brother. I thought she was happy the day he was born, but that was nothing compared to her reaction when we walked into our friends' house and she saw him again.

That was three years ago. I am happy to report that they are still as close as they were that night. It probably helps that they share a bedroom, so they continue to spend an incredible amount of time together. Sure, they have their moments when they don't want to take turns or they can't agree on what movie to watch, but at the end of the day, I don't know that either of them has a better friend in the world than each other. Over the past couple of weeks, they have developed the need to sleep in the same bed. I wasn't sure about this at first, but when my son waited until we left the room and snuck up into the top bunk with his sister, and my wife and I found them snuggled up together sleeping peacefully, I decided I should just cherish these moments while we have them. In the words of Darius Rucker, "It won't be like this for long."

A few months ago, my wife and I welcomed our third child to the world. Again, I was worried about the reaction of our other two children. For my daughter, I was worried about the disappointment of having another little brother instead of the little sister she had ordered. We had kept the sex of this baby a secret from everyone, including our two children, so we decided that a good way to avoid any issues with our daughter would be to let her in the secret the day before my wife was scheduled to be induced. This worked like a charm. She was disappointed, but it was offset by the excitement of being trusted with such an important secret. I was less worried about my older son than I was about my daughter when he was born because he wasn't used to being the only kid in the house, but I also figured he might have a problem with not being Daddy's only little buddy anymore. Again, my children amazed me.

When our older two met the new guy for the first time, they naturally wanted to hold him and love on him, but I really thought it would be something where they would hold him for a minute or two and lose interest. This couldn't have been farther from the truth. Both of my kids held their little brother on numerous occasions for upward of thirty minutes. They would just sit there and hold him in their lap like he was the greatest treasure on Earth, hugging him and kissing him and talking to him. It hasn't stopped. They still faun all over their little brother every chance they get, and they are enormously protective of the little guy. They are quick to let us know that we have let too much time lapse since he started crying and that we need to take care of him. Often, they will even let us know what it is he is crying about and what we ought to do to alleviate the situation.

I guess the sibling relationship I see in my own kids, and how incredible it all seems to me, is probably the reason I have become so attuned to the sibling dynamics around me. I remember growing up as the oldest of three boys. We were all close in age (four years between me and my youngest brother), so we grew up playing on a lot of the same teams and having many of the same friends. This led to some pretty contentious sibling rivalry from time to time. Sure, I have a ton of great memories of all of us playing together and getting along great, but there were also times when we wanted to tear each other apart. This got a lot worse when we were all teenagers. We were all struggling to find our own identities and develop relationships outside of the family, but we were all at different stages, all having different needs from each other at the same time. As the oldest, I desperately wanted to develop a social life separate from my brothers. For them, I can only guess that they weren't quite ready to lose the leader of our little wolf pack. We fought and bickered for much of our teen years, but now that we are adults, I can honestly say that I count my brothers as two of my best friends.

My wife is the youngest of a mixed bag: two girls and a boy. From what I have heard, they were not a very close bunch. Unlike my brothers and I who all had the same interests, my wife and her siblings are all completely different. Each of them had their own interests and hobbies, so they didn't share a lot of the same things that I shared with my brothers. For this reason, that little bit of separation I had with my brothers was far greater for them. However, this past weekend, we were over at the home of my in-laws. My wife's sister was there with her fiance, and her brother was in and out as he worked to get crops out of the fields. We had a great day of four-wheeler riding, combining (for my son with his uncle), and visiting with the family, but everyone agrees that the highlight was the hour or so that the three kids spent (plus my sister-in-law's fiance and me) sitting around the kitchen table chatting about anything and everything that came to our minds. My wife was beaming. She said she can't remember a time when she had just sat with her brother and sister and just talked without any real purpose. Around that table were people who were enjoying each other's company simply because they enjoyed each other's company. They didn't have to sit and talk like that just because they are related. They did it because they genuinely like each other.

As I sit and write this all down, I wonder what I can take away from it all. What message can I express about siblings? There is a saying about being able to pick your friends but not your family. The idea is that we are better off with our friends because we get to pick them but that our families are something we are saddled with. Certainly, there are times in our lives that it feels that way, but I also feel blessed that I was given the family I have. They're not perfect. Nobody is, but they are a group of people that know who I am in a way that even my friends probably don't. Our siblings are people with whom we have a shared heritage. Even if we experienced it in different ways, we have the same basic history. We share traditions, memories, and at the expense of sounding a little cheesy, love. I know that as my children grow, there will be times they don't like each other, but I also know that they love I see between them now will always be in there somewhere, just waiting for an afternoon around the kitchen table to show itself again.

29 comments:

  1. Well ; Mr. Ogle. I couldn't of read this at a more perfect time. My step mom is pregnant and my dad is scared of the same things for us. He thinks that we are going to feel like the baby is more loved and stuff. My littler sister & brother do feel that way butttt. I dont. Im sure it will be different when the baby is born. :]MADDIE JOHNSON!

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  2. I cant really say I feel the same way being an only child and all. I do feel like I would be somewhat jealous of a sibling because I have been an only child for over fifteen years.
    M.N.T

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  3. Reading this got me thinking about me and my sisters relationship. We haven't been getting along at all latley, and i always wonder if that will change. During Christmas, or Thanksgiving, sometime when my whole family is together, I see my mom and all her siblings hugging and talking like they are all best friends. I've always wondered if me and all my siblings will be like that when we get older. After i read this, i now know that it's not just people from my family that get closer as they get older, and i can only hope the same for me and my siblings.
    -- Madelinee Wilson :]]

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  4. I know how hard it is dealing with my relationships with my sisters changing. First it changed when they went to college and now it changed when one of them got married. We aren't as close as we used to be but now we get along much better.
    Nique Tyler

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  5. This post really makes people with siblings think about their relationships between their brothers and sisters. I fight all the time with my two younger sisters. I feel that they are just so impatient and annoying. When i sit back and think about all of it though, i want to change the relationships between my sisters and i. I hope the relationships change when we all get older.

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  6. i have an older brother and a older sister. They tell me that when i was born they thought i was really cute at first but then everyone paid attention to me and not them, so they didnt like me for too long, but now that im older my sister and i are really close, but my brother is still a jerk.(:

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  7. This really makes me feel about the times me and my brothers and sisters fight. And that is pretty much all the time. But I feel like the older you get the less you fight but when you do fight it is a big mess for you.

    -Kayla Stickler

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  8. -Carmen Jones
    I have young siblings. I really love my little brother he is the cutiest thing you will ever meet. But my other sibling is a little sister. I love her a lot but sometimes she just gets on my nerves. I always wanted to help her with dressing and giving her advice about relationships.

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  9. Wow. You describe this parental thoughts and issues sooooo well. I can't count how many times I've had the same concerns, fears, joys, and triumphs in raising my two little ones. Your blog posts always make me cry! Stop it! :) Great job. Keep up the good work!

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  10. Thanks, Mrs. Wells. That means a lot coming from someone who reads and writes as much as you do.

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  11. I know that I didn't like my little brother at all when he was born. I was six and the youngest at the time. I had an older sister who was fourteen and an older brother who was twelve. They didn't seem to mind, but I hated him. Now though I love him even if I don't show it all the time.
    Jasmine Bennett 2nd Hour

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  12. I hate my siblings. It is a simple as that. They are annoying and mean. Trust me, being the middle sucks. Really. The other 2 team up on me and it just isn't fair. in the in end though, i love them and some day they will be the only family i have.
    Kelsey Dougherty

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  13. I cannot stand being the middle child. It is not fun. The advice i can give yours when they get older, is that they will probably be ganged up on. It's just what happens. Even if your youngest is three years younger than your middle... it doesn't matter.
    Kelsey Dougherty

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  14. Your daughter seems like such a sweetie! Reading this made me think about having children later on in life. I hope if I have more than one kid, that they will get along like your two. I thought it was adorable that they would sneak in bed with each other when you left. That Darius Rucker song, is a good one! I did one of my blogs on it! Anyways, I only have one sibling, we have mostly got along in our childhood, but we don't get along as well as we use to. I remember I would go in his room at like 5 am christmas morning and tell him I can't sleep so he would tell me to stay in his room and I would ask a million times if we could go open presents yet. I've always wondered what it would be like without a sibling, probably boring but maybe awesome because I would get lots of praise like your daughter did.

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  15. I feel like I kind of missed out on all of these expirences. I didn't get to feel what it's like to have a new brother and sister. My sister and I fight alot, and I'm hoping we'll get along better.

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  16. me and my sistears have the same intrests but we fight about everything . my mom always says that we were really close as kids her being 3 years younger than me she says we were kind of like ur daughter and son wee were best friends then i started to grow into a teanage boy anlose that bc i started to grow up i hope that we can get that realtionship back one day
    Cameron Malone

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  17. My sister and I sometimes fight alot but we love each other. She means alot to me, but sometimes we agree on things and sometimes we dont. We are really close to each other i dont know what i would do if i didnt have her in my life.

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  18. I remember being young and missing my sister, even at a young age your sister is something you will always remember. Until I was six I got to spend every two weeks with her every summer. The most prominant of these two weeks was the last we spent together. She was eight and our grandma would let us wander around as long as we didn't go any farther than two blocks. But that limit was more than enough for us. Our grandmother worked out of a craft shoppe a block from town home and it was just one of the many interesting things the neighborhood had to offer. Every morning our grandmother would give us each seven dollars and we would walk our two block limit to a small cafe on the corner. We would buy hot chocolate or apple cider then walk back a half a block and go to charlie's chocolate factory for three chocolate cows. Charlie was an elderly man who ran a homemade candy store out of the walk in of his home. Then we would go back to our grandmother's and give her a chocolate cow before playing with her neighbor's children. My sister makes me miss being a kid. I never knew how little I truely knew about her until two years ago, when I met her again.

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  19. sometimes i wish that i was a only child because my little brother is a brat and my older brother thinks he can push me around but he cant but we have a good relationship

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  20. I am the middle child of three biological siblings. I have middle child syndrome or whatever it's called. Or so I'm told. The love between growing siblings is the most mysterious thing (personally) I think between any love of any different members of a family. We share bonds and talk for hours about things our parents will never understand. But in the next moment, we can be morbid enemies and resent them completely. For the longest time, my brother and I were two peas in a pod. As toddlers, there isn't a single photo of us not grabbing on to one another or sharing a smile about somethine that made no sense to anyone but us. My sister, in our minds, was comparable to Godzilla. We didn't see or interact with her much, she hid in her room, and I she ever wanted was to be understood. Jake and I, however, didn'tknow how to do anyhing but reek havoc and Sarah wouldn't stand for such behavior. We feared her. As we all grew though, things changed. My parents parted ways. Made life close to hell for us children. I still loved them ever so much equally, but you know, I was just down right angry and confused with them. We all were. We all were at the same time as well, and there was no way of explaining that to kids of our age. Our relationships became bipolar. No happy medium. Super happy, or destructive. Coming to te teen years, things got better as we learned to cope. Both parents were remarried and brought MORE children ot the mix. That created so many different and awkward emotions for everyone, haha. Oh well, we grew older. Into to the teens, my sister and I were best friends. I owe my sense of humor to her. WE just got along so well for our age difference. Jake and I had it out for each other for the longest time, which hurt me so so much. But we both got through it. Now that Sarah is off in college and doing her own thing, our relationship has grown far too formal for my likings and it bothers me. JAke and I have made it back to being very close, and he's finaly becoming funny. MY siblings helped shape who I am, and I brag on them every chance I get. I dare anyone to hurt either one of them as well, that goes for my step siblings too. Children need siblings, it's the first and only training to friendships and people skills before the actual thing happens. I couldn't imagine being an only child. Whatever happens with your children andtheir relationships in the future was destined to happen, and will work past itself... IF it even does happen. Arguing is healthy to an extent. Siblings are our first and last friends in life, and I feel sorry for those who do not have them. I cannot wait for my afternoon table conversations, or what they're going to sound like.

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  21. me and my brother are 7 years apart so it is really hard for us to get along because he wants to be able to the things that I can do but he doesn't understand that he isn't old enough yet. Whenever we were younger we got along great but whenever I started getting into middle school, he just seemed annoying to me. I do hope we could regain that closeness back some day it's just really hard for me to be patient enough with someone that's 7 years younger than me..
    -Mariah 2nd and 5th

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  22. My brother and I are 13 months apart, therefore we are super close. I dont know what I would do without my brother and I couldnt even imagine life without him. Yes, we do argue sometimes but we're fine five minutes later. I also have three step sisters and three step brothers that I couldnt be without either.
    Kaytlin Tague 2nd Hour

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  23. I have two older brothers, Lucas and Marcus. Lucas is 17 and Marcus almost 16. Being the only girl and the youngest is definitely hard at times. I get beat up, pushed around, and I get talked to like I am 2 years old. My brothers and I are very close though. We have a strange bond that no matter how much we yell and scream at each other we always end up laughing and smiling at the end of it all. Although I get lonely and sometimes wish I had a sister to keep me company I wouldn't trade my brothers in for anything.

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  24. I have a younger half brother. He is 10 years old and we wrestle all the time. We always are messing around and sometimes we get into a serious fight. But we still love eachother and get along. When we need to be good we can but it's just hard too. We never sit still and we are always wrestling. Sometimes I can't stand him when he gets mouthy. But he's just young and he will learn to shut his mouth
    -Garrett Aitken

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  25. Having siblings is the first friendship anyone will have. I am the youngest of two siblings which is the reason why im the position i am today. No matter how much we all fight, we all have influenced each other in some way. My sister which is 25 now has been the reason I not failed high school, she has been my motivator since I can remember, my brother not so much. My brother is 21 and is the reason my interest and love is with the automotive and wildlife industry. We have been in alot of sketchy situations but I would be the same today if i did not have these experiences.Lane Tessman 2nd Hour

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  26. I have two siblings: Seth (20) and Karley (10). We don't get along all the time, but deep down I know we all have each other's backs. It's so terrible to think that one day our parents will pass and we'll be only left with each other. I am so glad and blessed that I was fortunate enough to grow up with a brother and a sister. We have made some awesome memories that will stick with us forever. Having friends will most likely end at some point but you will always have your siblings.
    Samantha Moore 8th Hour

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  27. I have a sister and she is graduating high school this year. On
    Ce they past couple of years we have grown apart a lot. We barley talk anymore even when we are in the same room or car. We fight a lot. That most of are conversations. We do have some really good times. Over all we are just very different .

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  28. I have two younger siblings and they are just a pain at times, but I wouldn't trade then for the world. They mean so much to me. We may fight constantly, but we are practically bestfriends by the end of the day. I wouldn't change that at all.

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  29. I am the middle child of an older brother who is ten years older than me and a sister that is two years younger than me. Me and my brother have pretty much always gotten along pretty well for the most part. Of course we had our differences, but with there being such a large age gap between us it was hard to even find things to fight about. My sister and I on the other hand have never been great about getting along until this year. We have always constantly screamed and yelled forever about the dumbest things. This past year has been a lot better. We get along a lot better than before. We still get in fights every now and then but our relationship has gotten a lot stronger recently. My brother and sister are both really musically talented and have not found much interest in sports where I am the exact opposite. Our different interests does not keep us from doing things together as a family and talking about things randomly.
    Brenna Aitken

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