Last week Amelie went off on a week long camp (more on this later!) It was quite strange to send her away; out of all of them, she is the loudest child in the house by a mile. She is also the dynamic changer and argument maker and all round household button pusher. We all love her to bits – obviously – but it is certainly true that the house is a very different place without her. For a week, calm, peace and relative tranquility reigned. There were no fights for the remote, no one to try and squeeze an extra favour or half and hour out of bedtime, or kick up a fuss because she’d actually been asked to do something to contribute to family life. Silence and affable communal living slid into being.
It was awful 😆
It’s a momentary snapshot of life in the grand scheme of things. My girls know only too well that life would be utterly desperate without any of their siblings and sadly they also know to be careful what they wish for. We’ve always had reasonable relations between them as well. Fran and Maddy absolutely never argue EVER; I can count the rows they’ve had on 1 hand even after 12 years of having them both. Fran and Josie never fight. Josie and Maddy only fight if Maddy doesn’t bend to Josie’s will. But Josie adores Maddy and knows which side her bread is buttered, so they rub along okay.
Amelie, on the other hand, gets into scraps with everyone – until they break. So far she has demoted Maddy in sibling ranking and she and Josie have an uneasy alliance which works mostly because Josie is like seaweed in the waves; she bends, but she is well rooted and she’s still there when the tide passes. Fran and Amelie, while mildly affected in sibling rivalry by many family standards, really rile each other. They are vinegar in each others paper cuts, determined to be the person to have the last word or end up with the moral high ground. It’s a shame because they are very alike in many ways in terms of their interests but Amelie is always wanting to get a rise out of Fran – she’s a prize wind up merchant – and Fran cannot resist trying to get her into trouble or knock her down a peg or two. It’s a good job they don’t tend to resort to fisticuffs – but I suppose that’s what personal injury lawyers arefor 😉 I can cope with the arguments, but I suppose I should be grateful that I’m not always breaking up fights, mopping up the ailments of ‘accidents’ and sorting out broken possessions. At least their animated discussions are fairly short-lived and don’t tend to end in broken noses. I still remember the boy who broke my school friends arm over a log to settle a disagreement 🙄
It’s funny to think that if we hadn’t had more than 2 children we really wouldn’t have ever known that the dynamics of siblings can be less than harmonious. Amelie basically wants to be alpha female in the house. Fran is next in line for subjugation and she has Max in her sights too. I think she knows she would meet her match in me so far, we had quite a long ‘discussion’ about this recently 😉 And it’s fascinating to watch when you know her, because while I ricochet between admiring her and wanting to throttle her but I also know she is as brittle and fragile as glass and so much of her relentless drive is a facade. I can well imagine Amelie doing very well as a career woman who will step hard on anyone who gets in her way, but I can also imagine she will go home at night and cry because she knows she is resented for any success she achieves. It could well be a lonely place to be, if she doesn’t learn to temper her drive with tact. And it’s funny, because I also know she’s a sensitive and genuine girl who would be broken if she actually knew how much frustration she stirs in her sisters souls. She’s yet to understand that the only effect of her actions is not how it makes her feel.
What differences are there in how your children get along? Do certain relationships between them work better than others? Can you pinpoint the reason why some are as close as terraced houses and others would be better set in their own stately grounds?
Sibling squabbles and dynamics are probably the most difficult of challenges in our household of two sets of twins and the dynamics of the household do change if one is missing. We have boy and girl twins who are very close, get along pretty much all of the time with the odd disagreement inbetween. Then there are our two identical twin girls who pretty much operate on a love/hate, cuddle/pullhair relationship. All four together and the dynamic can mean 3 girls with one boy outnumbered and feeling unloved or the biggest camp wanting to be left alone by the youngest camp. Eldest daughter gets frustrated by youngest sisters hanging off her every way they can and wanting to be her. And then there’s me, Mum and Dad when he’s not working trying to work our way through the endless sibling battles so I am very grateful you wrote this post!
My older two fight all of the time so coming to the end of a week without them has been bliss with only a toddler, albeit a miserable one due to a nasty shingles rash.
I am the eldest of six and don’t really have a relationship with any of my siblings.
My brother was a boy boy so had little in common. Lots of physical fights with him. Next sister I just hated and now can tolerate our annual Christmas meet up. Next two sisters start getting too young to have had anything much in common. My youngest brother is 13 years younger than me so I left home when he was still little and therefore of no real interest, and even when we meet up, again at the annual Christmas gathering, I only speak to him for about 15 mins of an entire weekend – we just have no common ground.
So I suppose my relationship with siblings is ok since I only see them for a weekend once a year and we can manage to get on for that time. Only hope my three get on better with each other when they are older.
My two argue, a lot, but then they have times of great friendship. A lot of their problems stem from rivalry and jealousy over my attention, and so it all seems to me that their relationship, or the lack thereof, is my fault, and that I have done something wrong in my parenting. Perhaps I have.
My own relationship with my two sisters (one full and one half) is pretty much non-existent, and my dad sees that as their fault, not mine, but I have told him not to bother on my account (he often tells me he is going to “sort them out”) as I am personally not that interested….which is sad, but unfortunately true – our lives hold no common ground, we have very different values and interests, very different lifestyles, and I know that I am looked down upon for my thriftiness and contentment with my lot in life, which to me is everything, but for them, I have no ambition. My ambitions are my own, private and not ostentatious at all – no one but me will know when they are achieved!
To reference your questions, my two sisters would be stately homes, in their own grounds, and queens of all they survey – I would be far happier in a cabin in the woods with my family and a small pack of dogs! I don’t do terraced houses either as I am not sure I could cope with neighbours that close – I like my space! As for my children, I think that one would be happy like me in a cabin in the woods, where she would either be a mad scientific professor, experimenting, or writing long novels – or both. The other would be the one of us who would cope and love the terraced house scenario – she is gregarious, social and very happy in a small crowd. But she is not a team player – she is a gymnast, an individual competitor, who drives her sports teachers mad because she refuses to play team sports for the school teams!!
Gosh, I do waffle on! Sorry – but it is an interesting question and I will be reading other replies with great enthusiasm xx