Siblings Through the Eyes of an Only Child
I was my mother’s only child. She used to tell me that if she had started earlier, she would have had five. But she didn’t, so there was only me. I did have two older half-sisters, but they were in their twenties when I was born so, I grew up as an only child. I know that many people say that the best thing you can do for your only child is to give them a sibling but honestly, I don’t feel like my childhood suffered for my aloneness at all. I am naturally introverted so spending hours alone was no skin off my back. I spent hours in my imagination, creating worlds of beauty and fantasy with no limit of magic. I played games in the rain, I wandered the grassy hill behind our house, weaving daisy chains and catching grasshoppers. And I read. I read so many books. I found kindred spirits in the characters in my stories. I loved my solitude and my created world. I didn’t need any siblings to make it better.
In place of biological siblings, I had my surrogate siblings Kati and Christy. Our parents were dear friends, my mom, and their mom a part of a woman’s group that met our entire lives. They were my second set of parents and my siblings of choice. There are so many stories of our families lives’ intertwined. I can chronical my childhood in pictures of Kati (and later Christy) and I together. In fact, I’ll bet if we were presented with the challenge to pick the most “famous” photos of us, we would easily choose all of the same ones. We camped together, we took dance classes and performed in plays together, spent holidays at either house, I never knew a birthday without them and when my parents were out of town, I would always stay with them. I passed all of my clothes down to them and they were fondly known as Heather-me-downs (instead of hand-me-downs). And yet, because we didn’t actually share blood, I was removed for the intense sibling rivalry and fighting. I always found that they sniped at each other more often than not and that I was always required to sit between them on car rides rather amusing and totally foreign. The strife between siblings growing up in the same house continues to be a strange and overwhelming concept.
For better or for worse, I am a people pleaser. And, for some reason (My lovely mother-in-law would harken back to astrological chart. But that’s a topic for another day.) conflict is at the top of my list of things that very much do not please people. I do my very best to avoid it at all costs. It hasn’t been until very recently that I have even allowed myself to become outwardly angry and there are still very few people that actually receive the full scope of my temper. Truly fighting, to me, has always felt like the last resort and the very last thing I would want to do. Had I grown up scrapping day in and day out with a fellow small child living in my house, I probably would not find fighting nearly as frightening and or taboo. My children seem to have no fear of it whatsoever.
When Atty was small, a friend once told me that the best things I could do for him was not to make him an only child. For a long time, the thought of having a second child was a complete no-go. Which I summarily informed this friend of. But cut to Atty as a four-and-a-half-year-old and we were finally ready to add another sweet little being to our family. Exactly a month before his big brother’s birthday, Jasper Lane Buck was born. I’m not sure that there is a perfect age gap that siblings should have, with our boys, we weren’t raising two itty bitty ones at the same time (joke was on us there when the twins arrived). Atty understood that there was a new little baby coming and was even excited to become a big brother. He was going to be the protector. He was going to teach Jasper everything there was to know. And for those first two years, that he was. I have the most adorable videos of Atty carrying his month-old baby brother down the hall of the house to the bed of pillows he had made for the baby. He would hold and cuddle Jasper and was always so excited to see him when we picked him up from school. Of course, I’m sure some of this adoration was partly due to the novelty of having a brother who was cute and squishy and didn’t get into any of Atty’s stuff (yet) but he also just truly adored the little peanut that was his baby.
But this idyllic love brother to brother was definitely not to last. Jasper, surprise, surprise, no longer is a squishy peanut who does nothing but drool and babble. Now he is a full-blown toddler who, on top of a teeny person’s temper and stubbornness, is totally enamored with his big brother and all that he does and has. Atticus on the other hand no longer views Jasper as his little buddy. Now, most of the time, Jasper is the annoying bug constantly wanting to play with Atty but more so who just breaks his stuff. I fully recognize that being the eldest sibling is so difficult because they are always expected to be the bigger person and to know better. They are asked to share with their little siblings even when they don’t want to. They end up cleaning up after them and are expected to follow the rules more stringently. I know that Atty is in a tough position in the relationship, but it absolutely breaks my heart when Atty comes home from school and is greeted by the adoring hugs and exclamations from Jasper about how his brother is home. That his BIG brother is home. It is the gosh darn cutest thing ever.
All this is to say that they are both not in the best places in their relationship with each other and it leads to the fiercest of fighting. The main point of contention is which toys belong to whom and how does ownership dictate who gets to play with them. It is beyond me how two kids with more toys than seem to fit in our house have to spend most of their time arguing over who gets to play with the school bus from 6 Christmases ago, that has no tires. It is this time when I wish they were in more similar places in their lives. If they were eight and six, I’m sure they would still butt heads but somehow the fact that I could reason with both of them makes that sound easier. But then I would have had to deal with two little people that no reason would have been heard or understood. I suppose there is no good way to avoid sibling rivalry but, on the days, when the screaming and crying continues to rear its ugly head and my conflict avoidant soul is massively overwhelmed, I sure wish there were a magic technique to show my sweet boys how wonderful they each are. Until that hope becomes a reality, I will do my best to referee their conflicts and look forward to the day that they want to spend all of their time together again. (I’ll get back to you on the twins and what that dynamic is on this topic.)