Sibling rivalry is alive and kicking!
You get to see all sorts working on checkouts in a store like ours. Yesterday two little girls of identical height were putting on a fantastic display of sibling rivalry. Everything, absolutely everything, was a power struggle – who got the take the item off the hanger, who got to scan it, who got to bag it, who got to put the money in, who got to take the change, who got to take the receipt – and there were moments when it looked like a full on physical struggle was on the cards. The mum admirably tried to block it out and carry on regardless. I remember being that person many a time. I tried to diffuse the situation by talking to the girls and telling them about my two who are often also mistaken for twins as there is only ten months between them (there was two years between these two girls!) and who will also argue over the most trivial of things. My final words were ‘I can tell you are sisters by how much you fight!’ The mum was again very restrained and did not say anything (or hit me!). On reflection, it was maybe not the most helpful thing to say, but I did avert a full-on war breaking out between the pair, so all in all, job done.
Sibling rivalry is alive and kicking. Ask any sibling who is their mum’s favourite and they will always say someone else – and their mum will assert that she does not have favourites and she loves them all the same. I have five children and they all think I love the others more than them, that the others are treated better than them and ‘get more stuff’. Actually, I don’t love them all the same. I love them all differently because they are all different. I have had friends over the years who have stopped one of their children doing something, because it’s not fair on the other one. Or who buy a present for one on the other one’s birthday so they don’t feel left out. I haven’t done that. I couldn’t have done. With so many kids, that is not practical. No two children can ever get treated exactly the same because they are not exactly the same.
Take Cain and Abel in Genesis 4 for example – Cain was a farmer and Abel was a shepherd. They both brought an offering of their hard work to God –
And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry and his countenance fell. Genesis 4:4,5
I don’t blame him, do you? This doesn’t seem like great parenting. Abel’s offering is clearly favoured over Cain’s. But of course, there is more to every situation than meets the eye and these brief verses do nothing to flesh out the story and help us understand. There are plenty of times when I could be accused of favouritism, putting one child’s needs above another’s, celebrating one child’s achievements more than another’s. Family life is not a level playing field. It is not fair. We spent a whole year ferrying Keir around the North West of England for football matches and family life had to fit around that. Then we spent a lot of time and money on loaning a horse for Courtney. Now Nicola is attending several dance classes a week. At any point in time, one child can seem favoured over another and ‘IT’S NOT FAIR!!!’
Of course, this is further complicated in our family because of the mix of birth children and adopted children. I remember a holiday in Turkey a couple of years ago, when Courtney was unsettled and miserable and she spent the majority of her time trying to convince Jordan and Nicola that we did not love them as much as Luke and Keir because they did not come out of my tummy. No amount of debating or persuading or convincing could change her mind. This is what she felt deep down in her being and she could find tiny scraps of evidence in everything I said and did to back her up.
So Cain took his brother out into a field and killed him. It seems like a total over-reaction, doesn’t it? Maybe a bit of door-slamming would be in order or indulging in a spot of choice name-calling. Even a tug on the hair or a punch on the arm (not that I am condoning these of course, just living in the real world….). But murder is definitely taking it too far and there are consequences, boy there are consequences. Have a read of Genesis 4 yourself. However aggrieved we may feel, violence and hatred and destructive anger are never acceptable and it is right that there are consequences.
So what point am I trying to bring out here? Well, siblings fight. They always have done and they always will. Sibling rivalry is real. It’s not nice, but it’s a reality. One mum I bumped into over the summer said ‘I love having a big family but I can’t stand all the constant bickering!’ Accepting it happens does not mean blanking it out and carrying on regardless though. Sometimes it needs dealing with. Nothing you do as a parent can make life fair all of the time, but you can do what you can to make each of your children feel loved and special (although don’t ask me for help with that – I still have plenty of work to do on that front with two of my kids!). I used to have a book that helped – Siblings Without Rivalry – which might be worth a look.
Anyway, that’s still not the point. This is the point. I love all my children differently because they are all different. Take our birth children for example, Luke and Keir. You could not get two more different boys. Luke has always been boisterous and extrovert and gregarious – the more people and stimulation and challenges the better….exhausting to live with but a lot of fun. Keir as a little boy was always more private and introvert – he did not say a word until he was 2 and never even turned up to his own 4th birthday tea and hated Christmas and all the socialising it entailed. Luke was extreme daredevil; Keir was cautious with a capital C. How do you walk a path of compromise between those two positions? Luke would get annoyed and see all that we couldn’t do because of Keir. Keir would find Luke overpowering and ‘in your face’. And look at them now – Luke has taken the very academic route with an engineering degree from Cambridge and a good job at Jaguar Landrover. Keir is about to go to uni to do a Professional Musicianship degree in electric guitar. Luke is still very sociable. Keir still keeps himself to himself. And neither of them can understand the other at all! I love them both more than life itself but my love is, and always has been, expressed very differently for each one of them. Luke is easy to love – until he starts bounding around like a toddler and chasing the dog over all the furniture. Keir is rewarding to love – frustrating until I get a flash every now and then of a special connection (usually something to do with creativity) between us.
A final PS: judging Luke and Keir by the same standards will always leave one of them falling short. One will be naturally better at keeping in touch with their Grandad. Another will be naturally better at giving others the benefit of the doubt. We are all different. Comparing one sibling to another, in fact comparing any one person to another is pointless. Everyone is different., Everyone has special needs. Everyone needs to be treated differently and loved differently and accepted for who they are. The quality of love for our children can be the same without needing to look the same in practice.
Good luck with that!
