07.19.2010
I picked up this month’s Psychology Today because of it’s cover article on siblings and how your relationship with them shapes who you are. I never looked at it that way but it was for me one of those “well, duh,” moments. I want to share the top 3 nuggets I found most interesting (though the whole article is pretty good).
1) “Siblings are born to compete for parental attention, and the strategies they use wind up encoded in personality. Small wonder it can take a lifetime to work out sibling relationships.”[1]
2) “Children only seem to share the same family environment. In reality, they inhabit radically different microenvironments.”[2]
3) “…parents invariably claim they treat their kids equally, even though children can’t possibly experience their care equally, as they are at different levels of understanding. Parents are quick to deny differential treatment of their kids, says Cal State’s Heidi Riggio, because it is difficult and painful for them to think about how they may have failed their children, whose experiences of favoritism are incorporated into identity.”[3]
My responses:
1) This is one of the “duh” moments because it totally makes sense that siblings would compete for parental attention. What’s surprising, to me, is that I never put it into context. I never realized that my determination to be the absolute best in everything that I do, my drive to compete in whatever I put my mind to, may actually have something to do with the fact that once my sister was born, I had to now compete for attention. I may have been 7 years older but I still needed care and attention but, as most eldest kids will tell you, I got looked over because I was “old enough” to take care of myself. My sister, as the baby, needed attention and, not to mention, her incessant screaming needed tending to. That was probably her way of competing with me and she continuously won. (Either that or she was laying the groundwork for her amazing singing voice that she inherited from my mom and grandfather.)
2) I noticed this within my own family a while ago and it doesn’t matter how many times I may think about it, it still astounds me. My sister and I are so totally and completely different. And what I never ever took into consideration is that a huge reason for our differences is probably in how differently our mom treated us. My reality of what our family is or was and the moments within that are vastly different from my sister’s. I already knew that my mom and I remembered certain situations differently (or she didn’t remember some things at all) but I never considered that my sister’s and my reality re: our family could be different and, therefore, would alter us in different ways. And it is, of course, because we were at “different levels of understanding.” I just always took for granted that because we grew up in the same family that our experience had to be the same.
3) I remember disliking hearing my mom say that she loved us both the same because those words didn’t necessarily reflect in how she treated us. I don’t doubt that she loved us but I don’t think it’s possible to love your children in exactly the same way. Hell, I once worked with a boss who hated his middle child (and apparently the feeling was mutual). The article touched up on the facts that even if parents attempted to treat their children equally, it wouldn’t happen because you couldn’t possibly do that. As the parent, you see yourself acting in one way but the child’s (or children’s) interpretation of your actions is going to be different.
I always thought that if Rob and I had kids, we would need to have 2 so that the single child wouldn't feel alone (although I/we do plan on adopting one day if we’re going that route). And I convinced myself that I would do everything in my power to treat the children as equally as possible…but apparently, this article debunks that. I don’t think parents shouldn’t try but I think it’s important to remember that whatever you do, there are going to be issues. What I can’t stress enough (because this I certainly didn’t experience) is that it’s important as a parent to not only identify the strengths and talents of your children and do what you can to support them in those but most importantly discover what your child’s passions are and cultivate those.
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