“Why we can never escape our siblings”

“Why we can never escape our siblings”

http://www.salon.com/life/children/index.html?story=/mwt/feature/2011/09/10/siblings_interview
An article by Mandy Van Deven based on a book written by  scientist Jeffrey Kluger (“The Sibling Effect”)

The article starts out by making the point that sibling relationships are more unique than any other kind of relationship in that siblings stay with you through the entire span of your life. Since parents leave too soon and children
come along too late, they are the people who will “know you when you are in your most inchoate form.”

This notion grabbed my attention because I have a little sister and the fact that you would sustain a relationship with your sibling throughout your entirelife seems obvious to me. I mean, you basically occupy the same chunk of humanity as your brother or sister. But I think we overlook the importance of this particular relationship in our  lives. So I read on.

The author continues on to talk about how different sexes, birth order, and aquired step-siblings might affect the development of siblings, depending on what role they fulfill. For instance, it is said that girls who grew up with brothers are more likely to lack seriousness and grimness, while boys who grew up with sisters are more likely to have a greater degree of sensitivity and listening skills than boys with brothers or only children. From a functional worldview, this makes sense. Having a strong ongoing sibling relationship with someone of the opposite sex helps one understand the mind of the opposite sex more aptly.

Another factor that shapes us is birth order. The article says that “older children get more total-immersion mentoring with their parents” before younger siblings come along. However, the advantages of being a younger child include developing ability to use “low-power strategies,” such as intuition and charm.

The relationship between older and younger siblings helps us acquire traits that we wouldn’t have otherwise have acquired. For instance: if an older sibling has a habit of aggressiveness, the younger sibling will learn coping skills to deal with conflict. On the flip side, younger siblings require nuturing from the older siblings, so the older siblings have to develop stronger foundations of empathy and nurturing skills that they might not have developed if they had not had to play the “older sibling” role. I certainly feel this way about my role as an older sister.

According to this article, in blended families, step siblings have more territorial issues at first, but can actually form ties as strong as biological siblings in about six years.

In addition to talking about step-siblings, the article reaches a little bit into the development of single children. It is a common myth that single children are less altruistic and more self-involved. However, this is not necessarily true. They often have better academic skills and a better ability to keep friends because they were forced to go out into the world and learn social skills rather than learning them at home with a sibling.

However, this article makes a good point: that relationships between siblings are important and not to be squandered, because they are perhaps the only relationship that you keep throughout your whole life.