I remember writing an essay in my junior classes in secondary school on sibling rivalry. The teacher that was prepping us on how to write the essay said it in such a derogatory sense, that made it look like sibling rivalry was an unnatural phenomenon spurned from some sick kind of jealousy towards one’s siblings.
I’ve seen it play out in the most terrible ways so somehow, I knew that sibling rivalry in itself isn’t bad but the way it is handled either by parents or caregivers goes a long way in determining whether this natural concept can become something else. Something unnatural and terrible in the future.
Sibling rivalry is a thing for all ages but to explain, I’ll cite something I witnessed in high school. There were this twin sisters. Let’s call them, Sarah and Martha. I’ll go off track a bit to say that I think twins, triplets or generally siblings born on the same day have it worse in terms of constantly being compared to each other, especially if they’re fraternal twins(meaning they aren’t identical).
It feels like the comparison starts when they’re too young to comprehend the fact that they’re being compared to each other but surely, they’d notice soon and depending on what is said and how it’s said, they can react a bit differently.
So back to Sarah and Martha. Lovely and intelligent twin sisters. While Sarah was tall and had a big build, Martha was shorter and slender. So the comments start, “Why is she like this and you’re like this?” I mean that’s not a bad question to ask(howbeit a tad senseless because they didn’t make themselves, did they). But it got worse cause Sarah was a science student who wanted to major in Pharmacy while Martha was art-inclined and was seeking to major in Theatre Arts.
Already, the stereotype is that science students are more intelligent or what have you and so Sarah was constantly reading and would come out at the top of her class. Martha wasn’t coming out at the top of her class but she was pretty good as well in her field. But she’d come to school every day crying about the mean things her parents would say to her, always ending with, “Why can’t you be more like Sarah? If you were even half like her, you wouldn’t be like this.”
I usually found these statements very weird. The truth is, comparison could bring some form of healthy competition, emotional intelligence and empathy. But the words you use could immediately switch what would have been the case to something detrimental. Sarah and Martha’s parents probably thought Martha would be spurred to be better or “be like Sarah” but they just turned the sisters against each other.
And then Sarah subconsciously began to feel like she was the better sibling, bossing Martha around and making her feel like she had the right to do it since she was the favoured twin. I remember one time in the dorm when Sarah came into the room and Martha whose bunk was next to mine said, “I heard you talking to Daddy, Sarah. What did he say?”
Sarah gave her a scathing look. “What’s your business with what I discuss with my father?”
I remember how quiet the room went but most of all, I remembered the look on Martha’s face. The resignation. It was terrible to see.
I took a lot of mental notes from their interactions and resolved on the things that were acceptable and unacceptable when it came to siblings. This was why when I saw that some kind of comparison was happening with my younger siblings where the older of them was noticeably not as smart as the younger so she was told by my parents to be more like her younger sister. I jumped in immediately and said we weren’t going to talk like that. That we could push them to be better without unknowingly and unwittingly instigating them against each other.
As I said in the beginning, sibling rivalry is perfectly natural and could be managed effectively so there is a healthy development and no resentment harboured between siblings. Fair treatment, equal dose of attention and of course, open communication is necessary so that the love between them can blossom into something positive and beautiful.
Have you ever witnessed sibling rivalry play out beautifully or gruesomely?
Jhymi🖤
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