Five Reasons Your Siblings Are Your Best Friends

HEADS UP:  If you are a single parent, you might not want to read this because it will probably only make you feel guiltier about not providing a brother or sister for your child.  This is not to say there are not still benefits to being an only child—they’re just not listed in this article.  So, maybe now would be a good time to just scroll on by or reheat that cup of coffee.  Come back later and check Facebook--love ya!.

Are they gone?  OK, good news parents of multiples--although you may be consumed by exhaustion from the endless juggling of schedules and/or depressed about the constant drain on your bank account, put down that razor blade and take heed! You can now feel good about your decision to willingly engage in the insanity of attempting to raise multiple humans have two or more kids because there is actual research to back you up.  So, despite the bickering and occasional slammed doors, here are five plausible reasons why siblings are your best friends:

1.  They make the long haul easier.

We tend to think of our parents as the people we've known the longest but in actual length of years spent together, our siblings are the ones we wind up knowing for the greatest duration of time.  As Alena Hall puts it in The Huffington Post, siblings "mark our most enduring relationship.” Think about it--if you started having kids in your mid-20s, as many do, and you can expect to live to about 80, then your children will have known each other all the 55 years you were around with them, plus, if they live to about 80 themselves, they will have known each other an additional 25 years beyond you. Even if you started later, the odds are your kids will still know each other longer than anyone else. 

And in their old age, your kids may be happier because they have each other.  Research has shown that elderly people who still have a living brother or sister, report greater degrees of happiness and contentment, even if they don't see each other often.  Just knowing that there is someone alive on this planet that you share a true lifelong bond with is comforting in a way that is difficult to describe but incredibly powerful.

2.  They can make you healthier.

There is some encouraging research out of Europe that suggests having a brother or sister can actually benefit you mentally and physically.  For example, children with older siblings tend to struggle less with obesity.  One reason may be the increased exercise experienced because they have someone to run around and play with  (we're not going to get into whether controlling for video game obsession was done--we'll just let common sense answer that one.)

3.  They can teach you how to be a better partner in adult relationships.

Again, this one just seems like common sense but the experts back up this claim.  As Jeffrey Kluger writes in TIME, "[s]isters teach brothers about the mysteries of girls; brothers teach sisters about the puzzle of boys."  (I would like to add to this by stating that in my own purely anecdotal evidence, during my dating years I observed that guys who had sisters were markedly more in tune with a woman's needs and demonstrated more empathy overall.)

4.  They teach you how to share resources without being a total jerk.

OK, here is where I admit that I am the parent of an only child and would have left the room myself, if I weren't actually writing this piece.  I will also now admit to you what I cringe to even say—yes, my son struggles with sharing.  This was never more evident to me than when I married my second husband and we moved in with him and my youngest step-daughter (my son is 14 and she is 15).  There is no getting around it.  Despite what you SAY to a child about sharing and being flexible, kids with brothers and sisters are much better at it.  Now hold up, you say--my kids fight about clothes and TV programs and mysteriously disappearing leftovers all the time!  Yes, that is true--my stepdaughters often fight over clothes and who "borrowed" what from whom and it can even get pretty ugly, but the bottom line is that they still complain a hell of a lot less than my son when they can't have that extra $20 or there are no more Oreos, or they have to give up some space for visiting relatives.  And that’s all I want to say about that because it depresses me for my son. Let's move on.

5.  They save money on therapy to get over the damage you did to them.

Face it, no matter how good of a job you do, you are bound to screw up somehow and there will always be at least one thing that your kids look back and vow to do differently with their own children.  And yes, of course there will be treasured memories and little idiosyncrisies or goofy traditions that they will want to repeat as well.  Having a brother or sister to share in these memories and validate their experiences can be extremely valuable on an emotional level.  And this validation can help give you the confidence to face life’s challenges.  It’s the feeling that you’re OK, you’re not alone in your experience of the world and there is always somewhere where you truly fit in—more importantly, your “home base” still exists as long as one of your siblings is around to bear witness.

Overall, if you can put up with them throughout childhood, brothers and sisters may really be the best friend you will ever have.  And with that, I think I’ll go give my sister a call.