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. 

Sticking it Out

My Aunt Helen is in the hospital right now with pneumonia, sedated, with a respirator tube down her throat. She is 85 years old. My Uncle Pat, goes back and forth to the hospital every day to visit her and sit by her bedside. He told my mom that today he touched her cheek and a single tear came out of her eye and slid down her face. They've been married well over 50 years, can't remember the exact number. The thing is they always sort of hated each other.

I'm sure their relationship seemed even worse to me b/c my own parents' marriage was so flipping perfect. Honestly, in comparison, anyone's marriage would appear to have problems compared to those two. My parents never fought. Ever. They barely even disagreed about anything. They were absolutely and totally in love until the day my father died suddenly, at the age of 55, from a brain aneurysm. They were the kind of couple who sat at the dinner table after my sister and I were gone and talked and laughed for another two to three hours. They also had matching leather jackets. Need I say more?

So, yea, they made pretty much anyone's marriage pale in comparison, but still, Aunt Helen and Uncle Pat kind of hated each other. It was terrible b/c I really loved them both and would never want to take sides, but if I were to speak honestly, I would have to say that he was kind of an asshole to her. I don't know why. I don't know if anyone knows why, probably not even him. He was the nicest guy to everyone else--coached little league for like 40 freaking years, knew everyone in their town, kind of guy who would go out of his way in a second to help you out if you were even the friend of a friend--but he was downright nasty to Aunt Helen. And she took it. Until she turned like 70 and then she just stopped putting up with it. She didn't leave him, but she just sort of turned on him and regularly started telling him to go to hell. Not that it made anything any better. He didn't start treating her like a queen or anything.

I always thought I'd never want to end up like Aunt Helen, putting up with a jerky guy just b/c I had a son with him, or just b/c divorce wasn't the catholic thing to do. I couldn't understand why she didn't just walk away. Until I grew up, had a son of my own and found myself married to a jerky guy. It's not that easy. It's not that simple. Maybe it should be, but it's just not.

My marriage eventually ended b/c I did walk away, but not until things got so bad that it was unsafe for me to stay. I tried to stick it out. But my jerky guy was even jerkier than Uncle Pat, and the abuse didn't stop with words. Still, I felt like a failure. And the guilt for what my son had lost was and still is difficult to reconcile--because I came from that last generation where people stuck it out no matter what. Divorce just wasn't an option.

I don't know if I'll get to talk to my Aunt Helen again but I want to ask her, was it worth it? Are you glad you stuck it out? If you had it to do over, would you have left him? Did you shed that tear b/c at least now, at the end, he showed up, he was sweet and you know he loved you? Or were you crying for what might have been?