GOOD HEALTH MAGAZINE : Psychology : BROTHER, CAN YOU SPARE SOME TIME? : SIBLING RELATIONSHIPS CAN BE THE MOST IMPORTANT IN LIFE. SUCH TIES BECOME MORE,NOT LESS, IMPORTANT AS WE AGE AND ARE THE ONLY ONES WITH THE POTENTIAL TO LAST FROM THE CRADLE TO THE GRAVE.
GWEN, 60, HAS SEEN MORE of her older sister Bette, 63, since moving to California several years ago than she did when they both lived in the same state. “I think it’s because absence makes the heart grow fonder,” Gwen says. “Bette got married when I was 18 and we never spent much time together until I moved out here. She’s been here twice to visit, and we spend two or three weeks together--which is about the most time we’ve spent together in 40 years. We talk a lot about our mom and dad and about old times. She remembers a lot more than I do. She talks about what a brat I was when I was a teen-ager--she remembers a lot of things I don’t, but when I hear them, I know they’re true.”
Gwen and Bette are the rule, not the exception. When we’re old, even more so than when we’re young, our brothers and sisters are likely to be among our best friends.
Researchers have found that the proportion of people who say they feel close to their siblings rises with age. From their 30s on, most sisters and brothers not only see each other more often but also say they feel closer to each other emotionally.
From the story of Cain and Abel to the tale of “Hannah and Her Sisters,” the power of the complex bond between brothers and sisters is hard to deny. Yet until about 15 years ago, psychologists tended to relegate relationships with siblings to a poor fourth place, after ties to children, parents and mates.
Says Carol Holden, a University of Michigan psychologist: “Relationships among sisters and brothers were thought to be either pale reflections of their relationships with parents or defined almost entirely by sibling rivalry.”
Now, an increasing number of psychologists believe that relationships with siblings can be among the most important in life. And a growing body of research suggests that sibling ties become more, not less, important as we age. These relationships form the clearest blueprints we have for later relations with peers. Says Holden: “The way you got along with your sisters and brothers when you were young can influence your choice of friends and marriage partners. It can also have a strong influence on how you get along with co-workers.”
In “My One and Only: The Special Experience of The Only Child,” (William Morrow and Co., 1989), San Francisco author Ellie McGrath describes her own childhood and weighs the advantages and disadvantages of being an only child. “Most only children, myself included, believe that had they grown up with a sibling, they would have learned how to deal with others sooner and more smoothly. They feel that they are a bit slow sensing the dynamics of peer relationships or learning the art of negotiation.” Not to mention learning how to fight.
Another reason our relationships with siblings are among life’s most important is their sheer longevity. As marriages crumble and friendships fade, “the sibling relationship becomes for many people the only intimate connection that seems to last,” observes University of Hartford psychologist Michael Kahn, co-editor with family therapist Karen Lewis of “Siblings in Therapy.” The sibling relationship is the only one that has the potential to last from the cradle to the grave. In fact, Kahn notes, a brother or sister is the most likely of all relatives to be at your side when you die.
Even Hollywood has recognized how important brothers and sisters can be to each other. Besides “Hannah and Her Sisters,” Kahn cites “Crimes of the Heart,” “Fanny and Alexander,” “Ran” and “The Color Purple” as examples of recent films in which sibling relationships eclipse romantic ties. Add to this list the critically acclaimed “sex, lies and videotape” and the Australian sleeper, “Sweetie,” in which two sisters compete for their inattentive parents’ attention.
Given the importance of the sibling relationship, it’s not surprising that for some people the major psychological “work” of middle age consists of settling old scores with siblings, according to Wesleyan University psychologist Stephen Bank, co-author with Kahn of “The Sibling Bond.” The first thing to understand, he notes, is that it’s not normal to feel distant from or angry toward a sister or brother. “Most adults have cordial, mutually supportive relationships with their brothers and sisters,” says Bank.
Those who do not, Bank believes, can at least learn to stop seeing their siblings as the cause of the problem and, through therapy, begin to understand that both they and their siblings are victims of the same twisted family dynamics that may have been in operation for generations. In other words, in middle age, estranged siblings may finally begin to fathom the depths of their family tragedy.
“Psychotherapists are the audiences for modern sibling legends,” Bank says. “We don’t hear sagas of heroic nomads from great tribal families--like Jacob and Esau. But we do hear about disconnected modern brothers and sisters, living miles apart in distant suburbs, who’ve become alienated and angry” at one another. When siblings are at war, sometimes it’s a fight to the death, and some people never achieve that closeness.
“I tried for years to get along with her,” says Hazel, 65, explaining why she wouldn’t call or visit an older sister who’d just had a major heart attack. The sister had stopped talking to Hazel and other family members many years before . “I bear no malice against her anymore , but I can’t put up with her bitterness, the way she still blames Mamma and Poppa for everything bad that happened to her. I love her and I hope she doesn’t suffer a lot. She’s my sister, but I just cannot put up with her.” As a teen-ager, another sister, the youngest in this same large family, moved as far away from the others as she could and for most of her life didn’t call or visit anyone in her family of origin. A brother disappeared, cutting off all contact with his children, nieces, nephews and sisters.
Such “disowned sibling relationships”--in which adult sisters and brothers stop speaking or wind up exploding at each other when they do get together--are often the fallout of parental uninvolvement, neglect or abuse, according to Bank. But by far the most common cause is pathological favoritism. The case of Rebecca, a professional woman in her early 50s whose husband was threatening to leave her because she was frigid, is one of many Bank has seen in which the effects of favoritism are felt long after the parents are dead. Rebecca’s parents always celebrated her younger sister’s talents and achievements. They praised the younger sister’s looks as well as her brains, and believing their praise, the sister projected a self-confidence that made her a magnet for men. Feeling hopelessly outclassed, Rebecca gave up trying to imitate her sister. “Because she felt so inferior and believed she wasn’t attractive at all compared with her sister,” Bank says, “she rejected her own sexuality.”
Although the reasons parents favor one child over another vary from family to family, the underlying dynamics behind pathological favoritism are similar, Bank maintains. “All parents like one thing about one child and another thing about another child,” he says. “The question is, at what point do they start comparing them and does it all get out of hand? In a normal family, everybody gets to be the scapegoat and everybody gets to be the favorite. You take turns. One child is catching heat one day and being treated well another day. It rotates. In troubled families, one child remains the scapegoat and one remains the favorite, which leads to all sorts of things, including lifelong sibling discord.”
Even in normal families, though, myths often develop about the personalities and talents of siblings that may have little to do with reality. These myths have a way of persisting into adulthood, influencing how grown-up sisters and brothers feel about themselves and each other.
A classic study by pediatrician Frances Fuchs Schachter confirmed the existence of the “Cain and Abel syndrome,” the tendency of parents to believe that their first two children are “as different as night and day.” Schachter asked 140 mothers to compare their children, two at a time, on a series of personality attributes. She found that 80% of the mothers thought their children had opposite characteristics. If one was viewed as an introvert, the other was seen as an extrovert. If one was seen as fast, smart or strong, the other was likely to be viewed as slow, stupid or weak. Often, siblings themselves act out these differences, so that if parents make a big deal out of one being “good,” the other starts acting “bad.”
Schachter also found that college students said they were different from their siblings about twice as often as they reported being alike, suggesting that they have internalized their parents’ opinions. While most brothers and sisters manage to find their own identities, sometimes their “de-identification” with each other becomes even more pronounced with age.
Much of the time, though, the differences between sisters and brothers are far less dramatic. “I’m an older sister with a younger sister,” says Carol Holden, the Michigan psychologist who has studied the experience of being an older versus a younger sibling. “There’s two and a half years and nine days between us. But who’s counting? My sister and I have gotten along quite well over the years, but a lot of the popular misconceptions have been applied to us, like the older one is the smart one, the younger one is the pretty one.”
In her study of 60 college students, Holden found other, more realistic differences between what it feels like to be the older versus the younger sibling in a family of two children--still the most common number, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Older children are much more likely to express guilt about how they treated their siblings during childhood. “Older siblings remember a lot of very conscious wishes to harm their younger siblings,” Holden says. “They have a lot of memories of pushing their sister or brother down or hitting them over the head.”
Although most siblings Holden interviewed said they were very happy with how they were now getting along with their brothers and sisters, there was one notable exception. The older sisters of younger brothers were much more likely than others to be unhappy with their relationship. “Having a younger brother is a lot more disruptive than having a younger sister,” explains Holden.
Not only does the second child destroy the first-born’s privileged position as the sole recipient of parental time, love and attention, but if the second child is a boy, the first-born girl can’t help but notice that he’s talked to and handled differently by both parents. “In a culture where boys are highly valued, it’s a double displacement,” she says. “If you believe any of Freud’s concepts of penis envy, it fits right in with this because when their brothers were born, the girls (in the study) tended to be right at the age (2) when sex differences are first noticed.
“This sample is small, so I hate to make generalizations,” Holden says, “But when I think about having children, if I have one of each, I’m hoping the boy comes first.”
As sisters and brothers graduate from college and start careers of their own, they often drift apart, communicating indirectly through their parents, getting together for holidays once or twice a year. When they marry and have children of their own, though, their need for contact with each other often increases.
Marilyn, 42, and her sister Diane, 38, talk to each other on the telephone almost every day and visit whenever they can. While they were in college, months went by without either of them making contact. “We didn’t get along when we were growing up,” Marilyn says. “And when we went off to college, we were both glad to put a little space between us.” But after they gave birth to daughters within a year of each other, they became closer than ever, as many sisters do.
As aging parents need more help, middle-aged brothers and sisters may find old patterns reactivated. The decision to assume the major responsibility for an ailing mother or father may reflect the wish to outgrow a childhood role.
At 40, Margaret was the youngest of three sisters, the mid-life baby. “Nothing was expected of me,” she recalls. “I roamed the meadows. I wrote poetry. When I asked what I should bring for Thanksgiving, the answer was usually ‘rolls and pickles.’ ” When her 80-year-old mother developed Alzheimer’s-related dementia and could no longer live alone safely, Margaret was the one who quit her job, uprooted her family and moved to a different town to take care of her ailing mother, even though her two older sisters lived in the same town as their mother. “I think the real reason I did it was I thought, ‘Geez, here’s my chance to prove that I’m finally responsible.’ ”
Other women taking care of ailing parents report feeling angry about the lack of support brothers and sisters provide. “My sister has only visited once in the last year, and then she had the nerve to criticize what I was doing for mother,” says one woman. “My brother didn’t help at all,” says another, who took care of a mother with Alzheimer’s Disease for several years. “I can’t forgive him for it.” “My sister’s furious that I’m using part of our mother’s money to hire a part-time helper,” says yet another woman whose elderly, incontinent mother lives with her. “She doesn’t seem to understand I need a break. We haven’t spoken for more than a year now.”
Dr. Barbara Silverstone, author of “You and Your Aging Parent,” believes that while siblings sometimes turn their backs and leave one sister holding the bag, life isn’t often that simple. “Usually there’s something going on between the sisters and brothers that needs to be explored,” she says. The sibling taking daily care of an aged parent may push her brothers and sisters away, fearing she’ll be criticized for not taking good enough care of the ailing parent or wishing to become--at long last--the most important person in her parent’s life. Or, the caretaker may be haunted by the suspicion that, despite all her sacrifices, her parent still prefers a brother or sister.
Although settling scores with sisters and brothers may be important in middle-age, add a few more years and most siblings start to mellow. The death of a parent can bring sisters and brothers closer to each other. “After an elderly parent dies, some families become more distant,” says Andrew Scharlach, a University of Southern California researcher who is studying the impact on adults of parents’ deaths. “But others become closer. One sister or brother begins to act in loco parentis , becoming the new head of the family or the kin keeper.”
According to Purdue University psychologist Victor Cicerelli, the life cycle that begins with two or more siblings being each other’s closest companions and best friends often ends the same way. Cicerelli interviewed more than 300 brothers and sisters and found a low level of rivalry among elderly sibs: 10% reported having arguments; 6% reported being bossed or attempts at domination by a sib; 8% reported feelings of competition--and that only rarely--and only a handful reported outbreaks of jealously, hostility, or snobbishness.
Instead of bickering or feuding, Cicerelli found that older sisters and brothers spent a good deal of time reminiscing--a way of bringing back what they had together and of exorcising any remnants of sibling rivalry. “Sisters seem to have the closest relationships,” Cicerelli reports. “At least they report lower morale and more depression if they’re not getting along with their siblings.”
In middle-age, almost 70% of the people Cicerelli interviewed said they felt close or extremely close to a sister or brother. In old age, more than 80% did. Even those who did not seemed to recognize how valuable the relationship is.
As one man told Cicerelli: “Sure, I hate my brothers. But after all, they’re family.”
