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Sibling Competition
My dad turned seventy a few years back. The
planning of his party brought up all the old
resentments of we, his five children, competing for
his favor. It was like opening the door to our
attic storage closet. Old tennis racquets, down
coats, boogie boards, and boxes of photos all spill
out onto the floor.
My oldest, and most important sister, Christy,
took charge and planned the event. The next
youngest and oft forgotten sister, Sarah, was
furious about not being included. My third sister,
Elaine, fought back, slyly convincing my mother to
change Christy's plans. Christy screamed of
betrayal, stabbed in the back once more by her
younger siblings. Sarah and Elaine complained
bitterly of Christy's arrogance. My brother and I
only found out about the party a week before, too
late to make plans to attend.
When the dust had settled my Mother made one
request. "The only thing I want for my seventieth
birthday," she said, "is for my children to be able
to get along." I wondered what it takes to raise a
such a family. Was there something missing in our
upbringing that accounts for why we still bicker
with each other in our forties?
The whole brouhaha came back to me when I got an
email from Sarah addressed to each member of the
family, asking everyone to respond to a number of
questions about how we might together plan my
parents 50th wedding anniversary. Each was to have
an equal say before any decisions were made. It
seemed like such a rational way to gather
information and include everyone in the decision
making process. I've been organizing groups of
people in both my personal and professional life
with this type of democratic-cooperative style for
many years. Still, I had never considered using
such a process in my family. I don't know why.
Perhaps I gave up long ago. Christy was eight
years older than me. Her myriad concerns about her
boyfriends and her dawning political awareness
would almost always dominate the dinner
conversation. "Joe Fuller's Dad wants Joe to get
drafted. Can you believe that?!" I had no hope of
debating a topic with her. She courted my parent's
approval, but had only a passing interest in the
rest of us. We were too easy a match. I learned not
to try to compete. Sometimes I thought of something
funny I could say if I could find a pause to say it
in. Mostly, I just listened. No one listened to me
until bedtime, when I had a few moments alone with
Mom.
Without conscious structure, our family had a
distinctly Darwinian feel. The loudest and pushiest
got all the attention. In this setting Christy
never learned that the rest of us had ideas just as
interesting as hers. She wondered why we didn't
just speak up if we had something to say. She never
intended to prevent any of us from getting our
chance to shine. So she never understood why we
resented her.
My parents didn't seem to know that they could
have structured things differently. There is a
simple rule that would have changed everything. If
there are seven people at dinner, then each of us
should take only one seventh of the group's
attention. If my parents had structured the way we
shared attention, then the quieter among us would
not have to compete with the loudest. We might have
found out that Sarah had been using drugs most of
high school. We might have found out that my
brother needed help with his homework before he
almost flunked sixth grade.
Christy garnered much more of my parents'
attention than the rest of us. But it didn't made
her any happier. The resentment she felt from her
brothers and sisters only made her more desperate
for parental approval. The more she struggled to
get it, the more resentful the rest of us got. No
one wins when children are having to compete for
attention.
It doesn't matter whether each child has the
charisma to capture the family spotlight. We each
have an equal need to be heard and seen. One child
might be choosing what college to attend. Another
may be waiting to hear if she got a part in the
class play. The youngest may be just figuring out
how to make a three word sentence. A good look
around the dinner table reveals that each have a
genius with which they make their way through
life.
© 2008, Tim
Hartnett
Other Father Issues,
Books
* * *
Your children need your presence more than your
presents. - Jesse Jackson
Tim
Hartnett, Ph.D. is a licensed Marriage and Family
Therapist in private practice in Santa Cruz, CA. He
specializes in Individual Counseling, Couples
Therapy, and Divorce Mediation. He can be reached
at 831.464.2922 or through his website:
www.TimHartnett.com
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