Sibling Rivalry

Now that I only have six more weeks until I am a mother, thoughts of my siblings and their relationship with each other have been running in my thoughts. I decided to interview my mother to get her input on what motherhood is going to be like with multiple children. She had some funny moments to share on the subject of sibling rivalry.

My mother is a woman with a lot of patience and can handle a great amount of stress, but when it comes to siblings fighting with each other it is a matter of when you will snap, not if you will.

My sister is only a year younger than my brother but she has always been significantly smaller than my brother. According to my mother my sister's physical size did not affect the size of her attitude. She would constantly pick on my brother and beat on him knowing that my mother taught him to never hit a girl. She would make herself bigger as well by standing on the couch before hitting him in order to be bigger than him. After months of this happening my mother and father discussed it and decided that the next time it happened they would let him hit her back. Sure enough as we were getting out of the car one day, my sister hit my brother and my mother told him to hit her back. Well he hit her back alright, but he punched her with all of his strength right in the stomach and knocked the wind out of her. My sister had to struggle to breathe for several minutes and my parents were so shocked and had to change their tactics to deal with the rivalry situation.

After years and years and years of dealing with the continuous rivalry between my siblings the day came when my mother finally couldn't take it anymore. My brother, sister and I were sitting at the table for lunch and my brother and sister were fighting as usual. My mother came from the other room to settle it and once solved she went back to doing laundry. Not a minute later, my brother threw his sandwich at my sister's head and she ran to tell on him. My mother could not tell who started the situation and decided to call me in and ask me. I told her my brother had started it by throwing the sandwich. My mom, who is five feet tall, decided she had had enough of the fighting and literally stomped to the table and as she did she gave my six foot tall brother the look of death! He knew he was in danger and instantly jumped up from the table and backed himself against the wall. My mother threw his chair out of the way and stomped right up to him and began screaming at him about how sick she is of the fighting and was jumping up and down trying to slap my brother in the face.

My sister and I gave each other looks of shock as this was happening and we still talk and laugh about the horrified look my brother had on his face even though it was this little women trying to attack him. My mother doesn't know what made her snap, she just knew that she was sick of the sibling rivalry.

I can't wait to deal with the rivalry of my children. I know it will come shortly.