Hello everyone,
I hope everyone is well, and enjoying a beautiful fall. It's been awhile since I've been on, but it's nice to be back. :)
I have a question for those who have more than one son, fairly close in age (unless you think it doesn't matter), or grew up with brothers (again, more than one). I am curious about brothers relationships. I, at present, have not encountered a single person who said they experienced a "loving, brotherly relationship" while growing up. I ask everyone, if the topic presents itself. What I mean by loving brotherly relationship, is a lack of fighting. And what I mean by lack of fighting is, extreme fighting. Deviling, poking, instigating, mean, ornery. I have one son, followed by identical twin boys--an age difference of 11 months. Usually, if the older, and one twin are together, the experience is what I would call an intense, but usually normal sibling squabling, and and occasional fight. When the three of them are together, however, or just the twins, the fighting is abnormal, extreme, sometimes mean. It makes me crazy. But when I ask others who have brothers, grew up with brothers, and especially parents of twin boys, they say the same thing. I think I've made matters worse at times, by not letting the pecking order settle out on it's own--always trying to apply justice, and hear the complaint. I've decided that's a mistake, because at 13 and 14, they haven't learned to settle their differences on their own. Better late then never, they now get punished without benefit of a trial and disclosure if they bring it to the judge (me <s>). Everything is a competition, even if we go out of our way to discourage that. I try to keep them in separate activities because for them to do something together is only about who won, who did if faster, better, or whatever. I wish I had a dime for every time I've said, "It's not a contest."
My husband has a twin, and an older brother by three years. They, I would not say are close, defining close as sharing life events. They do get together, play golf, and what I would call, co-exist, but don't go out of their way to , and when we visit, there are dinners out, and everyones kids play together. But it always seems as though there is a lot of underlying, who can outdo who.
So my question for anyone out there willing to put their two cents in, is, when do brothers learn to appreciate each other, or do they ever? Is it built in, because I try very hard to steer everyone to their own strength's, and point out that competition is about improving on your own last performance, and that you can't be great at everything.
Sorry this is so long winded. It's been a burning question for me for a long time.
Ron WodaskiDark Matters
I am the youngest of three sons; my brothers are 4-1/2 and 8 years older than me.
I don't recall any fighting with my oldest brother. But we don't get along especially well now. It's almost a generation gap sort of thing, plus the fact that I think he mishandled my parents' estate.
I did fight, quite a bit, with the middle brother, when I was younger. We get along fine now, and live 3 doors apart on the same street. I moved 11 years ago to be closer to my family in my dotage. I'm actually closer (socially) to his oldest son than to him, but we don't fight any more -- maybe because we seldom see each other, despite living so close.
His oldest son has twin boys, now 17, who occasionally get into a shouting match or have smaller disagreements, but as far as I know it's never come to anything physical. Normally, they get along pretty well. (See the "Musical Kruszkas" thread here in the Algonquin.)
John
infmom.net
Marte,
I certainly don't tolerate the physical fighting either, but I can't keep it from happening. I suspect there are other things that contribute--there is high emotional stuff going on. Adam and Andrew were both dx with autism at age of two. Andrew is now indistinguishable from normally developing children (they don't like to say cured), but Adam has be re-evaluated and has been changed to Aspergers. Both are incredibly intelligent, but Adam has social issues. Andrew is now becoming accepted by his peers (he had some difficulty there too) but kids being they way they are, will say things like, "we'll be YOUR friend, but not his," with a nod towards Adam. Obviously, Andrew wants friends, but he doesn't want to ditch his brother. So, he's angry. And even though they can be meaner then a snake in the grass toward each other, they would never dream of letting anyone else pick on them. Andrew comes unglued if Adam does better on a test then himself, Adam never lets it die if he's the one that does better. He voices his opinion that "he's not as smart as Andrew," which is simply not true; if Andrew does better it's because he works harder, and is more organized, something that Adam struggles with.
Its good to know though that there is hope that they can still be close. It's a work in progress. :)
Yeah, I think girls are better at maintaining dislike for long periods of time. I just would love to know what is going through their minds (the ones who do the picking). Is it subconcious, or purposeful, and what starts it to begin with? Feeling put upon? Having to share parents?
Ron,
So, tell me why you picked on your younger brother, if you can. My interest is strictly clinical. My sister in law adopted a little boy born in Feb, and then had boy/girl twins in Oct. They are grown now, but I have often wondered how they felt about the oldest. He is very musically gifted and quite brilliant in general. There was always talk about him, and I wondered if the twins every felt slighted.
My own experiences have had an impact on how I parent. I have a brother two years older who was a genius, but one who hated authority, and that was almost 50 years ago. He traveled down the roads of crime--but my mother in particular could never say enough about how smart he was, and how I didn't quite measure up. The house was filled with home movies of him as a baby, toddler, small child, before all the trouble, and even in the beginning of trouble, and stacks and stacks of photos, but little or nothing of me. I have gone out of my way to make sure that wasn't the case with my own, trying to give them equality in our eyes, and seeing their strengths. Adam still says things like, "nobody in this family loves me!", or "I'm always mistreated," the little bugger. I finally told him he wasn't allowed to say those things, because they weren't true. He finally stopped. I think this is why I want so much for them to get along, because I essentially don't have siblings, and would give anything to have one or two.
John,
Thank you for your reply. I can see why the oldest you would not be close to. Eight years is a big gap. I have a friend whose husband has two brothers, all four years apart. They are all electrical engineers, professors at universities. He barely knows the oldest, and is closest to the one who is four years older, but I wouldn't say that was close.
So, it's your nephew that has 17 yr old twins? I wonder what he did that they get along fairly well. I truly think some amount of disagreement is normal. You can't live with someone day in and day out without arguments coming up. It would be, well...wierd. This is why I have trouble with the way Diana G. wrote the Beardsley twins in, which one was it, Fiery Cross?. I truly just cannot buy that they share everything, including a wife. I love her books, and think she is right on with most things, but everytime I've read that, I just can't imagine it--even given their circumstances.
I'm going to go now to see your thread Musical Kruszkas.
That's funny, my DH is the favorite of that group. They all know it and agree. There are four, my husband, his twin, a brother three years older, and a sister six years older. They will say, Oh, Mark's the favorite, and always has been (he's the youngest), and nobody disagrees. It's like they're saying, oh, the sky is blue. Although, his sister does look mildly annoyed at times, stating that their mom didn't do me any favors by this. <bg>.
Thanks for the link. I'm not sure we could do the diet. Adam has a lot of oral sensory issues. An odd kid, he doesn't like ice-cream, can't eat foods that are liquid/solid, such as cold cereal with milk, or soup. He is definitely a meat and potatoes kind of guy. But I hadn't seen that one. I'd only seen the GF/CF diet, and had tried that years ago. Very difficult. We eventually abandoned it.
So did your grandson do any therapy of any kind, like ABA? That's what we did--for four years.
Claire,
Thank you for the post. Didn't you have a baby not so long ago? How is She (did I get that right?) doing? How are you doing?
I have seen the guilt approach, and have generally cringed at it. Although as you say, it does work for some. I had to laugh though, because for the first time it happened to me. My son Andrew wanted to take Algebra this year in 7th grade so he could take Geometry in 8th grade (he is very mathematically inclined). In order to do this he had to take pre-algebra this summer. I went to school and had to really sell the idea to the VP, and it wasn't easy, but I finally got them to agree. He did the summer course, and started Algebra this year. He zoned out a few weeks ago, and the teacher called me telling me he hadn't turned in a chapter review, and flunked his test. Although he had received A's on every test up until then, she said it couldn't happen again. I found myself saying, "I went to bat for you, don't let me down." Oh well, I least I don't make a habit of it. <g>
It does help to hear others talk about their experiences. I would love to do a study about families. Might be hard for people to really be honest about how it was, though. And as far as growing up, my husband is always saying, don't worry, some day it'll be their wife's problem, and not ours! (Of course he's laughing when he says this.) Wow, to have a family where the children don't fight--something I can only dream of.
