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Why Bother Staying Connected to Siblings?

Why Bother Staying Connected to Siblings?

Mom birthed seven children in thirteen years. I was the sixth born child in my family, the youngest of the girls. I’ve not always been close to my siblings, but they have been a constant in my life. It has only been in the last few years or so that I’ve grown up enough or matured in such a way as to really value what I’ve had all along, my sibs. 

   Oh, the Things We Share with Our Siblings 

I would like to ask you this, who else but a sibling can give us insights into the dynamics of the family we were born into? 

Once, when the third born child, also the second oldest sister, and I were having an adult conversation about our childhood, she told me, “You know, you were born into a chaotic household.” 

This one little statement shed a beacon of light into my life. It makes so much more sense to me now as to why I am diligent to keep my life in order. I like a clean house, and an organized workspace. I don’t like crowded, closed in, noisy places and instead prefer the quiet wide-open spaces of nature. 

Her little statement relieved me of the load of fear that I used to carry. I always thought I might be an obsessive-compulsive perfectionist. But I’m not. I’m just a normal individual who is recovering from growing up in a chaotic household. 

Another interesting concept about siblings is that who else except for them shared our childhood as children themselves? It is with our siblings we grow up with and then maybe, if we live long enough, grow old with, too. 

When my offspring or grand offspring flip the pages of photo albums, they see pictures of their favorite uncle with hair. That is an anomaly to them since they’ve only seen him as a mostly balding man. But I, on the other hand, lived through the days of his hippie hood when he kept his thick dark hair tied in a ponytail. I am lucky to be a living witness to his hairier days and to also still be alive to see him in his balding days. 

No one except for our siblings share similar character and physical traits, voice inflections and even the unique sound of our laughter. I’ve been told more than once that my voice sounds just like that of the second born sister and that I look like my second born brother. It is interesting to be compared to my balding brother when I still have lots of hair. 

Finally, who else besides our sibs can remember the trivialities concerning the different houses we lived in, the bedrooms we shared, the vacations we took, the grandparents we had or the major calamities that happened during childhood. No one but them.

So why do I bother staying connected to my brothers and sisters? It is so I can be reminded of who I once was and be validated for who I’ve become.

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