Socially Speaking

Everybody remembers when Dale and Brennan asked one another “did we just become best friends?” in the movie Stepbrothers.

We remember Tommy greeting Paul at the door saying, “brothers don’t shake hands, brothers hug” in Tommy Boy.

And who could forget a frustrated Jan Brady complaining “Marcia, Marcia, Marcia” in the Brady Bunch.

Literally since the beginning of time there have been sibling rivalries.

(ex. See Cain and Able.)

From the timeless “frog-in-the-leg” during the teen years to the inebriated insult at the holiday dinner table as adults, so many factors go into the sibling rivalry. There’s the obvious, age, birth order and gender, but what about the less obvious, inherited neuroticism, who got the good genes vs. bad genes and which kid stuck around home long enough to really get the good stuff from mom and dad.

How we all talk to our brothers or sisters is probably more similar than we think, equal parts “I will knock you out” vs. “don’t anybody talk about my sibling or you’ll have to deal with me”.

Am I right?

Whether you’re trading harmless insults at a dysfunctional Thanksgiving or slamming tequila shots at a family wedding, there’s always that one sibling that goes too far and goes off the board with something uncalled for.

And of course for bigger families the alliances between siblings change more often than the Democratic platform. Sister (A) could be your best friend one day and then the target of your aggression the next when you team up with sister (B) to keep everybody in check.

Down the line, everybody gets older and people start getting married. That’s when you get an entirely new dynamic. The brother/sister-in-law is often like the new kid in school, off limits at first until you feel them out but certainly fair game after they put some time in.

Most can relate to the one sibling who does more, leaving the others to throw up their hands and say, “we get it, you’re the perfect one. You’re never wrong and the one who always does everything”. This can be the catalyst to push further into a war of words or can be the point at which everybody cracks up and hugs it out.

Socially speaking, the relationships we have with our siblings will always be the ones we cherish. The blood bond is a strong one. So make sure you never forget that blood is thicker than water.

American humorist Sam Levenson said it best when he wrote “Siblings are children from the same parents, each of whom is perfectly normal until they get together”