The Sibling Effect
I forgot! Tuesday was Sibling Day! So, in honor of that day, our book for the week is The Sibling Effect by Jeffrey Kluger.
There really is very little reading material on the sibling relationships, so when I stumbled upon this book I was ecstatic! This is a touching memoir of the author's life with some scientific data intermixed. Touching as well as educational, this book is a fascinating read. I love this statement:
"Every individual in your family has a separate one-on-one relationship with every other individual, each of those relationships representing a discrete, stand-alone pairing...Each such pairing in any one family has strengths, intimacies and challenges that are peculiar to it, and this is particularly so in the case of siblings."
As I've thought about my own siblings this week, I've looked at each relationships separate from "just all one family." I see that I have an example in my oldest sister, paving the way before me as one who loves her role as mother. My next sister helped me through the growing up years during college as I pined over the prospect of marriage and experimented with awful hair colors! Without my one and only brother I may not have learned how to tie my shoes, blow a bubble, or ride a bike (I also might have been beat up at the bus stop years ago!). And I can't say enough about growing up with my younger sister and best friend through childhood to now. As a whole, without my siblings I wouldn't be able to share the many stories from Christmas Eves spent all in one room laughing, crying, fighting, and singing "100 Bottles of Milk on the Wall." Those memories can never be replaced.
There really is very little reading material on the sibling relationships, so when I stumbled upon this book I was ecstatic! This is a touching memoir of the author's life with some scientific data intermixed. Touching as well as educational, this book is a fascinating read. I love this statement:
"Every individual in your family has a separate one-on-one relationship with every other individual, each of those relationships representing a discrete, stand-alone pairing...Each such pairing in any one family has strengths, intimacies and challenges that are peculiar to it, and this is particularly so in the case of siblings."
As I've thought about my own siblings this week, I've looked at each relationships separate from "just all one family." I see that I have an example in my oldest sister, paving the way before me as one who loves her role as mother. My next sister helped me through the growing up years during college as I pined over the prospect of marriage and experimented with awful hair colors! Without my one and only brother I may not have learned how to tie my shoes, blow a bubble, or ride a bike (I also might have been beat up at the bus stop years ago!). And I can't say enough about growing up with my younger sister and best friend through childhood to now. As a whole, without my siblings I wouldn't be able to share the many stories from Christmas Eves spent all in one room laughing, crying, fighting, and singing "100 Bottles of Milk on the Wall." Those memories can never be replaced.
Siblings really are special and different all in their own ways. Thanks for giving me something new to think about. =)
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