Or maybe kittens…
If The Legal Genealogist ran the circus, they wouldn’t exist.
By the time I was four, I was done with siblings.
I had an older sister. I had a younger brother.
Enough already yet.
So if I’d had my way, here on National Siblings Day,1 I’d be mentioning three people. My older sister. My younger brother. And the bonus we discovered a few years later — our older brother from my father’s first marriage.
Enough already yet!
Right.
This was, after all, the years before The Pill.
And so — given the failure of every method of birth control except The Pill2 — there are a lot more people to mention here on National Siblings Day. Add in a younger sister. And three more younger brothers.
Eight in all, if you add me into the mix.
Growing up in a household with that many siblings can be a first class royal pain in the posterior:
• That cute baby thing you do that’s really cute stops being cute at all the minute the new baby enters the house.
• You’re going to be a champ at baby-feeding and diaper-changing long before you’re out of elementary school.
• No matter what childhood disease is going around, you’re going to catch it. Sooner or later. From one of your siblings.
• You never ever ever take your eyes off your plate if there’s something really good being served at dinner.
• You’re never going to go on a real vacation, with stays at hotels or meals at restaurants, after the number of kids is greater than the number of hands the adults have.
• Even if you’re one of the older ones, you rarely get anything new except one set of school shoes at the beginning of each school year.3
• You’re going to learn to drive in a station wagon. Or a bus. Not a minivan. A bus.4
Sigh…
There were times when I would gleefully have traded every one of my siblings for a kitten.
And then something miraculous happened.
We grew up.
We went our separate ways.
We learned our separate trades.
Found our separate mates, had our separate kids, traded some of the mates in for new ones, welcomed grandchildren.
Made our separate homes, now in five separate states.
Made our separate mistakes.
Physically we grew apart.
And in our hearts we came together.
We touched base with our older brother and drew him in to our craziness.5
We have celebrated together. We have mourned together. This past year we have been frightened together — and we have Zoomed together.
And we have come to understand together how strange and wonderful this bond of siblings can be.
I’ve said it before, but it’s worth repeating: There has never been a day in my life when I haven’t been loved fiercely. Never a day in my life when I haven’t loved fiercely back. Even when I bitterly disappointed these folks, and I have — oh, how I have, there has never been a day in my life when they haven’t closed ranks around me and protected my back.
I can’t imagine anything in my life that I might ever need that these folks wouldn’t band together to try to provide, and there isn’t anything I can imagine that I wouldn’t do for them.
My siblings. Evan, Diana, Paul, Kacy, Fred, Warren and Bill.
I love ’em all.
Even if I’d still occasionally trade one or more of them for a kitten…
Cite/link to this post: Judy G. Russell, “Celebrating siblings,” The Legal Genealogist (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : posted 10 Apr 2021).
SOURCES
Image: 1963 Chevrolet Greenbrier, image by Greg Gjerdingen, CC BY 2.0
- Wikipedia (https://www.wikipedia.com), “Siblings Day,” rev. 21 Mar 2021. ↩
- Yeah, I actually do know which method failed with which sibling, but there are some things I don’t put out there in the blog. I value my life, after all… ↩
- Think hand-me-downs from older cousins. ↩
- Chevrolet Greenbrier in our case. Same color as in the picture. ↩
- I’d apologize to him for that, but I think he’s gotten used to it now… ↩
Yup, eight kids in a Volkswagen bus! Camping was the only way to vacation. Yup, hand -me-downs. But the six girls were all different shapes, short, tall, long legs, short legs so pants didn’t hand down too well. And the boys were #2 and #6 so hand-me-downs didn’t work too well there either. Then to complicate things brother #9 was born 15 years after # 8. Some jealousy there and oh how Mom embarrassed the teen agers! And like your experience, they all are now close and supportive of each other. A great bunch!
Generally by the time pants were to be handed down, the knees had been patched often enough that the hand-me-downs were shorts…
I absolutely love your sibling stories, Judy!! They remind me of the variety of great families there are, the different kinds of growing up as siblings over time… My younger brother and i lost our older sister in late February, and even though she was ‘challenging’ – we miss her a lot! There’s a hole. Cheers!
Hugs for the loss of your sister…
The Pill is not 100% effective. When used correctly, It has a failure rate of 1% so 1 in 100 women get pregnant. As most women don’t use it correctly, it has a failure rate of 9 in 100 pregnancies.
Interesting, but not relevant, since this was pre-pill anyway.
My siblings are two sisters. I love them and never want to lose one. My older sister is four years older than me, but by golly if she did not beat up a boy that was couple years older and was beating the snot outa me. Then there is my lil sister, same love for her brother and she is a tiger. Both so full of life and at our family get togethers there is a lot of laughs, love and memories.
Amazing how our siblings get so much better as we get older! 🙂
Yes! I have 3 brothers and would have happily given them away when we were children. But we discovered we are more than siblings; we are friends. We enjoy each other; we help each other; and we are happy to be together.
I just made a comment to my cousin Stan that can be repeated here: Amazing how our siblings get so much better as we get older!
So much rings true. I had 2 brothers when my father remarried, and when my step-mother became pregnant I was so looking forward to a sister. I cried when they said it was a boy (I was 10). I would have traded him for a kitten. That one is the one with whom I share an interest in archaeology and hiking, and whose political views align most closely with mine – 63 years later. I did eventually get a sister, and another brother.
Love the stories from everyone! Growing up definitely changes the relationships between siblings.
Four boys and six girls were our crew. The only difference, no big car, only sedans. Big kids in first and little ones on top. Vacations, no? Only picnics and extended family get-togethers.