My Sibling Wish
Potential triggering content includes: adoption, siblings, and mental/ emotional abuse.
As a youngling, I didn’t have siblings. I grew up an only child, blaming spilled Cheerio bowls and half-eaten Tylenol tablets on the dog.
It was painfully obvious, it was never the dog. But I had to try, right?
Honestly, it was often heavier than that. Phantom rage and pointed fingers... Look what you’ve done! I’d laugh because I thought it was funny (at first). Until I realized the severity of my invisible transgressions. I didn’t know what I had done. But whatever it was… it was bad.
My husband? He’s one of six. The stories his family shares around the holiday table are borderline alarming. I can never get enough. How the hell did they survive without killing each other? There are tales of forced tongues on spinning bike tires and jumping off roofs into swimming pools.
It sounds like chaos.
The kind of chaos I only dreamed of as a child.
“DAAAAAAAD! Allan hit me!” my youngest screams from the basement. My heart jolts. I wait for tears.
Admittedly, I catastrophize sibling fights in my mind. But the statistics show only one in every five fights is ever that serious. I don’t know that for sure, I made that up. But it feels true!
Still, I can't force my brain to believe it’ll be fine.
In an effort not to over- or under-react, I defer the sibling rivalry expertise to Michael.
Early on in parenthood, sibling fights stressed me the hell out. The screams grated on my ears, and I could never unwind the truth of who started it. I’d clamp my hands over my ears to drown out the noise. Who cares who started it!? Just clean up the battle wounds and carry on!
It’s hard for me to understand because as a child, everything was my fault. I don’t mean that figuratively or as some sort of cry for help, I mean that literally.
As an only child, it was me.
It was always me.
There was no one else to blame.
Anything that went wrong in the house, from bad feelings to misplaced knickknacks, from broken snow globes to missing eyeglass cases, was my fault. (Okay the snow globe thing was definitely my fault. )
The weight of shouldering emotional, physical, and mental wellness fell on me. I was the cause of daily stressors.
Therefore, I believed it was my responsibility to keep the peace however I could.
Because of this, I’m not one to point fingers. It’s just ingrained in me to “clean it up” and move on. I take ownership of the mess; from shattered drinking glasses to rage-filled vocal outbursts. I assume responsibility and carry on with my life.
I used to pride myself on my laid-back attitude about knowing ‘I ruin everything’. It became almost comical. Whenever someone launched an angry tirade my way, I plucked the energetic strings and pocketed them eventually weaving a nifty little “emotional blanket” of my transgressions. I wore it like a cape. Queen of the fuck- ups! My subjects, mini versions of me running into each other in an effort to make everything right.
Except now, as an adult... as a mom... as a mother of three boys...
I’ve reconsidered my take on the purpose of the cloak.
I’m much more affected by it than I thought I was.
Bound by the weight of the threads…. I am not the queen, I am the jester.
The jester who was buried for not providing the court proper entertainment.
RIP jester girl.
There’s a sore spot in my heart when it comes to parenting siblings.
A quiet, drippy wound where blood plops from my heart and pools at my feet.
When the wound first began, it dripped so slowly I couldn’t see the blood as it faded into the floor.
Now, as an adult, the puddle has become a lake.
I’m drowning in the ache of my grief.
It’s too late, too big to ignore.
My children are now a constant reminder of the toll it takes to shoulder the weight of responsibility for too long. They remind me of the gaping holes poked in my childhood story.
My familial encounters shaped the way I process relationships. Causes to question, am I even fit to raise kids? Let alone siblings?
This is where I tell you; I’m adopted.
Why does that matter? Well, I’ll tell you.
As a child, I felt the weight of responsibility for happiness in my family system.
I felt the silent grief in the home. The silent grief infertility leaves in a couple. The rage-filled joy mixed with disappointment, as my parents looked at me with equal parts awe and confusion. I could never be the child they couldn’t have together—just as they could never be the parents I’d never know.
The solution for this unspoken crack in our home according to my underdeveloped brain? Siblings.
Siblings were the answer.
I wanted siblings desperately. A Little version of me tugs on moms’ shirt in my minds eye as I remember asking her —BEGGING HER — for a brother.
I dropped the idea into every conversation. (I feel a little guilty about that now… I’m sure that wasn’t easy for them either.)
But as a kid, I didn’t know. Can’t we just buy another one?
It was just me. Alone. In my room. Which, admittedly, was its own kind of joy.
Solitude is important. Especially to me. But it gets old, fast.
Do I crave solitude because I was an only child? I’m not sure. Still, I wonder; if I had siblings would I take everything so damn seriously all the time? Would I be so on edge? Would I be anxious? Would I expect impossible things of myself?
Would I assume responsibility for the whole world’s joy like I do now? If I had a sibling, would they help me lighten the emotional load a bit?
As much as I love solitude, I also just needed one person. One person to see, to know, to feel how fucking hard I was trying. Just one person to understand how damn hard I wanted to be what my parents needed me to be.
I wanted to make them happy. They desperately wanted a baby, which meant a baby was supposed to be the answer, right? I had one job to do… and I was failing.
Can’t I have a sibling, please?
Someone to help bear the burden of family joy?
Someone to soften the crushing blow of unrealistic expectations?
Someone to laugh with, so life didn’t always feel so damn serious?
Punches roll through my abdomen like thunderclouds over an open field. I stand there alone with my umbrella, waiting to be struck. A rumble of messages booms from different storm clouds.
The low roar from the part of me who aches for kin collides with the ear-shattering quake of my own kids at war.
I am the child, wishing for a sibling.
I am the adult, grieving that child.
I am the mother, needing to parent her children - before someone actually does draw blood.
Sometimes they’re so mean to each other, it baffles me to my core. Don’t they know how lucky they are? Don’t they know how special sibling relationships can be?
And so, I freeze. In motherhood, in childhood, on my couch, stuck between two realities.
Not always, but it happens.
The wound too big to ignore.
Too heavy to carry.
Lost between a mom called to referee the fight, and the child casting fishing nets to wishing stars.
BOOOOOM! go the siblings in the basement under my trembling feet.
“DAAAAAAAAAAAD! He hit me 55 times!”
“That’s a lot of times. Is there blood?”
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I didn’t grow up with siblings in my home. But my husband has reassured me, I didn’t miss much.
I settle into the cushions and give myself permission to feel more grounded in the now. And right now, my eldest and youngest are on round 3 of their boxing match finale.
BOOOOM go my children in the playroom, and my husband laughs lightly.
I remember to relax.
He tells me siblings come with their own cost.
I’m sure he’s right.
He says it’s not so great…
I’m not so sure I believe that.
I’m not so sure he believes that.
Does he say what I want to hear?
Or does he recall the brotherly/sisterly torture endured in the name of survival?
It’s probably both.
I do know one thing, though; the wave of wind-filled medicine from his laughter breezes through to gently lift the storm clouds of the past. His effortless nature a nurturing balm on my aching heart.
His approach to sibling discrepancies adds humor, and de- mystifies the confusion, and dims the intensity of sibling rivalry.
There’s a hum of something… Is that... normalcy I sense?
He’s taught me so much about siblings and how to navigate these relationships with a lighter hand. He’s helped me confront the truth of my past and navigate the chaos and complexity of parenting.
The wound has faded over time. The storm clouds once filled with ear-deafening thunder are now a distant memory. But it’s still there. It just doesn’t hurt the way it once did.
Still, when those uncomfortable sensations pop up,
on the rare occasion I fall down the rabbit hole of potentiality,
I nod at the inner child casting her line from her bedroom window.
I sit with her as she whispers prayers to the beckoning stars in the night,
wishing for a sibling, waiting on a miracle.
Sealed in Fire & fate,
Robin
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