I’m the middle child with a sister who’s three years older and a brother who’s about the same years younger. Growing up, we were constantly screwing around. With my brother, that was typically of the physical variety — pushing, shoving, wrestling, arguing, and generally in close contact. My mom referred to us as “bear cubs”. With my sister, it was more of a pushing buttons kind of sibling love. At church, my parents would stagger themselves between each of us to create a physical barrier. The goal was to keep us from horsing around. The reality was all three of us reaching behind our parents to poke, whisper threats, and largely not behave as good little churchgoers.
For the most part, this tomfoolery was full of laughter, though obviously things would escalate into anger periodically. My wife, on the other hand, is an only child. I can’t say that this is obvious as she doesn’t exhibit the typical singleton stereotypes. Really, the only time this difference in how we grew up comes to light is with our own kids.
There are three of them, 13-year-old boy-girl twins and their 14-year-old sister. Roughly 18 months separates all three. This made for some absolute lunacy during their diaper days, but the big upside has always been built-in playmates. Fortunately, they all get along famously — for the most part — nobody’s buddy-buddy all the time, of course. My wife would agree, though sometimes she has her doubts about whether they really are actually getting along. Doubts that tend to arise in situations like discovering the girls “torturing” their brother after pinning him down somewhere in the house.
It is often the impossibly high-pitched screaming that clues us in to what is happening. If my wife and I both happen to go investigate, she is typically wide-eyed with a shocked look that says, “What in the actual bleep is going on here.” At the same time, she’s staring at me as I double over with laughter watching the girls poke and tease “the boy,” as we call him, much to his apparent displeasure. But he’s really just laughing, admittedly very hard and in a borderline out-of-control maniacal kind of way.
This always ends with my wife questioning me on whether such behavior is okay. As she would tell you, her house growing up was one of general calm, with little in the way of raised voices, and certainly no horseplay. But as I always say to her, it’s perfectly normal in my book and, I’d argue, a good thing.
It’s a hard world out there and as I think any current parent can attest to, kids are more sensitive to stress than ever. So having a home life that forces you to deal with peers who are pushing you around — verbally, mentally, emotionally, and physically — builds resilience. Just to be clear, we don’t have some kind of military boot camp thing happening in our house. But we definitely let the kids push the boundaries with one another to figure out what’s okay, and what’s not. I’d say my wife is still undecided on just how much she likes this approach, but so far, it seems to be working.
