I just did a cultural exchange program, and part of this experience included a homestay with a family. They were a wonderful, I repeat, wonderful family. The parents, for the most part, were doing everything right. They were actively involved in the kids' lives, they ate home-cooked meals together every night, they tried to make each child (they had four) feel important and special, they were generous with affection, they respected each child's right to privacy and personal space (no bedroom-sharing! with four kids!), and in general they always went above and beyond the expected requirements of parents. They were doing exactly what all "good" parents should be doing.
But there was one big problem. One of the siblings had taken it upon himself to pester, provoke and relentlessly annoy the others.
Now. Before I go further, I need to address some issues. Many of you are the last-born children of your respective families, and greatly resent the "pesky younger sibling" stereotype. I respect your feelings. Youngest children are given all sorts of nasty labels, like "bratty," "spoiled," and "pesky," while eldest children are always portrayed as heavenly beings who can do no wrong. It has always been O.K. to say that a younger sibling is "pesky," but it has never been acceptable to say that an older sibling is mean. For if we do, the rebuttal will be that the mean-ness is in retaliation to the pestering. No matter what, the cultural belief is to flip the script around: the younger sibling is really the oppressor while the older sibling is the oppressed. I validate those feelings and understand why hearing one more time about those damn pesky younger siblings would be enough to make you want to throw your computer to the ground, thereby rendering future access to this blog, and the rest of this post, impossible.
However, I have a few more things to say that might make this post easier to swallow. Yes, the instigator in this case study was the youngest child. But that's the only time I'll say that for the rest of this article. To me, his position doesn't matter: what mattered was that he was treating his siblings disrespectfully. I will make sure to stress his behavior rather than his birth order. Secondly, the primary victim in this situation was not the eldest child. She had actually moved out of the house. The other two remaining siblings were the victims, and the instigator seemed to provoke them about equally. However, the next oldest child was working a lot, and was hardly ever home. That left the third-born, the youngest daughter, to be the primary victim. So, if it helps, think of this not as an older sibling being victimized by a younger one, but as the youngest daughter being traumatized by, well, another youngest child.
Now that I've got that settled, I'll continue. The little instigator, whom I'll call Allen, did all sorts of things to pester his siblings. And at least half of his antics went on right under the parents' noses. During dinner, in the car, and whenever the family was gathered together, he would poke and prod at his sisters and generally annoy them. I could tell his behavior was really irritating the sisters, but the parents didn't seem to notice it at all. One time, we were in the car and Allen decided to start something up again with the sibling sitting right next to him. She, of course, protested. Allen only upped the ante. The sister appealed to the mother for help. She only said, "both of you, stop fighting!" She called to her mom again, but this time Allen started mimicking her. Like name-calling, mimicking is a big "no-no," and absolutely requires parental correction. The mother didn't say anything about it.
The tensions between Allen and his siblings continued to escalate. One night, there was a big fight between Allen and one of his sisters, and I couldn't help but overhear it. I wasn't there to observe what exactly led to the fight, but I'll bet you my next paycheck that I know why it happened. I'll bet you that Allen had been pestering his sister, she had already had it up to here with all of his antics, and kaboom! a big, explosive reaction ensued. I don't blame her.
That night, what was probably most painful for her, even more than her brother's pestering, was her mom's reaction to it all. In the midst of the already extremely emotional situation, her mother made one of the most common mistakes parents make: lecturing rather than listening. "If there's a problem between you two," I could hear her yelling from downstairs, "I expect you to work it out like two adults!!!"
That's not what's going on here, I thought to myself. This is not a conflict between them. This is a child being disrespectful who needs to be held accountable by an adult. The next morning, I went upstairs to grab something before I headed out for the day, and I ran into the mother. I could tell she was thinking about the previous night. "Good morning, Sybil," she said with a smile that did not meet her eyes, "Did you sleep well?" I answered her back kindly, but what I really wanted to do was answer her unspoken statements. I could tell that she thought of the previous night as a horrible experience of dealing with her terrible, misbehaving children while she, the long-suffering mother had to once again set them straight.
I felt like telling her that's not what had happened the previous night. What happened was that she was the problem. She was dealing with a misbehaving son who saw it as his right to terrorize others purely for the pleasure of it. And she needed to discipline him.
Let me make it clear once more that this woman was not a "bad mom." She was very kind and empathetic and really did care about her kids' feelings. A few days later, I overheard her asking Allen if he had made sure to do something, (like make sure something was picked up, I couldn't quite hear her) for the sake of the other sibling. It's not that she flat-out didn't care about the fighting, she just thought it was caused by something else. She thought they were fighting over things.
Part of the problem was that the parents didn't grasp that the pestering was a big deal. They saw it, but the emotion it caused in the sisters didn't register with them. They weren't so much turning a blind eye as just being blind to the seriousness of the issue. However, I think that paying more attention to what the sisters were saying should have enlightened them. Very often, I heard one of them say, "You aren't respecting me!" right after Allen tried to irritate her. That key word, "respect," should have signaled to them to pay closer attention.
Living with this family enlightened me more to the problem with parents. It's not that parents dealing with sibling abuse are bad parents (although some of them are). This family taught me that even the best parents can make some awful mistakes. All parents, even the best ones, need to consistently evaluate the job they're doing and ask if they need to change something. They need to be willing to ask and admit if they are the problem behind a major issue. I believe that if they do that, even if it bruises their ego, they can start to make major changes that will benefit both themselves and their families.
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