THOUGHT EXPERIMENTS IN PUBS

TEiP DEEP 25

SIBLINGS

SPOILER ALERT

Here is the Thought Experiment that we’ll discuss at TEiP DEEP.

It is broken into three chapters.

I recommend waiting to read the chapters sequentially at the event

…but if you’d like to know what they are ahead of time, here you go… :-)

CHAPTER 1

You’re at a small dinner party with close friends. You’ve moved beyond small talk to more meaningful topics. A few people have shared what they’re excited about at the moment. Others share what they’re struggling with.

Two of your friends, a couple, say they have a tough decision that they’re trying to make. They wonder whether their friends can help.

Mel and Maria are trying to decide whether to have another child.

Their first child, Anna, is nearly 3 years old. She started nursery a few weeks ago, and recently, she’s started asking when she will have a brother or sister.

Both Mel and Maria love the idea of having another child. They have imagined what Anna would be like as a sister and how their children could play together and grow up together. How they could look out for each other through life, after their parents are gone. They are financially in a position to have another child, and they have plenty of support from their parents.

But they also have doubts. Both Mel and Maria have bad relationships with their siblings and have heard that ‘sibling rivalry’ is one of the strongest forces of nature. They’ve seen children make each others’ lives a misery and grow up to be each others’ worst enemies.

They wonder what you, the collected guests, think.

QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER:

What would you say to Mel and Maria?
What are the advantages of having a sibling?
What are the disadvantages?
How important is a sibling relationship?

CHAPTER 2

It turns out that this is a topic that everyone has something to say about.

Isaac:

“To be honest, I loved being an only child. I got all the attention I wanted. I was comfortable hanging out with adults from an early age. I think this is why I felt more confident and self assured than a lot of my peers when I grew up. I had to learn to entertain myself as a child, so I’m not very clingy in a relationship and I don’t rely on my friends to keep me happy.”

Aggy:

“I was an only child, like Isaac, but it definitely didn’t have the same effect on me. I wish I had siblings.My parents were really good, they spent a lot of time playing with me, being silly with me, etc., but they would eventually get bored or tired. Other kids don’t run out of steam like that. I was always jealous of my cousins because they had brothers and sisters, so they always had people to play with. It was like they were part of a team, whereas I was always by myself. I was really lonely as a child, and I think it actually made me more clingy as an adult because I find companionship so valuable and such a novelty.”

Shenaz:

“Yeah, I don’t know what I would have done without my brother. Not just as a child, but as an adult too. We don’t get on all the time, but when life gets difficult, we’re always there for each other. I think its because we are the only people who know each other from the beginning, who know the full context of our family, our home, our migration and the experience of settling in a new country. Other people have similar experiences, but nobody has had the SAME experience. We understand each others’ roots far better than anyone else could. That’s why it’s so relaxing to be around each other - we don’t have to explain any of the past because we already know it.

Once your parents die, you really realise how special a sibling is. They are someone who, if you’re lucky, goes through the whole of life with you. They know you from the beginning. There’s no substitute for that. I’m so grateful to my parents for my brother.”

Ingrid:

“I wish I had that with my brother, but we just don’t see eye to eye. We’ve always been different and I feel like there’s always this sense of competition and opposition. At times, when we were children, we enjoyed playing together, but it was really just because there was nobody else around and it would often end in tears. There’s always been this rivalry that we can’t get beyond. Who’s doing better? Who’s got more? Who’s happier?. And now we’re completely politically opposed. It’s like we grew in entirely opposite directions. It’s hard to believe we’re related. I know that if he could, he’d sabotage me rather than help me. To be honest, there’s nothing that causes me more stress than my relationship with my brother. Life would be a lot easier without him.”

Lara:

“My sister and I get on well, but its not entirely down to us. Our parents really wanted us to get on. I think they made some smart choices to help that happen. For example, they never gave us our own devices, we always had to share. We had a gameboy, which we used to play together. One of us would be in control, but the other would advise. It was way more fun than playing on our own. We went into a shared world together, rather than becoming separate. To this day, we still prefer to watch things together than alone. We send each other reels that we find funny, but we don’t watch them until we’re together. I wonder if you two, as parents, might be able to have some influence over how your children’s relationship would turn out. I don’t think its all written or fate or anything like that.”

QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER:

Whose experience resonates with you the most?
Which of these experiences do you think is most typical?
If you had to weigh it up, do you think its more of a risk to have a sibling or to not have a sibling?
How much of a person’s character is influenced by their birth family?
How influential are siblings in a person’s story?
What about other factors like birth order, number of siblings, same gender/different gender, etc.?

CHAPTER 3

The group is inspired by Lara’s comment. The conversation turns to ways in which parents might contribute to sibling harmony/friction.

Isaac:

“I was moved by what Shenaz said about her brother. It actually made me question my proud only-child-ness!

I guess what stands out to me is that Shenaz and her brother had a lot of shared experiences that other people can’t understand. Maybe that is a good ingredient for parents to think about. I guess its something you can’t really engineer though, can you?”

Aggy:

“Well maybe you can’t engineer the big stuff, but what about the small stuff. Lara and her sister had to share their devices, which meant they shared a lot more experiences than if they’d each had their own. Maybe good sibling relationships are about maximising sharing.”

Ingrid:

“And minimizing competition! I think, looking back on it, that my brother and I were always compared by our family members. They were always pitting us against each other. Maybe that's why we’ve become so different, but still can’t shake that feeling of competitiveness.”

Mel:

“So I wonder what we could practically do to reduce competition and encourage sharing/shared experiences…”

QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER:

What might you suggest to Mel? Are there any practical things parents can do to ensure good sibling relationships?
How much responsibility should parents take for their children's relationships with one another?
What other factors might be at play?
Is it possible to predict how things will pan out in a family? What info would you need to know?
What would you most like to contribute to this conversation?

SOURCE:

BA, THOUGHT EXPERIMENTS IN PUBS Group Member