Siblings

Day 27 of ‘The Daily Post’ (sorry, I’ve been forgetting to count).

Talking of Charlesinparis made me reflect on siblings. I am jolly glad I had siblings, because watching my own children would be rather shocking otherwise. I would probably take seriously statements like “You’re the worst brother in the world and I’m never going to let you use any of my things ever again”. I would psycho-analyse the reasons behind the name-calling, and the choice of names. I would agonise over setting appropriate boundaries to the physical violence. As it is, having grown up as one of four, I recognize much of what I see and hear from my own childhood. In the same way that I hear myself saying things that my mother said, I hear my children saying things that I and my siblings said.

I assume that most of this stuff is nature’s way of training children in conflict resolution, weathering knocks to self-esteem, and other useful life skills, much as puppies play at fighting and racing. And please don’t think that I assume children who are brought up as only children lack these skills. I imagine they learn them in more sophisticated environments involving fewer broken toys and broken deals.

Are you an only child with multiple children of your own? Has it been a big adjustment? I’d like to know.

Anyway, I thought I’d tell you about my siblings, and in particular what this summer has brought out.

My sister has sent me books. She has always chosen just right. She thinks I am more cultured and intellectual than I am, and gives me links to highbrow literary sites or tells me about operas she has been to. It's nice she has such unwaveringly high expectations of me, in defiance of the current evidence. It's also impressive that she chooses good books for me, in spite of her aspirations for my tastes. She emails me snippets from her London office life. She faithfully prints the blog out for my mum to read.

My big brother, Charlesinparis, has phoned a lot. When he phones, the conversation runs at 100mph, and is full of puns which are either very bad, or very obscure, or both. Who else out there would tie up the name of the anti-histamine medication Benadryl with the 70’s comedian Benny Hill? I have had over 40 years' practice at getting his puns, so I can keep up, and sometimes even pre-empt. It’s very gratifying. His conversational style is like the activity of a hummingbird. He dives in to a subject at breakneck speed, sucks the sweet nectar out of it while his wings work unbelievably fast to hold him steady, then departs to the next one in a dart that you could miss if you blinked. It's one of nature's greatest wonders.

Then there’s my younger bro, in Brighton. I used to make him get into my bed so that I could warm my cold feet up on his legs, when we were little and shared a bedroom. Now he is over six foot and beanpole thin, so I expect he has cold feet himself much of the time. He has a very laid back attitude to life, which is a great antidote to the manic majority. He has often provided for me some kind of still centre where I can go to catch breath when the storm is raging. In a recent email chat with him, I asked

“How can I tell whether I am suffering from chemo-induced fatigue, or whether I am just lazy and enjoy lounging round the house surfing the internet and not doing very much?”

To which he replied

“Why do you need to tell?”

I know I said to them "you're the worst siblings in the world and I'll never let you use any of my things". I was always the snark when we played ‘hunting of the snark’ (ok, ok, they knew I secretly enjoyed it). I was humiliated in arm wrestling contests. I used to hide in the garage when I wanted to be away from them. But it all came out in the wash, as you can see.