by Melissa Roe

Created on: May 29, 2009   Last Updated: May 31, 2009

I can remember thinking as a child how much I despised my younger sister for getting away with things that I was never allowed to do at her age.

My sister and I were always bickering and fighting about who was going to do what chore. We both knew that they all had to be done, but neither of us wanted to do the more difficult ones. I was always the one who got stuck lugging huge loads of wet laundry outside to hang on the clothesline that my dad had strung from the garage to the electric pole. They were heavy, and I was the older one who could handle the job. She got to put the dishes away. I was the one who used the push mower to cut the grass on the steep hillside in the middle of the summer heat. She got to vacuum.

I always felt like she was the favorite, the one who got out of doing difficult things, the one who got to do more. Even though I felt resentment towards her, I still felt protective of her. One time on the school bus a girl started picking on her, I am the one who got in trouble for fighting, not her, because I am the one who stuck up for her.

Relationships between brothers and sisters are very special, and sometimes hard to understand. Now that I am an adult, I realize that throughout our childhood, we had many fights and disagreements, but we also had a bond.

Because I was the oldest, I was the one that my parents were forced to practice their trial and error parenting skills on. As a child I just thought that my sister was the favorite child, but I understand now that I was the guinea pig.

Today I am the mother of two girls. I try to remember the days of my childhood when my sister and I use to argue and fight over the littlest things, and how it use to drive my mom crazy. I see so many similarities in the relationship I had with my sister, with the relationship that my own daughters share. Even though some days I feel that they are total enemies and will never be friends I know that once they get older, they will be thankful to have each other.

Siblings share a special bond with each other that will always be there. No matter what the situation is, brothers and sisters are there for each other in difficult times, and they are the first ones to call you when something great has happened to them. Aside from parents, your siblings are the only other people in the world who will naturally give you unconditional love, and who will forgive you for anything.

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