Connections
Nadine Swahnberg, Community Minister
April 26, 2009

The cry went up from the yellow bathroom in my childhood home, I still remember the sound of it. “Yeeeeeecchhhh!” My sister Mary had found something disgusting. ---what could it be? A dead bug? I was twenty-two, a visiting newlywed, and she had found my make-up bag . Now I had thought I was doing pretty well. I still had the full array of items that my mother considered necessary to care and maintenance of a young girl --the pancake makeup and moisturizer and heavy black eyeliner. But yes, the cakes were cracking and the bottles were a bit unfresh. My sister, not caring the least about alluding to my downwardly mobile status, was intent on letting the household know that my makeup bag was icky.

Ah, yes, siblings. Can’t live without ‘em, can’t live with ‘em.

In the fifteen or so years that I have been a professional listener, except for spouses and partners, siblings are the most complained-about category. It’s very fascinating to me. I think that brothers complain more about brothers and sisters about sisters, but I have no statistics to back that up.

My sister Mary, above, is younger than me, and when she was married she got the full set of china, crystal and all her silver because my parents saw to it she received a full set of each item. After my wedding, however, I was left with the remnants of whatever people had given me as my wedding gifts---8 place settings of this, three goblets, you get the picture. I wasn’t really interested in giving a dinner party---but I called up my parents and cried and carried on. I was convinced she was being more loved, and I did not like it. The fact that my folks were much better off when she married did not seem to count. They coughed up the dishes.

So who are these siblings that most of us are born with and how do they leave marks on our lives?

I co-taught in a women’s studies program in the 90’s in western Illinois. We professors w asked our students to keep journals about gender issues. We expected them to note public issues like envy of athletic fields or sports equipment for boys, but we were sadly unprepared for the sibling issues they actually wrote about. More often than you would believe, brothers were given a college education and girls were told they did not need one or could work for theirs. The girls also complained about curfews and dating rules that were very different from their brothers’.

Given twenty or thirty topics to choose from, the primary topic the girls asked to write papers on, year after year, was “beautyism” or cuteness discrimination. If you think about it in your own family, you may be unaware of how prevalent cuteness privilege is. The cutest girls tended to be self-confident and rated themselves as happy. The least cute sister in a family of pretty girls —even though she might be very cute—often felt overlooked and vaguely depressed.

I think it must be impossible to get through childhood if one has a sibling without some of these scars. But what astonishes me is how virulent some forms of sibling rivalry are.

If cuteness and education were the biggest arenas of rivalry that we read about in student papers, money is far and away the main arena of envy and rivalry in later life.

My clients often have considerable bitterness about some arrangement a parent has set up. Regrettably, sometimes elder parents are just plain unfair. Often, as we read about in The Millionaire Next Door, parents begin “will equity” with the intention of introducing a fairer pattern than “mere equality” into the will. But that usually goes awry---- for the same reason that giving Gary two chocolate chip cookies and Lisa one does not go over well.

The skills we acquire as siblings, however, are not all about rivalry and the struggle to assert oneself. Some of them involve genuine abilities that can stay with us in adult life: keeping confidences when we saw our older sister smoking; tolerating small insignificant hypocrisies; being polite to people we are angry with. These are all useful skills in a church!

Having been an oldest sister of four children, I don’t always know how to handle advice when someone gives it to me. No older sister ever told me how to decorate my room, or what records to buy, or what kind of bathing suit to wear. I’m afraid I still dole out such advice better than I receive it.

All of my siblings are strong people who have followed their own star. My younger sister Judy became a UCC minister two years ago. It’s exciting that she has found this calling on her own, without either being led or deflected from it by me. Now, Judy has a beloved decorator named Mitch who treasures her and loves helping her to fix up her house. He is more of a permanent family member than a decorator. I think she once asked me if I needed Mitch to come by my place----and I said “no thanks”—well, the truth is I need about three Mitches.

One very important concept I’ve learned as a therapist is this: —“you do not need to BE threatening to threaten others.” Translation—even the gentlest, best-intentioned person can cause trauma to another by getting in their light, by getting a knitting needle in their armor. If you are a confident, assertive person---chances are you are going to be perceived as threatening to certain others who are less secure. Mitch is not a threatening person, but he threatens ME!

The struggle to accept our siblings changes many times over the course of a life. Now that I am rounding out my sixth decade, I find myself treasuring my siblings more and accepting their idiosyncracies with more grace.

Every summer I set a high priority on spending time with my parents and siblings in NH. In 2006, my brother Chad and his new wife and baby moved in with my parents for a spell while they were in transition. I decided I could still return to my hometown in the summer. They got “my” room. Now there was a time when I probably would have felt squeezed out. Being 56, I decided to take it in stride, and I rented a condo!

My mother is the middle child between two brothers. She grew up having to become quite feisty in defense of her own rights. That feistiness carried over into her relationship with my dad. Both now in their 80’s, they keep up a constant stream of good-natured bickering. It sounds more like a brother and sister than a picture-perfect married couple. No surprise—my dad had only a sister!

Generally the fairies who smiled on the christening of this church must have been benevolent ones, for we have few troublesome “siblings” . Many UU churches are filled with “curmudgeons.” It probably takes several generations of good ministers tirelessly blowing the pitch pipe of healthy relationships to get people to embrace kind and generous ways, and be on their best behavior.

As a minister, I know that the church is in some senses—in many senses, actually—one big family. I have had to learn not to presume to always be Big Sister. When I was a United Methodist in a small church, about 25 years old, I was not yet acclimated to the ways of collaborating in a church. I recall how one year, I made an ENORMOUS Advent banner in my basement---on my own—and then called the minister to “offer” it. The minister told me that someone in the congregation, an older lady, disliked banners and he would have to talk to her about it before it was hung. Some time passed with no call from him, and I decided to take matters into my own hands. I called the woman myself.

I can still recall the---tepid--- sound of her voice as she said “I see nothing wrong with a small, tasteful banner,” obviously covering up her real feeling.

“How big is your banner?” she asked.

“About 8’ by 15’! ” I admitted. Not an artistic masterpiece, it took up most of my basement, and was made of green felt and glue! Needless to say, I had not yet learned the skill set of churchmanship. My skills going in to my church were those of an oldest daughter who pretty much had the run of the place. I was not ready to endure the long efforts of compromise and even having my wishes permanently blocked that comes of sharing a church with others.

Another time, much later, I was on a team---not at JUC!--- that had to decide whether to give an important job to a woman who had recently joined the church but was a prima donna, seeking the limelight but not giving credit to others.

Trying to explain what the intervening years had taught me about church life—I recall saying hesitantly, “It would take some socialization.” And I knew that I had come a long ways in understanding church behavior since my “banner making days!”

Even the many ministers here –there are now seven of us, with very different roles and responsibilities---are examples of people who know how to relate to others by not intruding on their personal space and by not being anxious about turf issues. I hope we set a good example. If we as a church continue to grow and especially if Peter becomes President of the UUA, we will all need to overcome some of our “older sibling” anxiety about sharing the stage with others.

As I have become reflective about my sibling patterns, I have been able to enter more joyfully into the give and take of adulthood. I still don’t really relish competitive sports or interactions, or the kinds of games that high school girls seem to play about looks or popularity. But just think! Here at JUC, the latitude is very great for personal strengths to emerge in service to higher goals. Volunteer opportunities truly span the gamut from positions that will fill your entire schedule to those that require only an hour or two a week.

In conclusion, let’s be aware of how we are together and of how we were as siblings. Challenge yourself to identify what kind of sibling patterns you followed as a child, as a teen. Were you easy to get along with, or feisty and territorial? Were you bossy? Or consider the present: Do you ever come on too strong? Do you offer praise and thanks often and warmly to those who help you? The meeker ones of us need to answer too: Were you too easily threatened or silenced? Do you hide your light under a bushel? There is such a thing as learning to be too quiet or self-effacing. We need the gifts of everyone of us ---working together ---to make this church hum.

May we bring these honest insights to our roles as siblings with these precious people, if we still have them in our lives. If we don’t have siblings, or if they are gone, may we continue to grow in our church family in ways that are shaped both by the past—for that’s inevitable—and by mature reflection on what kind of person each of us chooses to be.