My first sister and I are two years apart. I think parents assume that two siblings close in age will become happy playmates. The baby’s lonely, they think. She needs a friend. Maybe for some families that turns out to be true and the children get along famously. For our family, it was not the case.
My sister and I were rivals from as early as the day of her birth. That’s not to say that I hadn’t wanted a sister. I had requested one, in fact. No brothers, thank you. And as an afterthought, I informed my parents what to name her as well. Having a new baby in the house? I was on board.
But then that sister came along and my parents began to notice . . . oddities. For instance, as soon as she could grasp firmly, the baby delighted in grabbing a fistful of my hair, wrenching my head towards the floor, and teething on my frightened face. Though I don’t recall harboring ill will towards her in the early years, every picture of us together features me smiling broadly as I embrace her in a headlock.
I didn’t begin to understand her aversion to me until she was capable of speech. At that point she made her position on the issue clear: “I wish I were an only child!” I don’t think this was her first sentence, but I suspect it followed quickly. My standard reply was a sometimes angry, sometimes confused: “But I was here first. You couldn’t be an only child.” At this point she would give me a severe look that somehow implied that her spark of life was wrongfully delayed in transit to my mother’s womb and she couldn’t have been more surprised to pop out and find me already in existence. This glare always conveyed the sense that I was misplaced in the world, dropped into a family where I didn’t belong . . . and that matter could yet be rectified. I think that is the reason I wet my bed long past the time when it was excusable.
When I was five years old, my parents again came to me to announce that Mommy would be having another baby. “What do you want, a brother or a sister?” they asked.
“A brother,” I informed them.
“You don’t want another baby sister?” (Guess who had already put in her vote for a sister.)
“No. Last time I asked for a sister and I got her. I want a brother.”
My parents were taken aback by my reply. They realized that they had a problem on their hands. They’d asked me what I wanted, I had a definitive answer, and they couldn’t guarantee me anything. “Well, what if God gives us a little girl?” they asked.
“Bring home a puppy instead.”
When I share these stories with people, they chuckle. Then they politely accuse me of exaggerating. It is impossible for most folks to imagine toddlers having complex emotions of resentment.
It was my third birthday. The family was over to celebrate. My sister saw that my mother had baked me a cake. She saw relatives giving me brightly papered packages. She saw people hugging me and fawning over me and singing to me. And this nine-month-old child, who previous to that day couldn’t have been bothered with having legs, stood up and confidently and steadily walked across the room.
The adults cried out, “Look! The baby’s walking!” And they all ran to experience her first steps. Her unwavering, deliberate steps.
I was forgotten.
The baby sat down. And smiled.
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