I am an only child. My husband is the oldest of 6 living children. My roommate in college had 5 siblings, and another dear friend had 8. Is the grass always greener on the other side of the fence? I used to think that people who had siblings wasted them by complaining and fighting with them all of the time – I thought most families that I knew could benefit from having each child spend the afternoon alone with a chore list and homework until their parents came home – so they’d appreciate the company like I was sure I would if I had siblings. (Note; until I was in 10th grade, my parents worked out an unusual work schedule so that my Mom came home only 45 min after I did, and until 4th grade, I spent that 45 min either playing outside at a safe park, or at a babysitter’s house, so I didn’t have all that much mandatory solitude either!)
One of the most attractive things about my husband when we met in High School Youth Group at church, was the way he routinely spoke respectfully of his siblings, and played sweetly with the youngest ones (I learned later that he was aware that his littlest brothers were cute and cuddly enough to be "chick magnets," but he played sweetly with them all the time, not just when he wanted to attract girls! He also had some really spectacular fist fights with his brothers who were his same age, but they were best friends other times.) My college friends also spoke kindly of their siblings. It was very endearing.
Right now my oldest boy is reading Calvin and Hobbes to my youngest boy. They’ve been taking breaks from the eldest’s short lessons to play smash hockey too, or to build with plastico mobiloes. M has had the stomach flu today, so we are on sick day mode – get what we can accomplish done, but don’t be too ambitious. I have had to pull M off B’s head once or twice, and discipline him for hitting once when he was loosing a game – but over all, today, most days, they respect each other, they play nicely together, they make me think of the psalm of accents about the oil on Aaron’s collar. I’m so thankful!