Dear Ann Landers,
"My wife's brother lives with us and she waits on him hand and foot. He hasn't worked in four months. When I tell her he's got to find a job or get out, we have a big fight and she starts to cry . . Il8 THE WAS BETWEEN THE SIBLINGS "My husband is in business with his brothers. He works harder than all of them put together, but we don't have a thing to show for it. They all live swell but we have to struggle to get by. I've begged him to talk about more money but he always finds some excuse. There ought to be a law against brothers being in business together." Adults who are unable to break away from their brothers and sisters are emotionally immature. There are countless combinations of such neurotic entanglements and the story of how they got that way can usually be traced to Mom and Dad. Parents who treat each child fairly help them to build the foundation for a stable relationship in later years. The favorite child or the "family pet" is heir to the hostility of his brothers and sisters. If there are special favors or privi-leges to be had, the children should share them or have them in turns. The child who always gets the breaks be-cause he is the oldest or the youngest or the prettiest or the smartest pays a dear price for this preferred treatment. School teachers sometimes create bitterness among brothers and sisters by thoughtlessly making comparisons. It is natural for Miss Jones to identify Willard Smith with his brother Oscar. But it can be catastrophic if Oscar is brilliant and industrious and Willard is mediocre and some-what lethargic. The teacher who makes the mistake of say-ing "I can't understand why you don't do better-your brother was such a fine student!" does more damage than she knows-and she injures the relationship, too, because the one who suffers by comparison cannot help but dislike the brother who has put him in an unfavorable light. Many an adult is driven by destructive feelings of com-petitiveness with brothers or sisters. The childhood wounds still hurt. To the one who was always "second best," it doesn't matter that he is now grown and eminently success- THE WAR BETWEEN THE SIBLINGS U9 ful. He must still convince the brothers or sisters that he is successful. How do these feelings start? No one knows exactly why, but there is one axiom: Every child wants to be the favored one, whether he is the first bom or the seventh bom. Each child wants all the love, all the atten-tion and all the toys. As an only infant he gets all of everything. When he is obliged to share, he surrenders every priority with reluctance. He battles against dethrone-ment. Sibling rivalry can be a manageable family problem or it can be an endless round of tattling, fighting, head-bashing, and refereeing. It all depends on how parents handle it. If the problem is dealt with realistically and intelligently, brothers and sisters have a minimum of squabbles (prefer-ably settled among themselves) and they grow up with mutual respect and admiration. If the problem is not handled intelligently, brothers and sisters can turn a home into a battleground, drag parents into the struggle, demand that parents make choices. The result: wild competitive-ness and lifelong hostilities. Parents with more than one child must accept the fact that there is rivalry among all children. Because rivalry often has an unattractive face, many parents pretend it doesn't exist. In an effort to present a family portrait of bliss and perfect harmony (artificial, of course, because no family achieves this) they say: "Our children adore each other. There is no competitiveness in our family. It's all for one and one for all." If parents really believe this rubbish, they've been hood-winked by their kids. Children are infinitely clever at con-cealing their real feelings. In most families there is some open warfare among brothers and sisters. Conflict is in-evitable and should be tolerated, within limits. Honest expression of anger is far healthier than smiling on the out- 120 THE WAR BETWEEN THE SIBLINGS side and boiling on the inside. But parents must never al-low themselves to be drawn into the petty squabbles of their children-comforting the one who complains first or who cries the loudest. When such false rewards can be won, the fighting is endless. The art of buck-passing is an All-American family sport which is readily learned when parents fail to act with au-thority. Every child should be taught early that a request from parents is a politely worded order-not a trial balloon sent up to see what will happen. Every child should be assigned small chores which bene-fit the entire family-emptying the trash baskets, going to the grocery store, or bringing in the wash when it rains. They should accept the proposition that it is honorable to be a contributing member of a group and dishonorable to be a loafer or a goldbrick. When there are no assigned duties it's easy to pass the buck or evade the responsibility entirely. Children who are not made to feel responsible for chores consider "work" and "errands" dirty words. The brothers and sisters then compete for the title of "most idle." The scene that follows is enacted in thousands of homes daily. If it sounds like a tape-recording made in your home, you have work to do. Mother: "Mary, please go to the grocery store and get a loaf of bread and two quarts of milk. We need them for supper." Mary: "Gee, Mom, I went to the store yesterday. Make Jimmy go." Jimmy (who enters the room at that moment): "No fair. I went to the drug store for Pop's pipe tobacco last night. Besides, I'm just leaving-promised to play first base. So long." THE WAR BETWEEN THE SIBLINGS 121 Mother: "Jimmy said he went to the drug store for Dad last night, so you'll have to go, Mary." Mary: "That rat! I heard him tell Dad he wanted to go to the drug store for airplane glue and Dad said as long as he was there to get him some tobacco." Mother: "Oh, is that the way it was? Well, anyway he did go, and I need the things so please be a good girl and do this for Mother." Mary: "Gee, Mom, I'm right in the middle of an Eng-lish paper. I have to finish it by tomorrow. You don't want me to flunk, do you? Bobby will be home from school in a few minutes. Ask him." Scene Two: Mother (weary of the buck-passing and ex-cuses) puts on her sweater and heads for the grocery store. Another effective device designed to trap parents into displaying favoritism is the old-fashioned tattle-tale game. Billy comes rushing into the kitchen, sobbing and scream-ing, His words are barely understandable. "Louise threw dirt in my eyes-and I didn't do anything to her," he sobs. Louise appears in the doorway and shouts "That's a lie. Billy threw dirt on me first. He was hiding behind the garage and he thought I didn't see him." Billy: "I did not!" Louise: "You did, too. . . ." Mother: "Louise, shame on you for treating your little brother like that. Just for that, no movie for you Saturday." The moment Mother turns her back Billy is all smiles, sticks out his tongue at his older sister and says "Ha, ha, I sure got you in Dutch." There is no perfect solution but the best way to dis-courage such performances is to penalize both parties. It's a waste of time, patience and energy to try to determine 122 THE WAR BETWEEN THE SIBLINGS who started a fight between two kids. The one who gets his story told first usually wins. It should be understood that the peace and quiet of the home is not to be disturbed by indoor fighting and tale-bearing. Teach your children to settle their differences out-side-between themselves. When they discover that run-ning to Mom or Dad with reports will bring punishment to both parties, the back-biting stops. The idea behind tattling is to win favored treatment, or at least to put the other one in bad. When children find it won't work, they leam to live together. After all, what's the fun in fighting when no one is around to listen and nothing can be gained? Many parents invite hostility between children by per-mitting the younger one to tag along with the older one and enjoy the same privileges even though there may be an age spread of as much as four or five years. If the older child resents this and complains, he is told that he must not be selfish and that he must be good to his younger brother or sister. The older child feels abused and his hostility for the younger one grows by the minute. He is sure the parents love the younger one more and as proof points to the fact that "Bob gets cut in on everything that is mine." This is a double-edged sword. The younger child be-comes overly aggressive toward the older one because he feels he is immune to punishment. Dick has heard Mom and Dad tell Victor that he is responsible for "his younger brother" and therefore Dick does as he pleases. If something goes wrong, Victor gets the blame because he is older. Older children should not be saddled outside the home with younger brothers or sisters. They should give Mom a hand if help is needed, but they should not be asked to share their friends, clothing, possessions, or interests. Many unhappy teen-agers write to complain that the old- THE WAR BETWEEN THE SIBLINGS 123 est child is the pet of either Mom or Dad or both. In many families the first-born gets the inside track, but this does not mean he should reign as Queen or King of the house-hold, ordering the younger ones around as if they were lackeys. Older children should not be permitted to push their chores on to the younger ones. Nor should they be permitted to help themselves to the possessions of the younger ones just because they are older. Hand-me-downs In families where there are several children, regardless of the available financial resources, it is not uncommon for the younger ones to wear "hand-me-downs." The psycho-logical effect can be devastating if it is not done with love and understanding. The following lines from a young girl in Charleston, West Virginia, poignantly illustrates the heartache: "I'm thirteen years old and I have never had a dress that was bought just for me. I have two older sisters and every dress I ever had was a hand-me-down. Some of them are in pretty good condition if my sisters get tired of them in a hurry. I can't wait until I am old enough to quit school so I can go to work and buy some brand new clothes that have never been worn by anyone else." I make it a rule never to volunteer unsolicited advice, but I had a difficult time restraining myself in this case. I wanted desperately to write to this girl's mother and plead with her to buy the child the next new dress in the family. I ached to tell her, no matter how much the older ones may think they need a new dress, it is not nearly so important as getting this thirteen-year-old a dress just for her. Boys usually pay less attention to clothes but the younger male animal can also have feelings of being second and 124 THE WAR BETWEEN the siblings third best if he is forever handed down the used clothing of an older brother. Every child should have something new which was purchased (or made) just for him-at least once in a while. How parents help brothers and sisters hate each other Several years ago in Chicago, an eighteen-year-old boy murdered a stranger who was sitting on a park bench. "Why did you do it?" he was asked by the police. "Because my mother kept telling me I should be like my older brother. My brother was always winning honors and things. I could never be like him, so I decided to be just the opposite. This was the worst tiling I could think of to do." It's too bad an automatic gag can't be applied to parents just before they utter these poisonous words: "Why don't you behave more like your older brother or sister?" If there is a more inflammatory sentence in the English language, I don't know it It is marvelously healthy for younger brothers and sisters to want to imitate the good behavior of their older siblings, but they must do so because of honest admiration. An or-der to "behave like Brother Jack" usually insures contrary behavior. There is enough natural competitiveness between siblings without encouraging more. When Alice comes home with a beautiful report card, studded with A's and glowing compliments on her conduct, it is natural (and correct) for the parents to show pleasure and to praise her. On the other hand, her brother Phil, who is two years younger, brings home a card which indicates he may flunk English and spelling and that his math is borderline. In addition to poor marks, his deportment sug-gests that he is unwilling to accept direction and that he is not working up to his capacity. THE WAR BETWEEN THE SIBLINGS 12� It would be preposterous for parents to congratulate Phil on such a card, but he should be dealt with privately- and independently of his sister. No comparisons should be made between his card and Alice's. Phil knows he has done poorly and that his sister has done well. When his parents set his sister up as the model, he feels justified in hating her. In his confusion and anxiety, she becomes the source of his troubles. He figures if it weren't for her he wouldn't look so bad. His major concern then is not how to do better but how to get even with his sister. Love each other-or elsel Too many parents force togetherness on their children in the hope that it will make them devoted. Children have more in common with youngsters their own age than with siblings who are a few years older or younger. It would be a better world and a safer world if all people, everywhere, loved and respected each other-but they don't; and so long as the human animal remains basically unchanged, they never will. But we should be able to leam to live together harmoniously. This cannot be accom-plished in a family by demanding or begging children to love each other-"or else." It can be achieved only by raising children to be independent, self-sufficient, and gen-uinely considerate of one another. The healthiest sibling relationships are those which flower naturally out of trust, respect, and admiration. But brothers and sisters are held together by a mysterious bond for as long as they live. The experiences shared while growing up give their relationship a unique dimension. Brothers and sisters must like each other before they can love each other. And they will like each other only if they feel they have been treated honestly and fairly. It is the 126 THE WAR BETWEEN THE SIBLINGS parents who set the emotional thermostat in the home. If parents are fair to each child and if they encourage each one to have his own interests, the children, when they grow to adulthood, will not feel the need to compete with each other financially, socially, or professionally. They will not feel the compulsion to "keep up with" or to overwhelm each other. They will have quiet feelings of pride in the achievements of one another. They will seek each other out as friends because they thoroughly enjoy being together. And this is the highest compliment of all. � ELEVEN Double trouble H his should not be a chapter. It should be a volume. J1 Years before I dreamed of becoming an advice colum-nist, I promised myself I would one day write a book on rearing twins. I know how it looks from the inside, because my twin sister and I were practically Siamese from the day we were bom to the day we married-and naturally it was a double wedding. I have attempted to read everything available on the sub-ject of twins. I have observed twins, questioned their par-ents, their brothers and sisters, their friends and their teachers. And now, as Ann Landers, I receive a great many letters from twins. It is disturbing to me that in the past twenty years I have encountered so few twins whose parents are doing an enlightened job of raising them. I do not say this in criticism. If the parents knew better, they would do better. But unfortunately, there has been precious little in-formation available to help parents raise twins. 127 128 DOUBLE TROUBLE The most common and most damaging error is to assume that because twins came into the world together they must be dressed alike, encouraged to do the same things, and instructed to stick together, come what may. This is pre-cisely what should not be done. It is of course easier to treat twins as a single unit rather than as two individuals. It requires extra time and energy and imagination to steer children of the same age in separate directions. It is infinitely simpler for the parents if twins go everywhere together, share each other's friends, clothes, and interests. And then, too, twins boost the parental ego. It makes them feel "special" (for dad, a better word is virile) because a multiple birth falsely suggests extraordinary sexual prowess. So how do you let the world know? By dressing your twins alike, parading them as a unit, and keeping them together. This may do wonders for mama and papa, but it triggers serious problems for the twins. It may be rewarding to review the application of conflict-ing theories in the rearing of two sets of quintuplets. One set was kept together; the other was split up. On May 28, 1934, near Callander, Ontario, five little girls were bom to Oliva and Elzire Dionne. Dr. Allan Roy Dafoe, a country doctor, delivered the quintuplets at home and is credited with having saved their lives. The Dionnes were the first quints in medical history to survive more than a few hours. Lillian Barker, a newspaper woman and friend of the Dionne family, told the inside story of the celebrated quints in her book "The Dionne Legend." Author Barker described how Dr. Dafoe became a jealous foster parent. He threatened to walk off the case if anyone questioned his handling of the children and "ran the whole show to suit himself." Time Magazine (March 26, 1951) said: "Dr. Dafoe en-gineered the deal which took the quints from their parents DOUBLE TROUBLE 129 and made them the wards of the Ontario government. He moved them into a private nursery and granted the parents permission to visit-provided they showed their passes." Dr. Dafoe signed movie contracts, made broadcasts, en-dorsed medicine, baby products, and cereals. Souvenir stores sprang up in Callander and the quints became an international attraction. Visitors (armed with an admission ticket) were permitted to look in on the quints through a one-way glass window. In 1935 Papa and Mama Dionne went on a stage tour. Dr. Dafoe died in 1943, but his policies were pursued. The quints were to be raised together, dressed alike, sepa-rated from their parents and other brothers and sisters and publicized as a single unit. Then, a year after Dr. Dafoe's death, Mr. and Mrs. Dionne succeeded, through an act of Parliament, in getting their children back. The quints were ten years old when they moved out of the display quarters into the family home. By then their personality patterns were set. They were shy and clung together. They didn't want to be out of one another's sight. When they were graduated from high school at the age of eighteen, none had ever been out on a date alone with a boy. In 1943, on July 15, another set of quintuplets was bom in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Three girls and two boys, each weighing two pounds, were bom to Maria and Franco Diligenti. But the world did not know about the Diligenti quintu-plets until they were almost eight months old. Their multi-millionaire father had been advised by a physician and close friend to shun all publicity and to rear the children as individuals. The children were registered in widely-separate localities so that their multiple birth would be kept a secret. It leaked out several months later, but Papa Diligenti still 130 DOUBLE TROUBLE managed to keep them shielded from publicity and ex-ploitation. He had the means to stick to his program. Each quint had a separate room and a private nurse from infancy. At the age of seven they were sent to separate schools, miles apart. They were permitted to be together only during vacations. At the age of nine and a half, the Diligenti quintuplets received their first public attention on the occasion of their first Communion. The world had its first look at the quints, and it found them healthy, energetic, outgoing and filled with the excitement of living. Each quint was lavishly en-dowed with self confidence and a distinct personality. They spoke four languages-Spanish to each other, Italian to their parents, English at school, and French when needed. Following the Communion Mass, there was a garden party for 400 adults and school mates on the Diligenti estate. The quintuplets were friendly to each other, but they did not huddle together. They went off in separate directions and played with their school mates. The chances of having quintuplets are 1 in 57 million, so therefore it's unlikely that anyone reading this book will be faced with the problem. The chances of having twins, however, are about 1 in 87. If it happens to you, the most important thing to keep in mind is this: treat twins as separate and distinct personalities. Remember that each is a person. Each has an ego. Rear them as individuals and not as a single unit My number one rule for rearing twins: do not dress them alike This is so important that I'm asking the printers to put it in great big type. I repeat-DO NOT DRESS THEM ALIKE!! Dressing twins alike is exploitative and it is destructive. DOUBLE TROUBLE 131 Why? Because it is an attention-getting device to accentu-ate their similarities. This defeats the prime objective, which is to encourage the development of separate person-alities. Whenever I see a pair of carbon copies on the street with their mother, I am seized by an almost uncontrollable desire to stop the woman and say "For heaven's sake, please stop dressing those children alike!" (I have done this on occasion and have been rewarded for my free, unsolicited advice with a "you must be nutty" look.) When I have suggested in my column that twins not be dressed alike, irate mothers let me know in no uncertain terms that their twins want to dress alike. Of course they do. But the mothers should not permit it. A mother in Madison, Wisconsin, wrote to say her twin daughters made a great effort to look as much alike as pos-sible. One had a natural mole on her left cheek. The other twin penciled in a matching mole with a crayon. "They spend hours pinning up their hair exactly alike," the mother wrote. "I don't think this is good. Why do they do it?" I gave the mother this answer: "Your twins are using their twinhood as a gimmick to attract attention. It works. It sets them apart from the crowd at once. Identical twins are on stage at all times. The average singleton hasn't a chance in a room with a pair of identically-dressed twins. Don't let your twins use an accident of nature to put themselves over. Encourage them to develop individual personalities. They may resist your efforts at first, but in the long ran they will be much happier because you laid down the law." My number two rule: separate your twins in school if it is possible Twins in a classroom (a) get more than their share of attention (b) confuse the teacher (c) lean on one another 132 DOUBLE TROUBLE for support (d) work less effectively than if they were strictly on their own. In rural areas, separate schools present a formidable problem. The rural family that can afford to send twins to separate private schools is fortunate. If the family lives in a city where there are several public schools, the problem of transportation for one twin is a nuisance, but the re-wards justify the effort My twin sister and I were in our second year at North Junior High School in Sioux City, Iowa, when two en-lightened teachers, Miss Olive Jones and Miss Irma James, decided that we (the Friedman twins) should be split up. No teacher had thought of it before. When we received our home-room assignments and discovered we were to report to different rooms, we kicked up such a fuss that one would have thought the school officials had plotted to send one twin to Siberia and the other twin to Hong Kong. Hand in hand we marched to the principal's office. We presented a picture of solidarity that would have made Damon and Pythias look like strangers. "You can't sepa-rate us," we moaned. "We'll just die!" The principal was a gentle soul. He listened patiently as we stated our case. He made a major concession. We could be together for two subjects, but we must remain in sepa-rate home-rooms. This was a partial victory but we were less than jubilant. However, during the first week of separation, my twin was elected president of her home-room. This was the first time either of us had been given individual recognition, and I'm sure it was one of the happiest days of her life. Through the remaining years in junior high school we were separated part-time, and we did not object. I think DOUBLE TROUBLE 133 we even secretly enjoyed it, but to have admitted as much openly would have been traitorous. When we entered Central High School, we had the privilege of selecting subjects and teachers, and I am sorry to say we slipped back to the sure-fire, attention-getting tricks. We selected every course together, once more cast-ing ourselves in the roles of Kate and Dupli-Kate. For the next three years we were side by side in every class-con-fusing the teachers, overwhelming the boys, antagonizing the girls, and playing the double exposure for all it was worth. My number three rule: encourage twins to follow sepa-rate interests and develop their individual talents Because two people may look alike to the casual observer does not mean that they think alike or that they have identical personalities, work-habits, or talents. My twin sister and I both studied the violin. Half of our

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