The Importance of Getting Along

Over the next several Tuesdays, I’m giving readers a sneak peak chapter-by-chapter at what’s inside my new book, Ending Sibling Rivalry: Moving Your Kids From War to Peace, which is available in October, with permission of Beacon Hill Press of Kansas City.

We’ve forgotten the importance of getting along with one another, especially brothers and sisters, focusing instead on the rivalries that often crop up. Such conflict has been a hallmark of sibling relationships since the beginning of time. Biblical examples of this abound. Cain killed Abel because he was jealous that God accepted Abel’s offering and not his, that Abel was first in God’s eyes. Jacob wanted to be the firstborn and so he tricked his twin Esau out of his birthright. Sisters Leah and Rachel had their share of disagreements over their husband, Jacob. His father’s favoritism of Joseph triggered jealousy and hatred in Joseph’s brothers.

Literature also has numerous instances of sibling rivalry. It’s no surprise that Shakespeare frequently turned to sibling conflict in his plays. King Lear shows the father provoking his three daughters to compete for his love, while sisters Bianca and Kate fight constantly in The Taming of the Shrew. As You Like It has two sets of siblings in contention with each other: Oliver and Orlando, and Duke Senior and Duke Frederick. On film, sibling conflict has been played for laughs (Step Brothers, Stuck on You) and drama (The Godfather series).

Many famous real-life siblings have had public conflicts. During the 1860s, before John Wilkes Booth shot Lincoln, the actor was embroiled in a rivalry with his older brother, Edwin, also an actor. John lost the battle for supremacy on the stage to the more talented Edwin, but he won a place in history with his assassination of a president. The Andrews Sisters—that powerhouse trio of LaVerne, Patty and Maxene of the 1930s and ’40s—played nice onstage but clashed loudly off stage. The feud between actresses and sisters Joan Fontaine and Olivia de Havilland took root in the 1940s. The pair had still not spoken to each other in decades when Fontaine died in late 2013.

Twins Ann Landers and Abigail Van Buren—dueling advice columnists for many years—had a relationship that waxed and waned in terms of rivalry for most of their adult lives. Brothers Peter and Christopher Hitchens—both writers—publicly, and with animosity, disagreed on political and religious issues. Liam and Noel Gallagher, brothers in the British pop band Oasis, allowed a tiff that started in 2009 blossom into a years-long feud that eventually led to the group’s disbandment.

As these examples show, sibling rivalry can cause lasting rifts that destroy relationships. The ripple effect of unresolved sibling conflict goes beyond the brothers and sisters directly involved in the fight to the rest of their family and even friends, too.

Read more about why parents should care about sibling rivalry and why it’s important for parents to help their children overcome those tendencies in Ending Sibling Rivalry: Moving Your Kids From War to Peace, available for pre-order now on Amazon.com, CBD.com and Beacon Hill Press.