THE SIBLING BOND

Over the past decade or so there has been renewed interest in sibling relationships, evidenced by a new genre of books like Mom Loved You Best (William Hapworth, Mada Hapworth, and Joan Heilman), Jane Mirsky Leder's Brothers and Sisters: How They Shape Our Lives, and Francine Klagsbrun's Mixed Feelings: Love, Hate, Rivalry and Reconciliation Among Brothers and Sisters. This interest may reflect the increasing importance of this bond in this era of smaller families, working parents, divorce and "blended" families, and diminishing interactions with extended family members. It may also reflect the insight that sibling relationships may be the prototypical model for eventual interactions with strangers, particularly peers. One wonders, who ultimately has the greater socialization influence: parents or siblings?

Often this relationship has been described in terms of rivalry, featuring sibling competitions for parental attention and approval. Longitudinal studies indicate that such contests wane after adolescence, with growing adulthood bonds particularly between siblings close in age and of the same sex, and later increases when aging parents need care and disputes over inheritance arise. What needs to be stressed are the cognitive and social skills developed in these relationships.

Among the findings in Klagsbrun's Mixed Feelings (1992):

• only 17 percent said that they "weren't close at all" to their siblings;
• 84% said one or both of their parents had shown favoritism when they were growing up;
• when perceptions were that the respondents' mother had a favorite, two-thirds of the men and slightly more than one-quarter of the women felt favored by her. When respondents believed their father had a favorite, 62 percent of women and 49 percent of the men felt they were the favored one;
• sister-sister relationships were closer to brother-brother and sister-brother relations.

According to the NORC 1977-94 General Social Surveys, of those with a sibling the following percentages of men and women responded at least once a month to the question "How often do you spend a social evening with a brother or sister?"