Understanding Normal

My Facebook status this morning was: I feel so sorry for the mothers of only children. They'll never experience the joys of the extended, passionate, knock-down, drag-out fight over a toy nobody had previously touched for six months.

A friend commented that mothers who are only children will never understand such fights. Which reminded me of something I've been thinking about lately: David's and my efforts to understand what's normal when it comes to kids fighting.

David was an only child. I have an older brother, and for most of my childhood our relationship was so terrible that for, for awhile in my 20s, I actually considered myself to have been abused (I have a much more nuanced view of things now, and a lot of respect and affection for the man my brother is, but growing up in the same house with him was such a crap experience that when he left for college, I felt like I was being let out of prison. [Second parenthetical: apparently growing up as my sibling was no bed of roses, either. I just want to be clear that I'm not trashing my brother here.]).

My brother and I, in our mid-to-late 40s, have only in the last couple of years tentatively begun to have a relationship that goes beyond showing up at our parents' house at the same time twice a year on major holidays. Because of the way my relationship with him played out, I have never quite believed it when people told me, "My sister and I fought like cats and dogs the whole time we were growing up, but now we're the best of friends." I have always thought one of two things:

1. This person does not really understand what it means to "fight like cats and dogs," and did not in fact do it with her sister. Or,

2. They're not actually best friends.

So, because of David's lack of experience with siblings, and because of my bad experience with my sibling, we are at a loss when the kids fight (and my buttons are pushed big-time, especially if Eric does something that leverages his bigness and older-ness).

You can imagine, then, how tremendously helpful it was to me to read recently a report of a study that followed siblings through childhood into young adulthood, and tried to understand the factors that led to good or bad adult relationships. One finding was that all the siblings fought, to more or less the same degree. What made the biggest difference in predicting the quality of their adult relationships was what they were doing when they weren't fighting. Siblings who ignored each and spent time apart when not fighting tended to grow up to be estranged, like my brother and me. But siblings who had positive experiences together when not fighting grew up to be close, like my hypothetical "you" and her hypothetical sister.

I now believe you when you tell me that you fought with your sister but are best friends now. Because I'm guessing that when you weren't fighting with your sister, you were spending at least some time hanging out with her having a good time.

I'm also pretty sure, too, that my kids are doing OK. This morning's knock-down drag-out between Carl and Yehva, for instance, was followed by a half-hour or so of cheerful quiet pretend play together. A balm to the motherly heart.

That study reminded me of some of the findings in Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experiences of Young American Children, a book that, first, you have to respect for having the most straightforwardly descriptive title of the 20th century. You're probably familiar with some of the study's findings even if you haven't read the book; it's the source of the datum that children of professionals hear 5-8 million more words in the first three years of life than children of working class parents or of parents receiving welfare benefits, which I still see cited all the time, and which has led educators to really wrestle with the question of what kinds of interventions, if any, can make up for the deficits even preschoolers can bring with them to school.

But another piece of info I carried away with me from reading it a few years ago is that all of the children heard "No" and its variants--"Don't touch that," "get down from there," "come away from that"--at roughly the same level. But one of the class-based differences researchers found is that for working-class and welfare kids, that's often the vast majority or even the only speech directed at them by parents, whereas the children of professionals also heard a great many positive statements--"I see you," "Good job," "Go ahead, try it," "Wow, I like that picture."

Both of these findings--about siblings fighting, about saying No to children-- have helped me as a parent to relax about the moments when things aren't as smooth and good as I wish they were, either between the kids or between me and the kids, by reminding me that these moments exist within a greater context that makes a world of difference.

Oh, man, I would so much rather keep writing, which I am really in the mood for, than put laundry in the dryer, load the dishwasher, update the checkbook, call the vet, and take the kids grocery shopping. I have a blog post in my head about my upcoming chore of writing the annual letter to Yehva's birthmother, and another one about something else I forget right now but that will come back to me [Edited: I remember! It's about portrayals of adoptive parents in the media]. Also, the parrots remind me I have not fed them breakfast.

On the one hand, if I didn't have the kids, I could write as much as I wanted. On the other hand, if I didn't have the kids, what would I write about?