Sibling Rivalry
Iris Palma in Ang Pinoy Stories
Oct 28, 2019 • 3 min Read
Sibling rivalry is real. It tears a family apart. No one remembers mommy’s stern warning to “always take care of each other.” Each sibling has a deep reason to slug it out with the other. It can be a low-key squabble or in the case of the (Gretchen, Marjorie, and Claudine) Barretto sisters, it can go national. But do we want Tulfo making pakialam in our family issue?
From the children’s perspective, rivalry begins when another kid comes along—usually the second child—because of selos. This feeling encompasses possible reasons why siblings are at war with each other.
FAVORITISM. “May paborito si mama.” Parents deny they have a favorite child and give good reasons for giving the most attention to the eldest, or the youngest, or the lamest, or the least intellectual. The rest of the children will have none of those reasons and insist that the parents’ reason for loving Ate is that Ate was the obedient child, and the bunso is of course the bunso…it never ends! The kids can feel the love or the lack of it. Hindi sila tuod. The parents and the children are looking at opposite ends, so they almost always never come to an understanding.
MONEY. Money issue is more obvious in the older years. We all know about money being the root of all evil and war. Add in in-laws and war escalates. Add properties and business to share among the heirs and all hell will break loose. This is the laman of B movies—naghihiganti na anak dahil hindi nakakuha ng mana or conniving siblings out to get more from the deserving sibling. Hating kapatid is a guiding principle in sharing fairly, but will be totally ignored when there is rivalry among siblings.
CHARACTER. Each child is a person and each person is a character. One character demands more attention, one may not want attention but actually desires it, and one may be biased toward the one who got more attention —because, you know, connection and power—or the one who got less. Each sibling’s attitude toward each other then becomes dependent on the dynamics of their character.
So you see, life and how it is lived within a family can dictate just how deep the rivalry will go. It becomes the parents’ greatest burden to nip rivalry in the bud. Parents should focus on the character of each child and build it so that there is only minimal, healthy, and necessary rivalry—or perhaps none at all. How is this possible?
Parents should inspire their kids to share all their toys with their siblings, to take care of the younger ones, to obey the older ones—and never tire of doing so. Most importantly, parents should not play favorites with their children. But at the end of the day, parents can only pray that their words do not fall on deaf ears. Kids, after all, turn into adults, which parents will have no control over.
And let us accept this: even the parents cannot eliminate sibling rivalry. But they can minimize it to a healthy level.
Sibling rivalry has taken center stage with the Barretto sisters fighting like mad ladies in their father’s wake on national television. Nakakahiya sa mga magulang nila, many will say. Still, the Barretto drama highlights the kind of rivalry that is so common anywhere else—mayaman or mahirap—yet so difficult to end. So before humaba anghistory ng mga bata sa pag-aaway, say “stop and magbati.” Otherwise, you will end up like the Barretto sisters. Imagine the neighbors saying: Ay naku. Nag-Barretto na sina Merle, Mumay, at Mercy. Nakakahiya!
