They fuck you up, your mum and dad

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.   

    They may not mean to, but they do.   

They fill you with the faults they had

    And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn

    By fools in old-style hats and coats,   

Who half the time were soppy-stern

    And half at one another’s throats.

Man hands on misery to man.

    It deepens like a coastal shelf.

Get out as early as you can,

    And don’t have any kids yourself.

- This be the verse, by Philip Larkin, quoted by Mae in Ted Lasso, "Mom City", S3E11

The past year has been an unusual year in many ways. One, I uprooted myself from everything familiar and moved lock, stock and barrel, halfway across the world, almost on a lark. This meant life as I knew it, ceased to exist.  Timeboxing as I had been used to, no longer worked, and I had to develop new processes around work, home, relationships and friends. Two, the equilibrium on my health front had been upturned, and I put health and fitness front and center of my life. This again meant new routines. Third, and possibly the most important, Amma had passed away, and the loss has been particularly hard for me. 

What the year has done, though, is provided plenty of time for self-reflection and deepening my awareness about myself. I have surprised myself about what keeps me going, what is important to me, what I am willing to live with, what I am not willing to let go. Everything gets called into question - does it really matter - is a question that I keep coming back to, and very often the answer is a resounding No, and I have been surprised by when the answer is Yes. More on that later, if and when we get to it. 

Back to the topic on hand,  have been fascinated for a while about sibling relationships in my immediate family and those of my friends, including an outside-in view into my relationship with my sister. Watching some of the family drama play out in the days and months following Amma's demise increased my curiosity about sibling relationships. Are people close to their siblings, what does it mean to be close, is it an equal relationship, is it always mutual, how do the dynamics change over time, how does one's partner and the sibling's partner affect the relationship, is it possible to mend a broken relationship  - these are some examples of questions that have piqued my interest.

Therefore, when a TED talk on "The Sibling Bond" by Jeffrey Kluger made its way into my consideration set for the next piece of media to consume, I was interested. It is a fun 20-minute talk, the speaker is quite funny, and I promise you won't regret it if you did listen to it. He argues that the sibling relationship is the most important relationship you will ever have - your parents will leave you somewhere in the journey, your own family joins the journey at some point, the only constant in your journey is your siblings. 

I won't give away a whole lot, do listen to it if you can, but one thing I found thought provoking was a study he quoted. He said he believed 95% of moms and dads have a favorite child, the other 5% are better at masking their favoritism. He also mentioned that among favorites, the first-born son for a mom and the last-born daughter for a dad came out as most common. I can neither confirm nor deny that I was a favorite child for either parent, or that I have a favorite among my sons. However, I do have dreams for how I would like their relationship to be. 

In my dreams for their dynamic, I want for them to have a really close sibling bond. I wish that they can tell each other anything. without fear of judgment. I wish that they will show up for each other when they are celebrating, and more importantly when they are grieving. I wish that they would fight openly and without pulling their punches, and with the knowledge that underneath whatever they are fighting about, there is a thick layer of love that is difficult to make a dent in. I wish they interact with the world with kindness and generosity, and do so between them with more of these qualities. 

I have no doubt that as parents, we WILL fuck them up. We don't mean to, but we do. Yes we will fill them up with faults of our own, and add some extra, just for them. Yet, in all of that, I do hope that their love for each other is unwavering, and it is the two of them against the world, and never one against the other.