My youngest brother was born when I had already graduated high school, with an 18.5 year difference between us. Because I worried that we would not have a relationship, I invested extreme effort into keeping close with him, coming home from college on weekends, calling when he could speak on the phone, and emailing once he had mastered the computer. When he spent his post-high school year in Israel, he spent every weekend with me and had his own room in my home; sometimes he brought friends with him, and I joked that I went from being single to being the mother of a six foot four, very hungry teenager.
As a consequence, we are quite close and I would want to be his friend even if we were not related. We can discuss books we like, and he sends me file copies of papers he has written; we have traveled together, and he is one of the few people with whom I can sit in a room quietly, and feel like we are spending quality time.
When my sister - who is seven years older than him - chose to become Ultra-Orthodox/Hareidi, got married and started having children, my brother felt betrayed, that he had lost a surrogate parent, and to this day his relationship with my sister and her family is strained. Even though he is the youngest of five children, he was raised basically as an only child, with many more resources available to him and with parents who were a little too tired to enforce the rules. He has spent his whole life with his siblings visiting and then disappearing, and has developed somewhat of an abandonment complex.
He has expressed similar concerns as regards the status of our relationship, now that I am a mother and the baby clearly has more immediate than he for my attention. I spoke to him again yesterday, telling him how excited I was for our visit on Pessach, and how he had better clear his schedule because I wanted to hear all about his plans for graduate school, the parties he has attended and the girl he is dating.
I could hear the relief in his voice, along with some persisting doubt. He needed to hear from me that there will always be a special place for him in my life, regardless of my child or when I should get married some time in the future. I feel like I still need to reassure him, until he believes 100% that he has not lost a sister, but rather gained a niece.
He gets, I think, a new and improved sister, as I am a more relaxed and forgiving person since giving birth to Raphaela.
2 comments:
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Hi Leah, I read about your blog i the Barnard Magazine. I remember you from Barnard - I graduated in '90. Mazal tov on the birth of Raphaela. I wrote a guest post on breastfeeding and working mothers that I thought you might like:
http://www.amotherinisrael.com/2009/02/23/guest-post-breastfeeding-working-mother/
Take care,
Ariela
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