And then there was two (or four)...

A bit of experimental photography at a night session in the snow park here at Afriski. 

Wow, I am really a very bad example of self-discipline. It's funny, when I am enjoying myself it is more difficult to write than when I am unhappy. I wonder why...

As Mia commented on the mother/child relationship, not every mother looks after her child and not every child looks after his parents when they are old and unable to fend for themselves. That is very true. We live in a broken world where relationships are far from perfect. That is why I am writing though, to try and figure out how relationships should be. I think I have said this before, even when your mom doesn't look after you and you despise her, you still live in relation to her. A great deal of what you are comes from the way your mother treated you. You will always live in light of the fact that your mother was not there for you, whether you do better by your children or do the same.

More on mothers later. Let's see what happened when you got a sibling. Out of a selfish point of view, you lose some of the attention that you received on a daily basis. At first your mom only had to take care of your needs, but now you have a brother/sister so it is just logical that she will divide her attention between the two of you. At first she will most probably give more attention to the newcomer, seeing as he/she can't do anything for themselves. It is natural that you will become jealous of your sibling at this stage. Hopefully, as your sibling grows older, your mother will give both of you the same amount of attention. That attention might differ though, seeing as you and your sibling will have different needs. This might also lead to jealousy on both parts, one sibling might think that the mother is putting the other siblings needs ahead of his/her own needs. Once again, hopefully this will work itself out. Relationships based on jealousy is never a good idea. It tends to turn messy and hurtful.
In all of this we have only looked at the fluctuations in your relationship with your mother. But there is also a new development here. Your relationship with your sibling. If you are the older one, you might have a kind of protective attitude towards the younger one. The younger one might have a sort of respect/adoration for the older one. Or at least, that is how it was in my case. I have 3 older siblings and for all of them I have the deepest respect and love. In each of them I see characteristics which I wish I had. And I think all of them feel somewhat protective of me. Obviously at this point in time, I feel protective of them as well, but that wasn't always the case. When I was younger I thought they were indestructible, so I used to hurt them without really thinking about what I was doing. I never understood why they got angry when I did that, but looking back on it now, it makes sense.
I used to have sword fights with my brothers (we used broom sticks for swords) I always thought that I was better at it than they were, because I used to win more often. Later I realized that I always won because they were fighting with reserve, whereas I fought without a thought for their safety. I hurt them while they were trying to protect me. (As julle hierdie lees, ek is jammer vir al die kere wat ek dit gedoen het. Dit sluit in die Tongvrou, Hoof van die Orde van die Silwer Papawer en sy Army)

That last part is in my native tongue, written for my siblings. Anyway, I got sidetracked a bit there. The application of what I wrote is this; Seeing as we siblings were jammed together in the same house for a long period of time, we were forced into relationships. It wasn't always moonshine, but we got through. At first those relationships developed because of shared interests. What do I mean by shared interests? All of us were dependent on the same pair of people to feed us, clothe us, give us housing etc. We came together because of what I'd like to call a "common giver". Out of our relationships with our parents came our relationships with each other. This principle can be applied to various other types of relationships and how they develop. In my next post I will discuss the development of sibling relationships in more detail as well as the common giver.