EXCERPT:
A sibling, of course you know, is a brother or sister. Eighty-two percent of people in Western countries have at least one or the other.That means that the remaining 18 percent are only-child individuals looking for someone else to blame for all their feelings of inadequacy, like only-child Anthony Hopkins, who ate all those poor people on that movie set. And though most siblings don’t gobble each other up, they do tend to give each other indigestion. “Approximately one-third of adults describe their relationship with a brother or sister as rivalrous or distant.”
It seems the word sibling is usually accompanied by the noun rivalry. Cain and Abel are the first case of a family feud gone very wrong. The biblical brothers of Joseph didn’t behave any better when out of jealousy they sold him into slavery. Yet his fate was good compared to Fredo’s, Michael Corleone’s brother in The Godfather. Bang!
Sometimes it’s just rough putting up with family. There’s been many a family gathering where I felt the turkey was the luckiest one at the table, while all present had other bones to pick.
Our siblings usually play a very big part in shaping us: either we admire them and try to be like them, we are jealous and... READ MORE in THE WORDS THAT SHAPED ME
