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November 25, 2005

I’m going to pound you into the ground

From Alesia, on sisters and brothers

I don’t have any sisters (I have two brothers), but I’ve been a sister for a long, long time, so I’m approaching this topic fresh from the perspective of a woman who studied two different sisters as they interacted with their brothers yesterday.

It was scary.

My Princess is two and a half years younger than Science Boy, and the other subject (let’s call her Dancer) is a couple of years older than her brother. But the interaction was the same. I can sum it up in three words:

Bossy, bossy, bossy.

Princess spends a lot of time telling her brother what to do. If he doesn’t listen, she grabs him by the back of the shirt and drags him around the house. Since she’s low to the ground, and he’s tall and skinny, she can get away with it. Lower center of gravity and all that. There are also the not uncommon threats of physical force. “Don’t make me pound you into the ground.”

Luckily, she rarely follows up on this, since we kind of have a firm “no pounding people into the ground” policy in our home. But I was interested to observe another sister/brother interaction in our house for several hours yesterday. Sure enough, Dancer, although a darling and lovely child, much like Princess, wasn’t above a little head smacking or elbow throwing, where her brother was concerned. Especially when he didn’t hop to do exactly what she said.

(My own brothers are sure to call and remind me of certain alleged incidents from our own childhood, but of course they’re WRONG, and I NEVER would have wrestled them to the floor, put a couch cushion on top of them, and then sat on them.)

But, in the midst of all the threatened and actual brother-pounding, here’s the fascinating thing about sisters, younger or older: let anybody ELSE threaten their brothers, and they’re fiercer than a mama lion. Princess was about three when she smacked a boy twice her size over the head with a plastic truck at the park because he made her brother cry. Yesterday, I noticed Dancer made sure to let her brother share the stage at the impromptu talent show and get his fair share of the attention. There’s a rumor about a five-year-old me beating up a ten-year old bully who took my brother’s car away and knocked him down.

We’re SISTERS. If anybody’s going to do any pounding on our brothers, you better believe it’s only going to be us.

Happy Thanksgiving to all the sisters and brothers in the world!
Alesia

This blog was brought to you by She, Myself & I, Whitney Gaskell's newest release about three sisters who prove that blood is thicker than gay ex husbands, raging hormones, and racy secrets.

Posted by Alesia at 3:05 PM