Erikka Askeland: Sorrow for siblings whose rivalry rules

Psychology locates the basis of the competitive impulse in the sibling relationship. The first child, given sole access to all the love and food provided by the parents, realises that the fight is on when the second bundle of joy comes along threatening to eat her lunch. Luckily, the urge to thump the younger one or tip her over the closest ledge when no-one is looking is moderated by a close bond of affection, second only to the need to have someone to gang up with in order to exact revenge in the even fiercer rivalry with the kids next door.

More or less, my sister and I have the best kind of supportive, loving and affectionate relationship. More when we are gossiping waspishly together about the stranger behaviours of our cousins or colleagues, less perhaps when the fundamental dynamics of our relationship come into conflict.

Make no doubt about it, the balance of relationships between elder and younger siblings is seldom equal. And while we can all pretend to be grown up and uninterested in each other’s happiness and wellbeing, never is a shift so keenly felt as when the precarious stacking exercise established at birth gets disrupted.

You could see it in the pained grimace of David Miliband’s face when his irksome little brother pipped him to the Labour leadership. I recognised the seething storm clouds behind the narrowed eyes of David with a deep sense of foreboding.

My sister has a “look” that can make me quail a little to this day. But then she has always been more the stern authori-tarian, while I have happily taken the role of the free-wheeling clown. I have secretly suspected this means that I have tended to have more fun in my life, but sis has always been able to have the last word.

I thank my lucky stars that neither of us has even dangled our toes in the depths of drama of the current troubled sibling relationship being played out in the papers, between that of the aspiring Irish president, Dana Rosemary Scallon, and her sister, Susan Stein, where the one who feels bitter having been eclipsed has taken sibling rivalry into a painfully public platform.

I would like to think that if my sister was a better singer, a multi-millionaire, a high flying politician or all three, I would have the grace to be her unfailing support.

But we do have our little sisterly secrets. At a family gathering this week I recalled what was one of the formative moments in our relationship. When we were children there was the daily race from the car to the front door. The competition was keenly felt, but being two-odd years younger, I was always the loser. Until one inevitable day, I raced to the door and was the first to put my hand on the latch. My jubilation was intense, but as she pulled up behind me she announced that today the rules had changed, and instead it was the second one to reach the door that won. I was furious. But did I think to question this sudden arbitrariness? I did not. It was only years later that I marvelled at her wiliness and my gullibility.

But while my sister has been known to trick me and occasionally slap the side of my head a little too hard, far more often she has made sacrifices to provide me with a safe haven.

The recent family get-together was my sister’s weddding. And while she and my mum basically catered and arranged my own wedding a decade ago, I was still the ditzy little sister for her in that I showed up, helped as much as I could, but in all the excitement forgot to call a few relatives that would have made her day perfect. I know she forgives me, because she is gracious and she is my sister. And I feel sorry for those who don’t have this sort of sibling relationship.