Sisterly Love

Sometimes I wonder…

How deep is a sister’s love for her younger/older sister?

I don’t have a sister of my own, only a brother, so I wouldn’t really know how it feels like to have an older or younger sister. I tend to look at my cousins and my friends for some input on sister-relationship and, well, I don’t know if it’s the limited girls I know who have sisters or if all sisters are this way, but what I find is that sisters fight ALOT. And that the emotion involved between them is usually JEALOUSY.

Is it the difference in ages that spurs the many cat-fights? Is it the vying for attention from the parents?

I know not ALL sisters fight. I mean, take my mother and her three sisters. They don’t really fight, they just argue because of the difference in opinions and views, and they don’t go spreading rumours or talk about each other behind their backs. But some of the sisters I know do that, even though they’re blood-related and in the same family.

Take my good friend for instance. Her elder sister hates her. Truly, I’m not exaggerating. The rumours and untruths she told her mom about my friend created such a rift between them that her mom has disowned her, without even bothering to listen to my friend’s side of the story. What kind of sister is this? And apparently this is fueled by the sister’s paranoid feeling that the father loves my friend more. What’s the connection there? “Our dad loves you more so I’m going to take our mom away from you”?

Another pair of sisters I know are always fighting. The eldest has been picking fights non-stop with the youngest. Nothing the youngest sister say or do is right. I find it kinda weird if you can even berate your sister for using your towel. I mean, it’s a towel. Wash it and it’s clean all over again, and it’s not like you don’t have more than one towel.

The reason why I’m talking about sisters is because my father has a second wife, who gave birth to a girl. The girl, or perhaps I should say my step-sister, is about 11 years younger than me. Though we don’t hang out, we don’t talk and we hardly see each other, she seems to hate my guts.

Society always has this misconception that step-family hates each other. I don’t hate my step-sister (I hate my step-mother but that’s an entirely different thing), but maybe she hates me, I don’t know. My reaction to her is simply indifference. I accept the fact that she’s my father’s daughter and she’s considered a step-sister, but that is all. Other than that, I don’t know how to act with her (partly ‘coz she’s in that teenage angst period of her life, which is damn scary). Another part, which I’m not sure how true it is, could be perhaps of the stories her mother tells her of me and perhaps a mild jealousy of me since I am the first daughter from the first family.

Truth be told, though my dad wants us to mingle as a real family and take care of each other when he’s gone, I’m not sure if that can ever happen. The tension and the wariness is too strong between the two family of siblings. I wonder at how some step-families can get along with each other. I think that takes tremendous courage and open-mindedness. With my step-sister, I think we both still can’t get over the fact that each other exists so perhaps it’s best that we remain apart and aloof for the meantime. Time will tell if we ever get to relate with each other like some sisters or whether we’ll end up fighting and slandering each other like those sisters. Before that, I’ll just keep observing the sisters that I know so I can learn more about this weird relationship called ’sisterly love’. :)