aring means giving up something. If they share parents, they will have less love” (E4).A child is not merely a mirror of the parents. “Each child interprets, embellishes, and distorts what he or she observes in the parents, hears from them, or imagines then to be. Every child is different in the vast memories and feelings carried since the cradle” (Strean & Freeman, 12).Biagetti 6Each child stands alone when it comes to how they view what happened in their lives – the actual experiences and the fantasies, which fashion their personalities. The differences are shown in the various attitudes siblings have toward their parents. Some children will listen to a parent with more interest than others. Some will idolize their parents more. Some seem intent on antagonizing their parents, others on pleasing them. “The attitude depends on each child’s memories of the parents’ behavior toward him or her” (McCaffrey, E5). Children reflect not only the relationships between them and their parents but also the relationship between their parents. This latter relationship is perhaps one of the most important issues in the sibling bond.If a child watches parents solve their conflicts in a warm, loving way, negotiating their differences with a feeling of respect and concern for each other’s point of view, the child will almost automatically assume this way of solving conflicts with others. But if the child witnesses parents in a continual battle, demeaning each other by name-calling, the child will emulate this aggressive way of handling conflicts. It is almost impossible for siblings to share warm, cooperative feelings when they live with parents who quarrel (Strean & Freeman, 27).Sibling bonds, good ones or bad ones, close or distant, are difficult to put aside or ignore. They run deeper than friendship. When you love a sibling, you do not have to love him all the time, in exactly the same way. You ma...
