Is sibling rivalry running pretty high in your household right now? Take heart, frazzled mama and papa; it won’t always be this way. Even when siblings fight like cats and dogs as kids, they ultimately grow up to become best friends! If you need proof, the stories below will help soothe your worries!
Siblings Fight Like Cats & Dogs as Kids but Become Best Friends as Adults!
Sibling love is weird! We grow up fighting almost non-stop and saying the meanest things to each other. In the end, though, we end up like best friends. We’re always there for each other and can count on each other.
I have a sister and a brother. I’m the oldest of our trio…and you know what they say, the the oldest is the smartest! Sorry, sibling rivalry moment there! I was 7 when my sister was born, so I was an only child long enough to make not being an only a major adjustment.
When we were little, we fought like cats and dogs! It was terrible! Mom was right, though. She used to say, “You only fight, but you will see! You’ll be best friends when you grow up.” It’s absolutely true. I can’t imagine life without my siblings. My sister really does make me a better person!
Of course, one example doesn’t really prove my point, so I asked a few friends to describe their relationships with their siblings as children and as adults. Let’s take a look, I bet you’ll see a pattern.
There are no “halves” when it comes to siblings
My friend Marie spent five years as an only child before her mom remarried and gave her a brother. Let’s just say he was a gift she wanted to return, at least for the first decade of his life! In her defense, she thought she was getting puppies, not a tiny being that stole all the attention she used to get!
“We fought like crazy and we were so mean to each other! I would challenge him to a ‘race’ to see who could eat their ice cream the fastest and let him ‘win,’ just so I could say, ‘Na, na, I still have ice cream and you don’t!’ Then, he’d throw a rock at my head!”
She goes on to say, though, that around the time he turned 10 and she was 15, they became “thick as thieves.” In fact, he even covered for her when she missed curfew. “To put it mildly, I was a bit of a troublemaker as a teenager, and my brother saved my behind more times than I can count,” she says.
Even though DNA-wise he’s a “half” sibling, in her heart he’s 100% her brother and the one person she can always rely on today. “We have our own lives with our own kids. We took very different paths in life and sometimes we go weeks without talking. Still, I know he’d drop everything to help me out if I needed him, and vice-versa.”
Quadruple the fights, Quadruple the Friends
Carol grew up with one older sister and two that were younger. As kids, their fights were pretty epic, with shrieks and screams filling up their small family home. As adults, they couldn’t possibly be closer. Since they live in different towns, they talk on the phone weekly and have “sisters only” weekends whenever possible.
They even have secret code words that they’ll use to find each other in their next lives. Carol admits that they still drive each other crazy from time to time, but there’s no one else on this planet that she’d trust to be there for her more than her sisters.
“You don’t really forget all the fights, especially the really bad ones,” she says, adding that there have been some really awful spats. “We didn’t talk for months after one particularly nasty one. Then, one day, we just let it go. No ‘I’m sorry’ or long discussion about it.
Just like when we were kids and fighting one minute then running off to go swimming together the next, we just made a mutual yet silent decision to move on.” Like Marie, Carol says that no matter what, even if they’re in the middle of a massive argument, they would drop it in an instant to be there for each other.
Friends by blood, brothers by heart
We’ve heard from sisters with brothers, sisters with sisters, full “blood” siblings and “half” siblings. What about only children, though? Are they completely missing out on the life experience that is sibling-rivalry-turned-besties? Let’s hear from Scott, a 25-year-old who learned that not all “siblings” have even one parent in common.
“My parents were a little older when they had me, so siblings weren’t really in the cards,” Scott explains. “Honestly, it didn’t bother me for the most part, but yes, there were times I wished for a brother.” Scott did get his wish, just not in the way he expected. “My friends and cousins became like brothers and sisters to me, especially those who were only children themselves,” he says. “We fought just as bad as any siblings who live together do.
I think maybe we all just kind of wanted that sibling experience, so we made it ourselves.” While many childhood friendships tend to dissolve as we grow up, Scott says they’re all still just as close. “In fact, the ones I fought with the most then are the ones I count on the most now.”
So there you go, three totally stories of totally different situations with one common thread: no matter how rocky things were at times, in the end, all of these siblings (be it by blood or by heart) became the very best of friends!
Sweet & Touching Quotes About Siblings
Before we say goodbye for today, I thought it would be fun to close this with some of my favorite sibling quotes that show just how much we love our brothers and sisters (even if we do sometimes fight with them).
1. A little brother and sister time is good for the soul.
2. “Brothers and sisters are special. They fight. They make up. They laugh. They cry. They’re far from perfect. But when you really need them, they have your back.”
3. “When I think of all the blessings in my life, my brothers and sisters are right there at the very top of the list!”
4. “A sibling is the lens through which you see your childhood.” – Ann Hood
5. “The greatest gift our parents ever gave us was each other.” – Unknown
6. “A good friend knows all of your best stories, a sibling has lived them with you.” – Unknown
7. “Not always eye to eye, but always heart to heart.” – Unknown
8. “Siblings are a volume of childhood memories; a nostalgia that cannot be easily deleted.” – Vincent Okay Nwachukwu
9. “The mildest, drowsiest sister has been known to turn tiger if her sibling is in trouble.” – Clara Ortega
10. “They say that no matter how old you become when you are with your siblings, you revert back to childhood.” – Karen White
11. “Sisters function as safety nets in a chaotic world simply by being there for each other.” – Carol Saline
12. “Siblings will take different paths and life may separate them, but they will forever be bonded by having begun their journey in the same boat.” – Unknown
13. “Siblings are like streetlights along the road, they don’t make distance any shorter but they light up the path and make the walk worthwhile.” – Unknown
Funny Brothers & Sisters Sayings & Memes
Now let’s finish things off with a little laughter, shall we? How many of these funny sibling sayings can you relate to?
1. “My relationship with my siblings is either ‘I’ll help you hide the body’ or ‘Don’t even breath in my direction.’ There is no in-between.” @girlposts on Twitter
2. “The advantage of growing up with siblings is that you become very good at fractions.” – Robert Brault
3. “More than Santa Claus, your sister knows when you’ve been bad and good.” – Linda Sunshine
4. “Older siblings… the only people who will pick on you for their own entertainment and beat up anyone else who tries.” – Unknown
5. “The Rule of Sibs: If your sibling gets something you want, you (1) try to take it; (2) break it; or (3) say it’s no good.” – Patricia Fleming
6. “As your brother, I always know that you, my sister, look out for me. And as your younger brother, I also know you will always be older than me.” – Theodore W. Higginsworth
7. “Siblings: children of the same parents, each of whom is perfectly normal until they get together.” – Sam Levenson.
8. “Sometimes people say they can’t tell me and my sister apart. Here’s a hint: I’m the pretty one.”
9. “Sisters never quite forgive each other for what happened when they were five.”- Pam Brown.
10. “I smile because you are my sister, I laugh because there is nothing you can do about it!”
Siblings fight now, but one day you can say, “I told you so!”
As we can see, even when siblings fight like cats and dogs as kids, more often than not they grow up to really count on each other and become best friends. That goes for whole-siblings, half-siblings, and even “siblings” in our hearts.
If you’re really worried about your kids’ fighting and just want to make sure they truly do grow up to become best friends, check out my tips on how to teach your kids to be friends for life. Don’t worry, though! One day, they’ll come to you and say, “You were right when you said we’d be friends as adults.” Then you can take joy in saying that one thing every parent loves to say- I told you so!
Shree Rakhi says
Loved your story. The pain that these siblings can bring down to your lives. But still, we advise you to fight back with kindness, because with their nuisance the memories that they are creating with you will be cherished as gems when you are busy in your corporate lives and fail to take out time for these pillow fights!