Neither Mr. Rilch, nor I, nor anyone in our immediate circle of friends has the sibling configuration of older brother/younger sister. Only children, all girls, all boys, or in one case, older sister/younger brother. So I’m asking here.
I often encounter this phenomenon in fiction. Younger sister has a boyfriend, or just starts dating. Older brother disapproves of BFs and dates on principle, and if he gets word of sis doing anything beyond holding hands, acts as if knowing about his Baby Sister getting some is the undoable Fear Factor challenge.
Two questions:
Is this typical?
And if it is, what’s the psychology behind the “No one’s good enough for My Baby Sister” and “AAAUGH! Someone TOUCHED my inviolable Baby Sister? This has to STOP!” mindsets?
Maybe because she’s literally the only person in the whole world (besides mom, for whom the attitude is the same) that all current cultures hold taboo for him sexually? Since he cannot fathom being with her as a sexual being, he cannot fathom (without great angst) anyone else being with her either? I’m not sure.
But my son is already crazy protective of his little sister, and makes awful faces when we tease her about boyfriends. He says he’s not moving out until she’s 30 or safely in a convent, so he can glower and scare off any potential boyfriends. She’s 8 months old, by the way.
From my experience, I wouldn’t say this is exactly typical. I have an older brother who’s displayed three or four “protective” moments. One was when I was being picked on by a bully after school. My brother came out of the house and scared the daylights out of him, thankfully. The other two times were with boyfriends (one of whom turned out to be my husband) and those were more along the lines of “What are your intentions?” He never tried to scare anyone off, but more or less told them they needed to take me seriously. They did.
I’ve also had a lot of friends who were in the older brother/younger sister dynamic and I didn’t see any of their brothers freak out about them dating. In fact quite a few of them dated their brother’s friends or went to their brother’s friends’ parties.
My brother is rather protective of me. If anyone male comes up to me that he doesn’t know he’ll get paranoid and start freaking out.
“Who was that guy? What did he want? Do you know him? Why was he talking to you?!”
If he knows and likes the guy he won’t care though.
I grew up being the youngest, and the only girl. My brothers were 2 and 7 years older (well the ones that I grew up with, I have other half siblings from a previous marriage but they didn’t live in the same town so they didn’t get the chance to be protective).
I cant think of a single example of protective behavior, I remember a lot of times when they tried to get me to jump off the tree house.
Realistically the brother who is 7 years older was in College when I was dating, and the other brother was trying to imagine that I didn’t exist, I tried to so the same thing. It didn’t work.
Fortunately, I only have a younger sister. My cousin, however, has two brothers-one older, one younger. Her older brother was extremely protective-obnoxiously so. Once, they went to the beach on vacation, and she started talking to some guy there-just chatting, mind you.
Her older brother comes up to her, puts his arm around her shoulder and said, “Hey, this is my little sister. And if you lay one finger on her, I’ll cut your balls off with a dull knife.”
I’m the older brother to my sister, who’s just shy of three years my junior. Growing up, I wasn’t protective of her at all… I hated her. As a kid, my mother would request I run to the store for milk and the like, and demand that I let my sister accompany me. I used to try and ditch her in the hopes that she’d get kidnapped.
Age and distance has made our relationship more healthy. She just got married a few weeks ago, and I made sure to inform her fiance what his fate would be if he ever hurt her.
My sister was two years behind me in school and that worked out real well. Probably half the girls I dated in school I met through her, and probably half the guys she went out with, I introduced her to. I never felt the need to be protective. I suppose if anyone had threatened her with violence it would have been different, but that didn’t happen.
Before I could drive I dated a girl whose older brother had a car. We’d double-date often, and he didn’t seem to care how entwined his sister and I got in the back seat.
Worst thing happened along those lines, when my sister was 15 we both got fake Id’s and started hitting some bars. One New Year’s Eve my girlfriend borrowed her older sister’s ID and Sis, GF and I went rockin’ out.
Now, GF had a 2:00 AM curfew. Sis had taken up with the drummer in the bar’s band and wanted me to leave her there with him, so I did. Got GF dropped off and went back after Sis, but the freakin’ joint was closed, nobody anywhere around there. :eek: :eek: :eek:
Mom got really pissed about that. She kept sending me back out to “Find your sister!” How the hell was I gonna’ do that? I’d drive around a while and come back home, then get sent out to search again. Sis showed up at home right before daylight, none the worse for the wear. (Au contraire, she was happy as a shit eatin’ possum) so all’s well that ended.
That’s still my favorite New Year’s Eve memory. (Now that it’s over!)
my sister is about two and a half years younger than me, two grades behind through highschool.
of all the boys she dated through h.s, i had a problem with two. both of which i knew, and knew thier intentions were not above board. one, i kicked the crap out of, the other, i confronted, and he backed the fuck off.
but for the most part, i let her go her own way. and she was (eventually) thankful that i intervened the two times i did.
now, we are both in our mid twenties, and living in different cities, so we only see each other on holidays, and talk on the phone about once a month or so.
but we get along great, and we share advice and learning experiences with each other (and with a few of our cousins.) we’ve both been screwed over a couple times by lovers, but nothing too serious. and we help each other with coming to terms with whatever we have to deal with. because we know that it is care about family for the sake of family that attaches us.
I’m the younger brother, but since my sister always chose dorky guys who were shy and socially… um… different, I never had the chance to step up and be overprotective of her.
However, I did have a confrontation with an overprotective sister of a girl I used to date in high school. She told me that she’d rip off any part of me that touched any part of her sister. We broke up shortly after.
Even now, my girlfriend’s little brother gives me shit and acts overprotective. He’s about 4 years younger than I am, and 3 years younger than my girlfriend. It’s mostly light hearted and fun, although I do think he’s genuinely trying to protect her at the same time.
My brother is four and a half years older than me, and has spent the majority of the last thirty years pretending that I don’t exist. He’s never met anyone I’ve dated, and he’s never shown any inclination to protect me, except one time when he saw a boy his age push me down for no reason.
But he’d been looking for an excuse to beat the crap out of that kid, anyway.
I don’t have an older brother, but one of my friends is like this with me. He’s a year older than me and has always there for me, especially when it comes to guys. He gives me advice about what type of man to avoid and is constantly telling me not to rush into things. (To illustrtate: I’ve been out with a guy 4 times now and he hasn’t hugged or even tried to kiss me. My friend thinks this is the right rate for me and would be happy if we didn’t kiss for at least another 6 more dates. :rolleyes: )
Also, whenever I go out with a guy, my friend stands by his phone in case something bad happens and I need to get out. He even did this once while I was across the country. He knew he couldn’t do anything himself to help me, but he still wanted to be there to talk me through it, I guess. It’s nice feeling like I’ve got a safety line. He’s a good guy.
Of course, going along with that whole acting like a brother thing, he picks on me and does things specifically to freak me out (like putting a spider on my leg…me, the arachnaphobe). He also has no problem telling me exactly what he thinks of me, good or bad. And sometimes we get really mad at each other and fight, but when it comes to the important things, he’s always there for me.
It’s kinda nice thinking brothers and sisters might really act that way with each other.
My relationship with my brother is pretty much the same as Bob_loblaw’s with his sister, except my brother and I still live at home with our folks (26 and 28 yowch!)
I never dated in High School. We had alot of mutual friends through band, and we did do alot of stuff together. He didn’t really need to be protective.
I went to college and he didn’t. Our circles of friends were vastly different.
I do let him meet the dudes I date, and I meet the chicks he dates, but neither of us have been successful enough in the dating department to give eachother advice.
We know we’ve both got eachothers backs whenever it’s needed, and I suppose we’ve called upon that a few times. In general, we’re equal partners in this deal.
Of course, I am going to bet I’m more willing to beat the shit out of someone than he is, and I seem to be better at lifting heavy things than him
Bah…my brothers didn’t *have * to say it. It was simply implied. My brothers, 10-12 years older than me, easily dispatched of bullies and bad-boyfriends and covered for my crazy-teen behavior many, many times.
They are not huge muscle-bound dudes, just the type of guys that would ruin your life in very creative ways.
I can’t speak to the old brother/younger sister thing, but I’m female and I have a younger sister.
I grew up knowing that one of my jobs was to make sure my little sister was being watched out for. Crossing the street, in the mall, at school…
She visited me once while I was in college, we went to a party some friends of mine were having, and sis got tipsy. At one point, I found my innebriated sister had been cornered by another guy at the party, in a dark bedroom. I did quite clearly explain to him what would happen if he didn’t leave her alone.
For me, it was all about knowing I was responsable for making sure my younger sibling was taken care of.
Well my cousin has never been one for being subtle and diplomatic. Although I sure as hell hope he is now-he’s currently serving in Iraq in the National Guard.
My big brother, AKA Billdo, has never done anything like that. I’d kick his ass if he did! It ain’t his prerogative. Which is not to say that he wouldn’t “protect” me if I needed protection. I’m sure he would.
ToC’s story reminds me of the one time he did step in–much to my relief. He was a freshman in college, and I was down for a visit. We were at some random frat party. This totally cheesy guy was hitting on me hard. I kept looking at Bill, like “what the heck should I do?” He was looking back at me like “I dunno.”
Finally, the cheesy guy noticed us looking at each other, and he said “Are you two together?”
Bill said “No. She’s my sister.”
The guy said “Okay then” and started in on me again.
Bill said, “And she’s fourteen.”
The guy was gone so fast I think I heard a sonic boom.
