This sitting in the front seat thing reminds me of when I tricked my brother rather deviously. We’re three years apart and so there was a time when only I was old enough to sit in the front seat. Then we devised the morning-afternoon system. But I said, thinking that he’d figure out that I’d tricked him, “Okay, I sit in the front if it’s between midnight and 3pm, and you can sit in the front from 3pm to midnight”. This meant that he got to sit in the front seat on the way home, but you can see that the time wasn’t split evenly and we didn’t have afternoon stuff that required a car.
I occasionally babysit for a very feral child who I really don’t like - she’s very poorly disciplined because she’s evil. She will push her mum, who is normally very calm, until she snaps. But she doesn’t feel disciplined; she laughs. EVIL. So I don’t feel guilty about manipulation; Georgia decides that she will not wear pants. Or any clothing for that matter.
Me: George, are you a big girl?
G: Yes.
Me: Oh…all the big girls I know wear pants. And clothing.
No one likes to be called a child, especially children. I’m also the only one who actually doesn’t take any crap from her; kids need boundaries and alot of parents I meet are trying too hard to be their child’s friend first.
Good disciplinary measures that my mum used were One kid does the top half of the dishwasher, the other does the bottom half. One kid feeds the cats, the other feeds the dogs. One vacuums, the other makes tea. My mother drinks a lot of tea.
Also, another good thing she did, money-wise, was put all my pocket money and a clothing allowance into a kid’s account with a key card when I was in year 7 (12 years old). I could do whatever I wanted with that money, it was for six months at a time. She still paid for my school stuff and if we went out shopping together, she paid for stuff. If I ran out of money before the end of the six months, she’d give me extra. I found that having my own cash made me feel more independant and the agreement we had was written in a ‘contract’ that basically stipulated how much cash I got and what it was for, and what she’d still pay for.
Her and my dad were also pretty big on books, like vetbridge, we had full wall height bookcases.
Also - siblings who live on the other side of the continent to each other and only see each other every few months are much less likely to fight :D. They also end up closer and more likely to confide in each other. My mum always said ‘Be nice to each other, one day you’ll be all the other one has to rely on when we die.’
Not having my brother arounds means I’m far less tolerant of people who are unkind to their younger siblings for no reason, other than ‘He’s just my younger bro, why should I care?’ than I was before, but even then, my brother and I have always been close. Unless the sibling in question is a heinous person (as my Dad’s sister is), I think it’s really important to have a good relationship with your siblings, especially when there’s only two of you.
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