I’m An Only Child, & I’m Jealous But So Happy That My Kids Have Each Other

Growing up, I used to beg my parents to have another baby. “Please,” I would plead with them, “I need a brother or sister!”

I really wanted a sister when I was younger, but as I got older, I would take any sibling. Someone else who shared at least some of the same DNA and lived in the same house as us. Someone to play Monopoly with. Someone who witnessed the same family insanity. Someone to take the crushing pressure off of me. Even if we fought, I thought. Even if we didn’t get along, I believed, it would be better than being an only child.

As if my pleading wasn’t enough of an indication, the running joke in my family was that I had seven imaginary friends. That’s how badly I wanted some company. I dreamed up an entire clan of kids — Bobby, Danny, Kathy, Carol, Jimmy, Karen, and Sharron. They would accompany me most everywhere — going to ballet class, shopping at Sears with my mom. But the place I remember spending the most time with them was at home: I wanted them to keep me company when I was going to sleep, to talk to after my parents would fight.

The truth is that I didn’t have a clue what it meant to have a sibling. How could I? From the outside I would observe my friends with their brothers or sisters: Sure, sometimes they would argue or fight or compete with each other. On the flip side, they had someone to argue with on long car rides, to fight with over who got to play the Game Boy for longer, to compete with playing field hockey.

As I got older, I would listen intently when my friends told stories about their sibling relationships and romanticize them. A college roommate wrote about how she has held her sister’s hand under the table since they were little, and they continue to do so sometimes as adults. A silent treaty, a shared pact: “We’re here for each other; we will get through this family dinner together.” That is what I craved. That unique brand of intertwined double-helix intimacy. Shared memories, overlapping while enduring the same dysfunctional family dynamics together. Making inside jokes only they understood.

So when I imagined having kids, it was always plural. If I was lucky enough to have one child, I knew I wanted to try to have two. And wow, was I lucky. My son, Noah, was born in June of 2015 and was one of those babies who made me want another baby.

As soon as I got pregnant again, I did all of the research on how to introduce a toddler to a new sibling. I worried that I wouldn’t love the second child as much as I loved him. And I wondered: What would their relationship be like? Would they get along famously? Would they fight all the time? Would they stay in their own corners of our new family square?

And then my daughter, Chloe, was born in January of 2018, and their relationship unfolded every day before my eyes. Noah is by nature a kind and caring boy, and he welcomed his sister into our home with copious hugs and kisses (and fist bumps once she was capable). There was one hilarious hiccup toward the beginning when he plucked a single Cheerio from his bowl and threw it in her bassinet, testing his (and her) boundaries. We told him not to do it again, and he never did. He is my “compliant” child!

I watched with wonder as he cooed to her, cheered her on while she learned to roll over on her play mat, helped me fetch her bottle from the kitchen when I was trapped underneath her tiny body. I observed her staring intently at him, watching him dart around our apartment, listening to his favorite Paw Patrol episodes. She would never know her life without him there.

My favorite time to witness them interacting together was when Chloe woke up from her nap: I would put Noah in her crib, and my heart would swell as he curled up next to her, singsonging her name, rubbing her muslin-covered back. His hard 99th percentile head pressing up against her sixth percentile soft one. Sometimes — knowingly going against the crib’s weight warnings — I would climb in with them, sitting cross-legged. I couldn’t get close enough: I wanted to inhale their bloodlined bond. I would risk the crib breaking to soak in that unspoken sibling magic.

I know there is a decent chance they won’t get along as adults, that they will grow apart. I’ve heard the stories of siblings having a massive falling out, never speaking to each other again. And yet, I think, at least they had this shared experience as my kids. At least I was able to give them each other growing up.

It certainly felt easier in the beginning, when Chloe was confined to her crib and bouncer. Once she started to move, she was a wild woman — definitely not a rule-follower like her brother. She was the one knocking over his Magna-tile castle or refusing to share a treasured stuffed animal. Though he’s generally conflict-averse, of course Noah would get upset about a dismantled castle or grab the stuffie back.

At first when they would clash, my instinct was to panic. Oh no, I would worry, they’re not getting along! I would get in the middle of them and try to mediate, to resolve the dispute as quickly as possible and reinstate peace. Of course, this is classic sibling squabbling, but to me it took on a greater meaning. What if, I would catastrophize, they are the brother and sister who constantly battle? What if, my obsessive-compulsive disorder brain would project, the symbiotic sibling relationship I fantasized about didn’t exist?

However, I quickly learned that when I stepped back and let them sort it out, most of the time they were giggling again within five minutes — instant sibling forgiveness.

Once their vocabularies began to expand (and they couldn’t fit in the crib together anymore), I would listen intently to their backseat conversations while I drove. Sure, they would get into annoying tiffs about who ate more Goldfish. But they would also have the silliest exchanges, making each other crack up about nonsense, their own dialect of humor, their own shared language. (Unfortunately, they seem to share a penchant for backseat driving.)

As they’ve gotten older — Chloe is 7 now and Noah is 9 — their dynamic has certainly grown more complicated. He is often playing the part of protector and sympathizer as she struggles with big feelings. Again I worry that this will become a burden for him, yet he seems to revel in this role most of the time. When she is especially upset she wails “I want my brooooootherrrr.” She wrote him a note recently that said “You alwaz mak me fel betr thnk you.” The other day when they got home from school, I heard him go over to her, put his hand on her shoulder and say how proud he was of her for how she handled something at lunch time. My heart lunged out of its chest.

If I’m completely honest, there are times when I’m envious of their relationship, their closeness. It does resemble what I fantasized about as a child. I know there is a decent chance they won’t get along as adults, that they will grow apart. I’ve heard the stories of siblings having a massive falling out, never speaking to each other again. And yet, I think, at least they had this shared experience as my kids. At least I was able to give them each other growing up.

As I write this, they are practicing their recently acquired instruments, attempting to play “Hot Cross Buns” at the same time much to my ears’ dismay. My son is effortfully blowing into his baritone while my daughter is intently pressing keys on the piano. I hear rejoicing when they align on the same notes, momentary harmony. Then howling and harrumping when one of them is off-key. The sounds oscillate back and forth between shared joy and discontent. Yet they keep coming back to the song to try again to play it together. Perhaps this is what having a sibling sounds like.

Cristina Tudino is a writer, editor, and content brand marketer. Her work has appeared in SELF, Health, Oprah, Women’s Health, Forbes.com, Martha Stewart Living, and Glamour. She is the founder of Gemini Consulting Group, and lives in New Jersey with her husband and two children.