10 | SEPTEMBER 15 • 2022 

essay

The Gift of Siblings
T

he history of siblings 
goes back to biblical 
times. However, things 
didn’t work out so well for Cain 
and Abel or Esau and Jacob, 
did they? Not to 
mention Joseph’s 
brothers who 
sold him down 
the river. On 
the other hand, 
Moses and Aaron 
usually supported 
each other. And 
Rebekah and Leah married the 
same guy, for crying out loud! 
Thankfully, most of us have 
relationships with our siblings 
that are at least somewhat less 
tempestuous.
My mom grew up in a large 
family with two brothers and 
two sisters. She was raised in 
a busy household in Detroit; 
she told us how she sometimes 
retreated to the front closet of 
her home to read in peace and 
quiet. We observed her inter-
actions with her brothers and 
sisters as adults, which included 
frequent conflicts with one sister. 
Of her sibs, only my Uncle Gary 
is left, thankfully still sharp and 
still the coolest guy in the room. 
My dad had a fondness for his 
older sister, but he often seemed 
befuddled by the marked differ-
ences in their personalities. 
I am blessed with two younger 
siblings. My sister Shana (nee 
Sheila) is three years younger 
and my brother Michael is eight 
years younger. My sister was 
soft-spoken as a child, rebellious 
as a teen, but she is now an adult 
with an easy ability to express 
her ideas and beliefs, always in 
a kind way. My brother, who we 
teased a bit when he was small, 
has grown into a well-spoken 
empathic man who can more 
than hold his own in a con-

versation with his siblings. We 
share a strong love of music, 
expressed in slightly different 
ways. Although my siblings and 
I have distinct personalities, we 
share many common beliefs and 
values. 
My standard joke about sib-
lings is that they are fellow “wit-
nesses to the scene of the crime.
” 
That didn’t seem quite as funny 
once I became a parent and saw 
firsthand what a tough job it was 
from the other side. Another 
wonderful phrase I frequently 
find myself saying is that we are 
all “the imperfect children of 
imperfect parents.
” That homily 
comes in handy when someone 
is looking to cast the first stone 
about a conflict in his or her 
family. 

EXAMINING OUR ROOTS
My sister, brother and I have a 
common need to examine and 
re-examine our roots. Whenever 
the three of us get together in 
person or on Zoom, (my sister 
lives in Seattle and my brother in 
Philly) we almost immediately 
begin talking about the good old 
days. For the most part, we share 
a feeling of how lucky we were to 
have been raised by good, kind 
people who loved us through 
thick and thin. But that rarely 
stops us from analyzing every 
aspect of our parents’ parenting 
style and laughing at their idio-
syncrasies. We laugh at my dad’s 
pet phrases, like “How are you 
fixed for socks and underwear?” 
and my mom’s tendency to give 

unsolicited advice, even to peo-
ple she had just barely met.
My siblings have mentioned 
to me once or twice about how I 
tended to ignore them once I hit 
my teen years. I have asked for 
and received forgiveness from 
them, and we’ve maintained 
a wonderful bond once we all 
became adults. We remember 
learning about family conflicts 
and caring, while watching TV 
shows together, such as Leave 
It to Beaver, My Three Sons and 
Father Knows Best. Of course, all 
the conflicts were resolved in 28 
minutes. 
We often recall early years 
of playing board games like 
Monopoly and the Game of 
Life and word games such as 
Password and Scrabble, which 
have now morphed into ongoing 
internet battles of Wordfeud 
(where both my bro and sis usu-
ally kick my butt). We remember 
childhood road trips to Niagara 
Falls and Tawas, which featured 
endless games of License Plate 
geography and too many cho-
ruses of “
A Hundred Bottles of 
Beer on the Wall.
” We have also 
shared many trips as adults, 
often filled with music, games 
and more talking about our 
family. 
My sister is a therapist, and 
my brother is a professor of 
organizational behavior; so, 
when you add a child psy-
chiatrist to the mix, you get a 
spirited discussion about “What 
were our parents thinking when 
they…?” We mostly agree that 
we lucked out big-time com-
pared to most families of people 
we know. But that doesn’t stop 
us from engaging in endless 
discussions about the long-term 
effects (mostly good and occa-
sionally challenging) of how we 
were raised.

PURELY COMMENTARY

Jeff London

Jeff London’s 
family 

The Three Londons:
Shana, Jeff and 
Michael

