Tag Team

My sister sent me a text, after the weekend encounter with our mother, and she said she was grateful she wasn’t an only child but that we had each other to go through this together. I echoed her sentiment because I had been feeling the same way. It made me think about the times I contemplated the size of my family and how I’m glad my children will always have one another. Yes, they also have other siblings, but it is different when you grow up living together. You just get it in ways others do not. No one understands better what is going on with our mother than my sister. At this point, we mostly tag in and out as needed. Last year, when my sister wasn’t able to visit for Mother’s Day, I was tagged in. This past weekend my sister tagged in, taking the brunt of Mom’s bitterness before I arrived with the children. It makes it just a hair easier, knowing there is someone who understands and can take some of the heat. Not that I plan on following my mother’s path, but I like knowing my kids can commiserate with one another, even if it’s about me. I know I am a fallible human being and I do things that they find irritating, so knowing they can talk to one another about it makes parenting more than one child a worthy endeavor in my book. I strongly put this in the pro column when contemplating family size. When I am old and frail and the kids need to take care of me, they can spread that work between the three of them. Hopefully, they won’t have to take turns enduring my ire, as my sister and I do with our mom, but at least they can if the need arises. I hope they can someday say, as I did to my sister, “I’m so glad I’m not an only child.”