Why Siblings are the Worst (A Childhood Memory)

I’ve been watching (and listening) to my kids annoy the heck out of their siblings lately, and however frustrating, it actually puts a smile on my face. This is so normal, right? We’ve all done the “Mom, she’s copying meeee…” with a sibling echoing those exact same words in the exact same tone. Oh, and don’t forget about the invisible line on the couch, or car seat that your sibling is not allowed to cross!

I want to share with you this story…

Let Me Set The Scene

My mom gave music lessons from home, so my siblings and I were all at home in the afternoons, and the nr 1 rule at home was, “When Mom is busy with a lesson, for no reason whatsoever may we come knock at that door unless it’s an emergency.” And you know 90’s kids – not even if the house was on fire does it really count as an emergency. You know the fireman’s number is by the phone, and you know where the water is. Sort it out.

My sister was about 12 – I think grade 6, maybe 7. She is the eldest of the four of us, and 2 years older than me. Theuns came to visit. Not only was Theuns one of the cool guys at school, but also a year older. Again, rules are pretty straight forward. If a boy comes to visit, you stay in the common areas or sit outside. So that’s what they did. The two of them sat in the tv room and chatted.

Naturally, my brother and I “needed” to watch tv at that exact moment. With our backs towards the TV, watching them like hawks.

“Guys! Please go! We’re just trying to have a conversation!”

“Whaaaaaat? It’s a free country. We’re just sitting here. We’re not even doing anything!”

So finally she gives up and they go to her room.

But we don’t give up that easily. Every few seconds we’d walk past her bedroom. Maybe pull a face. Giggle. And when our actions didn’t get an immediate reaction, we would poke our heads in the doorway and say something silly, make a loud noise or, the best of sibling behaviour; make kissing sounds!

Eventually sy lost her cool, and slammed the door.

Did that stop us? It did not. We were committed.

So naturally we decided to slowly sneak up, open the door and run away giggling. Yes, we thought we were hilarious.

My sister, furiously annoyed and unbelievably embarrassed, decided to lock her bedroom door to keep us out. I am sure, in her naive beautiful heart thought that this would be the end and we would finally give up and leave them alone. But she was sorely mistaken. She didn’t know how determined we were to make this the sibling event of the year.

My brother and I first started to bang on the walls beside her room, but that gave absolutely no feedback, so plan B (perhaps plan D by this stage?) quickly came into place. We went outside, around the back of the house and snuck all along the wall until we reached her bedroom window. Eavesdropping gave us nothing, so we did the next best thing;

Theuns and Marilize

Sitting in a tree

Screaming at us to stop and just go away and to leave her alone for the love of all things chocolate, she did the only things she still had available to her. She closed her windows and her curtains.

Looking back, today, I honestly feel for her. Can’t imagine how embarrassed she was, and why we had this need to irritate my poor sister so badly. Perhaps because she never did anything wrong. Maybe we were jealous. Or maybe we were just super bored that day. Whatever the reason, at that moment, we were having the time of our lives!

So I’m guessing you can see the natural next step we had to take, right? I mean, there was no other way around this…

Yup. This calls for an emergency. We called my mom as severely concerned citizens, told her my sister is alone in her room with a boy, door closed – locked, oh the horror! – and now she has even closed the curtain. My mom better hurry!

My poor sister got in trouble, her friend sent home, and to make a very long story short – he never ended up as her boyfriend. (Shocker!)

Moral of the Story

There is no moral of the story. Siblings can be the worst. And that’s a fact. If you want to date or even just flirt when you have siblings in the vicinity, know you will be called out on everything you do. We will embarras you, for no other reason than we can. Siblings will also love you fiercely, and protect you against any and all threats like an angry lioness.

But in most cases, we really are the worst.

(If you want to watch some more siblings just be the absolute worst, click here! )

Do you have some fun/horrific/interesting siblings stories to share? I’ll love to hear them. Share below!