Link to NPR article and interview with You Were Always Mom's Favorite author Deborah Tannen:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112527898


In her interview with Susan Stamberg, Tannen observes that "In some ways, siblings and especially sisters are more influential in your childhood than your parents," because of closeness in age and because you "go through history" together. For many women, sister relationships define their personality and what they are interested in, as their role in the family becomes what Tannen calls "a starting point to decide who you are going to be".

As it turns out, all three of my roommates this year come from "girl families" - a term that my sisters and mother and I use to talk about other families with two or more daughters and no sons. (Every once in a while my mother will say "Sometimes I wish we had two more kids" and one of my sisters or I will say "Yes, but what if one of them had been a boy?" To which she always says "Hmmmm, you're right about that".) Two of my roommates, Lauren and Lizzie, both have one older sister, and Megan and I are both the oldest (she has one younger sister and I have two). All this makes for a wonderful apartment dynamic - we feel perfectly comfortable sharing a bathroom or asking a roommate to please take their clothes out of the dryer! and no one seems to mind the amount of stuff that accumulates on tables, countertops, refrigerator shelves, windowsills, sinks, couches, and corners of the living room floor.

After listening to this interview about sister relationships, I was curious about my roommates' families because I do remember being competitive with my own sisters and being very aware of my identity in the family. In addition to being "the little one", I was "the thoughtful one", both because of my affinity for literature and writing and because I have always been the one who, for example, did dishes before my mom got home from work, started planning birthday and Christmas gifts months beforehand and organized an anniversary party for my parents. (Is this typical for an oldest sister? It certainly was true of Mary Ingalls, Meg March and Jane Bennet, a fact I always chafed at.) My prom queen middle sister was "the social, athletic one" who dated guys who had tough backgrounds or dubious immigration statuses. My valedictorian youngest sister was "the driven one" who never dated at all and only wavers in her career choice when she's not sure if she wants to be a neurologist or an obstetrician. My parents talk about us in these terms, too, which irritated me until recently, when I realized that I didn't actually mind this role too much.

My roommates described their families falling into similar patterns; Lizzie was called "the professor" by her teachers and parents because, as she describes it, she was a chubby little girl with glasses who loved school from the very beginning. Lauren remembers her parents saying "Beth is the artist in the family - and Lauren is a good artist too but she's more into writing", a phrasing that I remember from my own parents as well. (Megan denies that her parents were ever involved in this kind of pigeonholing, but I'm suspicious.)

We all remember settling into habits of getting along with our sisters that would last for a year or two until they were disrupted by changes in school, one sister learning to drive, or one sister moving out. Competition manifests itself in sometimes obvious, sometimes insidious ways. Lauren describes going home to see her family after being the first sister to move out, and feeling more comfortable staying away from topics like her new apartment, teaching, and going out in a new town. Lizzie senses a new shade of awkwardness and reserve in her relationship with her sister now that she is dating one of her sister's friends.

Even more important than proximity in age, though, are similarities in personality and interest. Lauren feels closer with her sister than her parents because they are both creative and artistic, whereas neither parent is. In my family, my parents will always back each other up and my sisters and I will advocate for each other when one of us argues with our mother or wants to do something Dad finds a little too daring. And as we get older we share the roles of "problem solver", "wild child", and "mom's favorite" between us a little more equally.