by Maggie Cushman

When I picked up my two teenage daughters from school today, I mentioned an article I’d read in the New York Times about a study which found that adolescents who have sisters are less likely to feel “I am unhappy, sad or depressed,” or “I feel like no one loves me.” 

Fifteen-year-old Hope wasted no time discrediting this study when she referred to her sister sitting in the front seat and said, “Obviously that’s not true. Look at Hannah. She’s got two sisters and you’d have to try hard to find an angrier, more bitter person.” 

Hannah then launched into an assault against Hope’s character (including, but by no means limited to, a vicious attack on Hope’s tendency to be “socially aggressive” when interacting with Hannah’s friends), which lasted the rest of the ride home.  

I knew better to than to get involved, but seven-year-old Sam tried to inject some sense of fair play into the ring.

“Stop it. Both of you. You’re being unkind!” he pleaded. The sisters found a hardened patch of common ground and barked at him in unison, “Butt out!” thereby reducing Sam to tears.   

Back at home I took the article, which I had naively printed out—hilariously entitled "Why Sisterly Chats Make People Happier," and handed it to Sam.

“Cheer up," I said. "You can put this in the paper shredder for me." The dark clouds in his eyes were swept away by the joy of impending destruction (if you have a son, you know what I mean, and if you don’t, you need to learn more about men).

“What is this?” he asked holding the multi-paged article.

 “It’s Hope and Hannah’s birth certificates. You shred them and then we’ll call Child Services and say they followed us home and we don’t know who they are,” I explained.

“Will they take them away forever?” he asked.  I wasn’t sure how he felt about this.

“No, just until they can stop fighting,” I said.

Sam's face lit up. “Mom, that’d be forever!” he said, and then gave a holler, “YES!” while pumping his fist in the air.

I would assume, judging from the impressive inventory of cheesy sister gifts in the catalogs I receive, that the sisterly animosity so prevalent in our home is not the norm. I can’t imagine one of my daughters giving the other a plaque which reads, “Sisters by Chance, Friends by Choice” in curlicue lettering and hanging from a pink ribbon. Ours would more likely read “Sisters by Cruel Twist of Fate, Friends by The Time Hell Freezes Over” written in blood and hanging from a piece of barbed wire.

How can this study claim that having a sister makes one feel less lonely, more loved, and less fearful? Had those researchers spent a few days in the lab with our rats, I'd bet they would’ve come to some dramatically different conclusions.

Only the Lonely

“Where’s your sister?” I ask my youngest daughter over the ear bending vocals of some Glee character massacring a Broadway show tune.

“In the basement watching Glee,” she says, staring spellbound at the screen.

If only there were a sane person in the room to check with, but this seems nuts.

“You guys are watching the same show on two different TVs,” I say, wishing I were asking a question.

She turns to me, like a viper, and hisses, “Yes, Mom. You try sitting next to her. If she isn’t gnawing the flesh off her fingers, she’s constantly criticizing Lea Michele’s singing.”

I go downstairs to check in with the older sister, and Lea Michele is still singing.  “Aren’t you lonely watching down here by yourself?  Hope is watching upstairs,” I say.

She looks at me as if I suggested she should chew glass.

“You’ve got to be kidding me. Did you really come down to ask me that? I will never be that lonely, Mom. If I had just been released from 50 years in solitary confinement, I would ask for one more night alone in the cell rather than suffer through watching TV next to Hope. Have you heard how irritating her breathing is?”

As I head upstairs, I can’t help but think solitary confinement sounds like a fine idea.

For me. 

Spread the Love

Last Christmas brought the third sister home for a month to spread some love and holiday cheer.

I hear the screaming before I can discern who it is, or why they are yelling.  Much banging and smashing ensues. When I open the door, the older sister is ransacking the drawers of the younger one.

“You stole that sweater, Hannah!  I know you did, you little creep!” the older one says as clothes go sailing across the room.

The accused younger sister is indignant. “I did not take your sweater!  First of all, it’s the color of puke, second, I hate your taste in clothes, and last, no offense, Grace, but I could hardly fit in it!”

That does it. The offense as intended is taken and retaliation is at hand. Grace advances, poking Hannah in the chest with her finger. “You did take it because you’re a jealous, insecure jerk with no identity of your own! You are totally lying!”

“Girls!”  I say, having absolutely no effect.

“I am not lying!” the defendant insists.

Prosecutor Grace is not about to back down. “You’re lying just like you lied when you said you didn’t tell Mom every single thing you read in my diary! Just like you lied when you said you didn’t cut my Cabbage Patch doll’s hair when you were five! Just like you lied when you said you didn’t steal my Spice Girls CD!”

“Oh get over yourself, Grace! I cut that doll’s hair like 12 years ago, and the last time I checked, the Spice Girls had broken up and were deep in the throes of menopause,” Hannah says with a laugh.

Grace looks like someone has thrown boiling hot tar at her.  “YOU CUT HER HAIR! I KNEW IT! That was my favorite doll! You are soulless, Hannah. You have bile for blood,” Grace yells. She picks up a sweater and proceeds to throw it at her sister’s face before storming out of the room.

Hannah catches the sweater. It is green. She looks at me with a guilty grin as she hands it over and says, “It was the loving thing to do. She looks terrible in green.”

We Have Nothing to Fear but Our Sisters

 “I will beat you to a bloody pulp!”

“Let go!  I can’t breathe!”

 “I will tell everyone you are in love with ______!”

“She BIT me!”

“I will tell everyone you are a lesbian!”

 “NO ONE LIKES YOU!”

“If you talk to one of my friends again, I am going to tell them how you smeared your poop on your bedroom wall when you were two!”

“I am going to KILL YOU. Tonight. When you’re asleep!”

What the results of this happy sister study prove is that data is as pliable as Play-Doh and if you wanted to, you could collect statistics to prove that men don’t need sex. Okay. That would be pushing it. But you know what I mean. These researchers are full of shit.

Unless, of course, they’re not.

My mind arches back to my own sister, whom I have always adored. In fact, what is so disappointing about my daughters’ bickering is that my sister and I have always gotten along so  well.

To be fair to my daughters, this is partly because there are six years between my sister and me, and mostly because we had a pretty tough time growing up. Fighting was a luxury we couldn’t afford—we weren’t going to risk alienating the only other sane person in the house. 

I remember one harrowing night when my parents were fighting. My dad was drunk and yelling, my mother was cowering and crying, and my sister and I were hiding underneath the dining room table. 

“Whose side are you on?” a five-year-old me asked the wiser eleven year old her.

“You can’t pick sides. It’s not like that,” she explained.  “You just have to love them both.”

“Whose fault is it, though?” I wanted to know. I suspected it was mine.

“Nobody’s,” she said, and pulled me close.

Come to think of it, maybe those researchers are onto something.

Hannah and Hope just came bounding down the stairs. Hannah got her license today and she wants to take Hope on her maiden voyage.

“You want to take Hope? With you? Go together?” I ask.

“Yeah!” says Hannah, jingling her keys and bouncing up and down.

“We’re going to Starbucks to celebrate!”  Hope pipes in.

 “Together?” I repeat.

“Yes, Mom,” says Hannah, “Together. Why are you acting so surprised?”

“Hey, when Israel invites Palestine for coffee, it’s news,” I say as she sticks her tongue out.

Why am I surprised? Of course Hannah would take Hope on her first official drive. With only 15 months between them, these two have spent their lives in tandem. While they are as different as two kids could be—introvert/extrovert, quiet/loud, bookworm/party girl, light/dark— no amount of snarling, slapping, biting, or sniping can hide the steadfast truth: the sides may be different, but the coin is the same. They meet in the middle at the heart.

I hear them as they head out the door. Hannah tells Hope to bring her phone so Hope can call Grace in Los Angeles and tell her the big driving news, and then they launch into a Taylor Swift duet at full volume. I go to the door and watch them skip down the driveway, laughing their heads off.

What nutters. 

When they tumble into the car and drive away, I am surprised at how hard it is to swallow. A lump of loneliness is lodged in my throat.

That’s when I go inside and call my sister.

Maggie Cushman writes from Maine. You can read more of her work at Dear Pauline's Blog.