To Those of You with Brothers.....or boys.

I can't bare to repeat it so...

brothers

I think like anything else it depends on the boys.

I had a large family next door with even boys/girls and the boys were always playing basketball and such in the yard. Never any big commotion with them - unless and until girls and their friends were around.

Knew a set of brothers that would beat the crud out of each other and still to this day love each other to bits.

Shrugs

boys!?

My brother and I went through a period where we would go though quite violent fights (i.e. punching, kicking etc).

This was in our early teen years. This was made more violent because I was 14 months older meaning that through our childhood, I was the the bigger brother. But, as we reached adolescence, my brother grew and I didn't. This upset the balance and was quite explosive until the balance of power readjusted (it turns out he was blessed with better genes in both height and athleticism).

My two sons are four years apart. There has been almost no physical fighting, partly because there is no point (the outcome is clear), and partly because of stellar parenting skills.

I only had 7 sisters so I can't comment on brothers from personal experience. I do recall that the people that lived across the street from me when I was growing up had two sons as did the family at the end of the street. They always fought and usually fought hard. There were several broken bones and hundreds of stiches over the years. I guess, in looking back on it, the fighting was much more personal and emotional than fighting with someone that didn't live in the same house with them.

Thanks so far, folks.


More please!

Don't forget to comment on how bad things could get verbally......and, if you bear any emotional scars, if you come from a fightin' boy family.

Re: To Those of You with Brothers.....or boys.


It could and often did get awfully nasty. My two brothers were playing "burn out" one day. That is a game which American boys indulge in without prior arrangement, when, while throwing a baseball back and forth, they will both of them begin throwing the ball harder and harder, until one of them quits. My oldest brother pulled this on our other brother one day, and as he was a leftie and a pitcher, he could throw a ball pretty damned hard, and it was difficult (and therefore painful) to catch. My other brother simply dropped the ball, took his glove and walked away. My oldest brother then picked up the ball, and threw it at my shoulder as hard as he could. He knew i wouldn't cry out or cry tears, because i would never give him the pleasure. He then said to our other brother: "See, _____ didn't cry, he's no sissy, like you!"

On another occasion, when both of them were upstairs and all was quiet, there was suddenly an outburst of noise, and the two of them came rolling down the stairs, one over the other, locked in mortal combat. My oldest brother was tall, but not stout. My other brother was tall and stout--he eventually grew to be the largest of us, at about 6' 5" and well over 200 pounds in his prime. As you may well imagine, a fight between these two could be pretty dramatic.

When i was about six or seven years old, the middle brother (the one who eventually became the biggest of us) had been picking on me, and i don't recall the circumstances, but i was enraged. Understanding nothing about adrenalin and its effects, i picked up a broken brick bat and heaved it at him as hard as i could. It sailed out, struck square in the back of his head, and cold-cocked him. It laid him out, unconscious, and my recollection is that my only emotion was incredible joy at having accomplished what i hadn't intended, but only could have dreamed of. I was punished by a whipping with a fly-swatter on my bare butt, and i was so happy i didn't care. About thirty years later when we were giving each other a hard time in a biker bar in North Carolina, he looked over at me and said he was prepared to go find that brick. I knew what he meant.

Very often, the oldest brother was the instigator, and as he was five years older than i am, he was a good deal larger than me until i had reached the age of 16. For some reason (and i don't think it was related to the brick), the middle brother would often stand up for me, and this frequently lead to knock-down-drag-out fights between them.

This is my only experience of such matters, other than some observations of other families. Although, of course, the worst fighting usually did not take place in the presence of adults, i think it was fairly common in American families in the 1950s.

I should add-on that, while I'm not question ebrown's parenting skilz, I do think the age gap between brothers does make a big difference. The two pairs of brothers I mentioned were less than two years apart in both cases. I can't think of anyone I've known that fought much with the borthers when there was more than ~4 years between them.

Dlowan,

It is very hard for a man to know just where his emotional scars come from.

I have to agree with the age difference thing.

The brothers next door were 3-5 years difference.

The brothers from 'beat each other to smithereens types' were like 22 months apart. It did get bloody and verbally abusive. I have never seen anything other than a bar fight to compare it to.

looking forward to that fishin...two 8 year olds and a 5 year old boy...not enough info yet to share dlowan. Other than they do fight and they seem to love it.

The point about the age difference is important. My oldest brother was five and half years older than me, and i did not match his size until i was 16. He was out of the home by then, so there was no fighting between us. By the time i was 17, i was bigger than him, by such a significant difference that had there been a fight, he'd not have had a prayer. He remained thin, while i filled out, was lifting weights for baseball and basketball, and did heavy farm labor for cash. But by then, the violence was in abeyance. By that time, there literally was not anyone in our little town who would have picked a fight with our other brother, who worked in factory while he went to university, and played point guard on a semi-pro basketball team. I'd say the kind of violence to which you refer, as others have pointed out, is localized in a certain period of the lives of brothers who are relatively close in age (just less than two years separated my older brothers).

You ask about "emotional scars," and i don't think that was very common, not form my experience or what i observed of other families. The Arabs have a saying: "Me against my brother, both of us against our cousins, all of us against you." I think that pretty well applies to the situations described here--the family loyalty was not affected by the knock-down-drag-outs which i think were fairly common in the right circumstances. I thought my oldest brother was pure evil when i was just a liddly. Upon mature reflection, i have come to the conclusion that my oldest brother was pure evil--but that was just his character.

That's an interesting comment. I'd have to say that i've seen few bar fights which have gotten as nasty as "brother" fights sometimes did--but then, in bars, someone usually separates the belligerents.

You have a valid point. No one ever cared to separate them. It was a family thing and we stayed out of it.

My brother's 4 1/2 years older than me. Wrestling, yes, but no serious hitting.

My two visits to the emergency room were due to an 8-year-old attempting to emulate the feats of a 12-year-old. (And motorcycles, and poorly fitting safety equipment)

My older brother delighted in tormenting me. He was two years my elder. My step father would prompt him to take me down, and he grinned throughout the ordeal. He eventually needed no prompting. As I began to overtake him in size, I fought back. At age fifteen, I had taken all I was going to take. The final confrontation came out of a disagreement over the TV. I had been watching one of my favorite shows weekly. One day, he announced that we were to watch Peter Gunne, instead. I protested, but he changed the channel. After two or three weeks, I had made that show my favorite. It angered me when he announced that we would no longer watch Peter Gunne. We locked in combat. All of my frustration welled up and I began to punch the back of his neck with my fist. He lost the will to continue after that. I never knew if it was because I hurt him or if he had decided it was not worth it if I was willing to be that violent.

We never fought, physically, after that, but, for the rest of his days, he would seek ways to ridicule me, and more than once, when I sought to discuss a book or an idea with him, he stated that he would only discuss it with his peers, meaning other than myself.

The last year he lived, we were less confrontational. I loved him very much, despite the differences we had.

Hmmmmm...sounds as though brother bashing is pretty common!


Would you guys worry if your kids were doing the same to each other now?

I think there are different types of fighting. Some starts off as good-natured teasing -- someone gets hurt, gets pissed and starts whaling on the other one. This happens all the time here. That does not bother me...they generally solve it on their own. It is when one has been hurt emotionally by the other somehow...

for example: I have one that has a tiny bladder. He cannot make it through the night, and he sleeps so hard that he just will not wake up - so he still has to wear big kid pull ups. He hates it - it is a source of embarrassment for him. It is a medical issue and one day - he will be able to make it through the night.

His brother one day, in a jealous spout told a friend of theirs he still wore diapers - the ensuing fight was bitter and truly hard to reconcile. He felt betrayed and his brother was jealous of his friendship with this other fellow. They were at it pretty good but it was the mean things they said (for 8 y.o.'s) that made me so sad.

That one took us a while to come to terms with on both sides. The one being truly sorry he did it - empathizing with his brother (not something they do well) and the other one's feelings of betrayal by his brother. They are fine now. It took a lot of talking through and questioning and putting them in the others place (not easy to do for 8 year olds), before we got it behind us and I felt there was progress made. And it took a while before the one could say he was sorry and mean it so that the trust and relationship was restored.

I have no clue what I will do as they get bigger.

I had two younger sisters until my brother was born 9 years after me. So i never got to brawl with my brother because he was always too young, and Hitting my sisters didnt get me too far with my parents. I would get my ass kicked by my dad if i hit my sisters lol

But i grew up next door to four brothers who were my best friends growing up and me and the four of them were all close in age and me. We always wrestled and fought but it was usually with good intentions, boys just messing around. Althought at least 3 times a week an arguement and fight would turn serious and someone would end up with a black eye or fat lip. But within a few hours we were all friends again. We were more i guess on the violent side but all good kids. Besides it was just practice for when we grew up and someone did wanna fight us, i can say it helped out because i havent lost a fight yet. I did once meet my match with an older guy where we both kind of called it quits after about 5 mins and we knew it was a stail mate.

I have an older brother (4.5 years older) and he used to tease me a lot
while we were growing up. Lots of jealousy and resentment on his part -
he would have liked a brother instead of a sister. It all was verbal though,
no fist fights - well once I hit him right on the nose. He was bleeding and
crying - it was all a big mistake though

We got passed it, and are much closer today.