Summer Sibs
They’ve stayed up to too late every night for 400 years. They’ve watched every show on PBS Kids, Disney Kids, Netflix Kids, and you’re tempted to introduce them to TikTok and never see them again.
They hate each other, of course.
What else can they do after eleven weeks boxed in with their closest frenemies? And, still, two weeks remain. Two weeks, I should add, with no camps or classes available to save them from each other.
Thank god for fresh blood, er, neighborhood friends who drop by to play basketball, ride bikes, and drink sparkling water. It adds to the chaos in the house, but changes the tenor of that chaos, at least. Now, it’s fun chaos! Now, seven kids are applying heart stickers to every surface of our home. Now, five are raiding our cupboard for chips. Now, four are riding a parachute down the stairs while three paint their nails (and our carpet). The screams dotting the background of work meetings during these visits are mostly happy screams.
Inevitably, though, the friends go home to their quiet houses, calm with zero-to-one sibs, while our gang stink-faces each other over the basement we insist they clean.
If we can get them in the lake, they play in unity. They leap like dolphins in synchrony. They live, laugh, love, and splash. But like a twist on magical merpeople who gain legs on land, our kids transform back into adversaries the moment their feet touch ground. That one was my towel No I get to turn on the hose this time Well I get to spray it first Only if I get to shower first No I get to shower first He looked at me funny She said stupid He hit me!
All goodwill drains away alongside the lakewater. By the time we’re home, they grit against each other like the sand in every bed.
You hate them too, of course.
What else can you do after eleven weeks of trying your goddamn best and realizing you’re staring down the barrel of two more? And you’ve used up your vacation time, and you’ve used up your camp budget, and they’re still here looking at you every morning with the question “What fun things will we do today?” shining in their doe eyes. And you know that when you say “Nothing, I’m working,” the fighting will begin alongside a chorus of “Can I haves” and “Can I watch”es.
They’ve stayed up to too late every night for 400 years. They’ve watched every show on PBS Kids, Disney Kids, Netflix Kids, and you’re tempted to introduce them to TikTok and never see them again.
You try to Repair after you’ve yelled at them to get the bleep out and close the door. You’ve tried to lock them in their rooms. You’ve tried to get enough sleep and drink enough water so that Your Needs Are Met and it’s easier to Regulate. You’ve tried swatting them on the behinds. You’ve tried everything and the simple fact is, American summer is just too much together time.
Summer has been so fun. Back in the dewy days of early June, we loaded clean towels in our car for “just in case” times – whim-visits to the splash pad, beach walks that turn into full body dousings. Those towels were used up (and probably lost) long ago. We’ve hiked and swam, farmers’ marketed, mini golfed, window shopped, and ice creamed. And now? We’re funned out. More than that? We’re familied out. The kids keep asking “what will we do today?” not because they have more summer bucket list items to check off, but because they’re trying to meet a desperate need for someone who is not these fucking people.
The summer sibs will be school sibs soon. The fifth grader will hold the kindergartener’s hand on their way to the bus stop. The third grader will come home with an excited kiss for his preschool brother. Your heart will swell.
And you’ll wonder, as always – as shorter days and cooler temps constrain their space, as age and gender expand their differences, as you hustle a forgotten lunchbox to school and absorb their afterschool bickering – whether your swollen heart is love or a precursor to cardiac arrest.
