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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to step Mom Never told you?

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Speaker 1: From House stepworks dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: This is Molly and I'm Kristen. Kristen. We have discussed

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Speaker 1: siblings before. We did a very big podcast on birth order.

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Speaker 1: We've heard from lots of our listeners about whether they

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Speaker 1: think birth order makes me difference, no difference. It got

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Speaker 1: a lot of It got a lot of response. Right

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Speaker 1: because I think we should remind listeners that you are

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Speaker 1: the oldest sibling in your family, and I am the

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Speaker 1: youngest sibling in my family, and we're also different in

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Speaker 1: another way. Kristin, that's going to be the topic of

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Speaker 1: today's conversation. I am the oldest of three, but I

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Speaker 1: have but my younger siblings are both brothers. I have

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Speaker 1: two younger brothers, no sisters. Whereas you've got you've got

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Speaker 1: like a mixed bag over there, We've got quite a

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Speaker 1: brat pack. Yes, I am the youngest of five counting folks,

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Speaker 1: uh in five with two brothers and two sisters. And

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Speaker 1: this is really gonna provide a lot of insight, I

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Speaker 1: think because today's topic is does a sister make you happier?

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Speaker 1: And we didn't pull this topic out of thin air.

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Speaker 1: There are a ton of new studies and headlines coming

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Speaker 1: out left and right about how sisters are the bomb

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Speaker 1: dot com to throw out a golden noldie, that it

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Speaker 1: is a golden MOLDI that time flood, that h study

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Speaker 1: after study is showing that people with sisters are happier

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Speaker 1: than those with brothers, not necessarily than those have only children.

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Speaker 1: All comes out in the wash somehow. So we're going

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Speaker 1: to kind of dive into this research and see what

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Speaker 1: we can find out about the makeup, the gender makeup

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Speaker 1: of your family. Yes, because when it comes to research

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Speaker 1: on siblings, it really didn't come around until started to

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Speaker 1: get much notoriety until the early two thousands. Before then,

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Speaker 1: there have been realms of research and studies on parents

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Speaker 1: and how parents affect their children. But when it came

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Speaker 1: to siblings, it's kind of a newer research focus. And

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Speaker 1: now that there have been more studies done on siblings,

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Speaker 1: all of these sort of sister specific benefits are coming out.

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Speaker 1: Because we should throw out a couple of statistics. Around

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Speaker 1: eight percent of Americans have at least one sibling, and

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Speaker 1: I know that. In our Birth Order podcast afterwards, we

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Speaker 1: got a lot of emails from listeners who are only children,

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Speaker 1: and we don't want only children to feel left out

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Speaker 1: in this conversation, so we will. We do have some

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Speaker 1: some points to make about you folks as well. But um,

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Speaker 1: by and large, most folks have a sibling, and like

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Speaker 1: it or not, your siblings have a pretty huge effect

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Speaker 1: on you, and in some ways larger than your parents,

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Speaker 1: right because you spend more time with your siblings and

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Speaker 1: you spend with anytime anyone else. Um, they've done, you know,

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Speaker 1: says where they follow the kids around and they realized

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Speaker 1: that by and large, siblings are your main companions, and

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Speaker 1: they're also the ones who are going to be there

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Speaker 1: throughout your entire life pretty much. You know, parents at

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Speaker 1: some point die and you meet a spouse midway through

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Speaker 1: your life. Let's say that sibling is the one who

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Speaker 1: saw you maybe from the time you were born to

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Speaker 1: the very end. Now we should say before we get

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Speaker 1: into sisters, that sibling research indicates that by and large,

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Speaker 1: especially having a positive relationship with a sibling, whether it's

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Speaker 1: a brother or a sister, no surprise here, has a

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Speaker 1: positive impact on you. For instance, UM, there was a

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Speaker 1: survey of men that kind of tracked them throughout their

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Speaker 1: lives and basically the ones who were doing the best

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Speaker 1: at age sixty five had a close relationship with a

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Speaker 1: brother or a sister. And then in another survey from

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Speaker 1: Duke University, they looked at sibling relationships of a group

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Speaker 1: of people over sixty five, and the majority felt strong

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Speaker 1: ties towards their siblings and would be expected to either

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Speaker 1: um provide support and difficult times for their siblings or

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Speaker 1: vice versa, call their siblings when times were tough for them.

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Speaker 1: So even later in life, we have these strong sibling relationships.

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Speaker 1: But then when you start to break down between brothers

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Speaker 1: and sisters and how we affect each other differently, there

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Speaker 1: are some variations. That's right. Let's jump to a study

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Speaker 1: from Brigham Young University. It's the newest one that's come

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Speaker 1: out and one that's with one that's getting a lot

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Speaker 1: of press coverage right now, and it's all about how

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Speaker 1: UM adolescents who have a sister. So this is a

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Speaker 1: much different time period than the people who are over

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Speaker 1: sixty five. Those other studies you were citing. These are

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Speaker 1: specifically ten year olds to fourteen year olds they were

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Speaker 1: looking up. They are less likely to report such feelings

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Speaker 1: as I am unhappy, sad or depressed, and I feel

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Speaker 1: like no one loves me. So they're really showing that

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Speaker 1: these sisters do something to the self esteem of these

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Speaker 1: ten to fourteen year old regardless of their gender. They

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Speaker 1: can meet boys or girls, but having that sister is

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Speaker 1: the key factor. And there have been similar studies that

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Speaker 1: were done before this that found UH positive impacts specifically

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Speaker 1: from sisters. For instance, there was a study I think

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Speaker 1: from the late nineties by a guy named Robert Kraisner

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Speaker 1: who he was actually going back and re analyzing a

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Speaker 1: survey on sibling impact and he felt or he found,

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Speaker 1: I should say, no effect in how UM siblings, sex composition,

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Speaker 1: whether or not you have brothers and sisters or just

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Speaker 1: sisters and sisters, brothers and brothers. He found no impact

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Speaker 1: on educational attainment except among black adults. And he found

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Speaker 1: that UM brothers who grew up with a sister or

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Speaker 1: had relatively more sisters had greater levels of educational attainment

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Speaker 1: than people with no or fewer sisters. So basically UM

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Speaker 1: for these black families, the more the more sisters that

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Speaker 1: the guys had the better off they were in the school,

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Speaker 1: which is kind of interesting and throughout one more a

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Speaker 1: British study it was presented at the British Psychological Society

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Speaker 1: last year. It found that growing up with the sister

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Speaker 1: makes people more optimistic, more ambitious, and better balanced. And uh,

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Speaker 1: siblings of either sex that a sister would score higher

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Speaker 1: on tests that evaluated mental health. So there's something about

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Speaker 1: having a sister that makes you more flexible, more able

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Speaker 1: to deal with things. And so if you see these

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Speaker 1: trends start to emerge, you've got to ask why, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: why is it specifically sisters that are so so wonderful?

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Speaker 1: And uh, it's kind of it's kind of frustrating because

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Speaker 1: at this point the researchers kind of fall back on

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Speaker 1: some old gender stereotypes about how girls are a little

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Speaker 1: more touchy feeling, more likely to talk for hours and

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Speaker 1: hours and make you feel connected to a family. And Uh,

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Speaker 1: at first I was a little frustrated by that because

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Speaker 1: I feel like I can talk for hours and hours

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Speaker 1: with my brothers and it's not me being touchy feeling,

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Speaker 1: it's not them being you know, touchy feel It just

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Speaker 1: there's something about this level of conversation that I don't

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Speaker 1: think church have quite figured out why it's why it's

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Speaker 1: so important or why it's so different than having brothers. Well,

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Speaker 1: the main reason we wanted to talk about this sister

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Speaker 1: research today was because of an essay in the New

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Speaker 1: York Times that was published a couple of days ago

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Speaker 1: where the researcher was talking about the findings from that

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Speaker 1: two thousand ten study that said that, you know that

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Speaker 1: the ten of fourteen year olds with sisters seemed to

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Speaker 1: be more optimistic and more ambitious and all of that,

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Speaker 1: and she was kind of calling out in the same

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Speaker 1: way this sort of knee jerk response said, oh, naturally,

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Speaker 1: sisters have a positive influence because you know, we're more

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Speaker 1: emotional and more well, we'll communicate more and have these

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Speaker 1: all these heart to hearts that make you feel so great.

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Speaker 1: And she kind of took issue with that because she

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Speaker 1: has actually gone in and talked to sisters and sibling pairs,

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Speaker 1: and her theory is that it's not so much the

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Speaker 1: content of what women are talking about, but rather how

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Speaker 1: often they are. It's it's not so much quality but quantity, right,

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Speaker 1: Because she's saying that, even uh, these brothers who are

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Speaker 1: touching base with each other, just don't don't talk with

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Speaker 1: the same frequency that the women talk. And it's not

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Speaker 1: that their conversations are any better worse in terms of

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Speaker 1: the content, like you were saying, Christen, it's just that

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Speaker 1: frequency of content. It seems that the sisters are better

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Speaker 1: at picking up the phone or going into the brother's

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Speaker 1: room or whatever they have to do to talk to

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Speaker 1: the other people in their family. And also, I mean,

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Speaker 1: I should notice someone who grew up with two sisters.

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Speaker 1: Granted I'm coming at this from from the younger, and

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Speaker 1: it's not all touchy feely conversations that you have with

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Speaker 1: your sisters. I mean, there was my sister who was

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Speaker 1: closest in age to me. We are extremely close now,

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Speaker 1: but there were certainly times when we wanted to ring

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Speaker 1: each other's throats. Well, a researcher would say that's pretty

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Speaker 1: important at the time article that we got a lot

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Speaker 1: of our statistics from UH in terms of how many

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Speaker 1: people in the United States have siblings, and that UH

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Speaker 1: it played out that a lot of researchers now think

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Speaker 1: we're learning our conflict resolution skills and our you know,

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Speaker 1: interpersonal relationship skills from our siblings. That it's not uncommon

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Speaker 1: for young kids to have as many as you know,

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Speaker 1: ten conflicts in an hour. We're having one like every

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Speaker 1: six minutes, and those aren't necessarily bad if the parents

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Speaker 1: can use it as a teaching moment to help the

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Speaker 1: help the child deal with the other child. So these

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Speaker 1: researchers would say, you were supposed to feel that conflict

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Speaker 1: with your sister so that you could learn how to

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Speaker 1: you know, deal with me, or something like that. Well,

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Speaker 1: it's interesting coming at this from an adult perspective as

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Speaker 1: well and thinking about the interactions that I've had with

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Speaker 1: with my brothers and with my sisters, because one thing

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Speaker 1: that comes up a lot in all the sibling research

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Speaker 1: is how much we tend to mirror our siblings and

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Speaker 1: also how much we tend to sort of disassociate ourselves

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Speaker 1: with our siblings in a process that is termed de identification.

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Speaker 1: Because on one hand, um, you have all of these

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Speaker 1: findings talking about all these positive benefits. Um, there was

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Speaker 1: one finding saying that that brothers have a positive impact

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Speaker 1: on the number of good deeds that kids will have

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Speaker 1: that's actually stronger than a parent's influence on kids. But

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Speaker 1: at the same time, there have been surveys finding, for

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Speaker 1: instance that uh, younger sisters who have an older sister

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Speaker 1: who's pregnant or four to six times more likely to

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Speaker 1: also become pregnant at some point. But then you also

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Speaker 1: have surveys to saying that um, in a d identification

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Speaker 1: kind of way, the younger siblings who have say, older

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Speaker 1: siblings who are who have a drug problem or drinking

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Speaker 1: problem tend to follow the straight and narrow a little

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Speaker 1: bit more. Well, I think it's it's a nice way

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Speaker 1: for researchers to kind of cover their behind because you know,

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Speaker 1: either yes, the sibling is modeling after the older one

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Speaker 1: or they're de identifying from the other. But they're basically

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Speaker 1: two paths that uh, they're saying, these siblings can choose,

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Speaker 1: but the extent to which we do that can have

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Speaker 1: really interesting, uh impacts on our friendships, on the spouses

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Speaker 1: we choose things like that. So they are still trying

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Speaker 1: to sess out how the gender of your sibling either

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Speaker 1: causes you to de identify from that sibling or causes

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Speaker 1: you to model yourself more like there's this one interesting

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Speaker 1: study about friendship and they're like, they took these two,

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Speaker 1: you know, two siblings once a boy and once a girl,

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Speaker 1: And they asked each of them to pick a friend.

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Speaker 1: And they asked the brother and sister to kind of

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Speaker 1: identify how often they had the touchy feeling conversations with

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Speaker 1: their pals, how often they had more just you know,

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Speaker 1: shared interests than you know, they're just playing a football

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Speaker 1: game together, and how often they took the lead and

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Speaker 1: planning activities. And then they asked the friend, uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: sort of why they're friends with the sibling. What they

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Speaker 1: found was that, um, when the when there was a

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Speaker 1: brother who had an older sister, that brother was more

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Speaker 1: likely to seek out the most masculine friends you could

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Speaker 1: find the shared interests ones, no touchy feely conversations at all.

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Speaker 1: And what girl also had brothers tended to do in

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Speaker 1: their friendships was to emulate those elements of control and

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Speaker 1: masculine aggression that they've seen their brothers do. But the

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Speaker 1: brothers never seemed to learn that touchy feely aspect of

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Speaker 1: uh have been a personal relationships. Well, I guess that

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Speaker 1: I could relate as a as a younger sibling. I

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Speaker 1: guess that I could relate to picking up those sort

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Speaker 1: of tactics from uh my, my older brother brothers, but

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Speaker 1: as the older sister to two younger brothers, I mean,

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Speaker 1: how how do you think that those findings about the

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Speaker 1: brothers looking for the more masculine friends might might come about?

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Speaker 1: You know, I can't. I can't think of a specific example.

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Speaker 1: I was more struck by places where the research made

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Speaker 1: it look bad for me because I guess I'm looking

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Speaker 1: out for number one. So let's jump to another study

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Speaker 1: really quick that found that if parents break up, the

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Speaker 1: families that have sisters do better. But um, only children

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Speaker 1: do better than uh than a than a sister who

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Speaker 1: only has brothers. So if my parents had gotten divorced,

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Speaker 1: which they didn't, then I would have been, you know,

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Speaker 1: in turmoil because I wouldn't have had the touchy feel

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Speaker 1: a sister to talk to you, whereas my brothers would

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Speaker 1: have had me to do all the work. It would

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Speaker 1: have been really hard for me. And that's where that's

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Speaker 1: why we wanted to make that point earlier about only children,

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Speaker 1: because yes, they they are left out of a lot

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Speaker 1: of this kind of research, but when they're included, they

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Speaker 1: do sort of fall into a middle ground because studies

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Speaker 1: show that while no, they don't have siblings to build

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Speaker 1: all of these kind of conflict ritten and yet healthy

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Speaker 1: relationships with with brothers and sisters. But they go, they

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Speaker 1: make a stronger effort to build up the friendships, to

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Speaker 1: build up the social support. So in a way they

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Speaker 1: are in an at an advantage if say, like you said,

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Speaker 1: if parents get divorced, or if say you lose a

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Speaker 1: sibling as you age, I mean, only children a little

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Speaker 1: bit more prepared maybe for for adulthood in that way,

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Speaker 1: which I think you know is kind of the less

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Speaker 1: one we can start to take from some of the

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Speaker 1: sibling research is it's just the places you have to

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Speaker 1: work a little bit harder to get the same benefits

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Speaker 1: as others. Like the way I read some of these studies,

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Speaker 1: um not having a sister, of all the benefits of

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Speaker 1: a sister, it seems like what I have to do

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Speaker 1: is just work harder to reach out to female friends

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Speaker 1: who can take on that that role, or work harder

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Speaker 1: to be the one who reaches out to my brothers,

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Speaker 1: whereas brothers could could read these um studies and maybe

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Speaker 1: think I need I need to be the one who

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Speaker 1: reaches out more to my family members. Remember it's quantity,

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Speaker 1: not quality, Like you don't have to have anything to

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Speaker 1: say is what's kind of the weird thing and the

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Speaker 1: challenging thing to to take away with with all of

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Speaker 1: these varied research findings, because they are kind of all

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Speaker 1: over the place when you start to list them all out,

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Speaker 1: is the fact that, yes, birth order makes a big difference.

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Speaker 1: I think that I I learned from my siblings in

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Speaker 1: a different as the youngest, in a different way that

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Speaker 1: you maybe learned from your siblings as the oldest. And

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Speaker 1: also every family is different. Also, every child's experience within

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Speaker 1: a family is its own sort of micro environment, depending

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Speaker 1: on the type of favoritism that parents might display, the

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Speaker 1: type of conflict that parents might also display in front

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Speaker 1: of kids, how they work on conflict resolution between children.

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Speaker 1: I mean, there are so many factors that can influence

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Speaker 1: your relationship with your siblings. Yeah, and that's we talked

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Speaker 1: about that in the Birth Order podcast because you know,

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Speaker 1: people will hear this and everyone will think they're the exception.

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Speaker 1: You know. I was reading about how sisters make people happier.

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Speaker 1: I was like, ah, I got brothers. They make me

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Speaker 1: plenty happy. This is bunk. And I think that realizing

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Speaker 1: that all of these studies have to have an asters

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Speaker 1: by them, right, I mean you can't. I just don't

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Speaker 1: think you boil down family dynamics to all these studies.

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Speaker 1: But again, I think trying to just sess out what

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Speaker 1: sisters can do in a family, what they might do naturally,

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Speaker 1: um can be kind of kind of cool to to

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Speaker 1: take as a lesson, sure, because that is one theme.

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Speaker 1: There have now been enough studies finding these positive benefits

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Speaker 1: of sisters, whether it's you know, emotional support or just

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Speaker 1: someone to talk to or whatever, even someone to fight

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Speaker 1: with and practice all of that conflict resolution. Sisters do

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Speaker 1: play a very special role in families. Not to say,

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Speaker 1: I would hate for my brothers to listen to this

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Speaker 1: and think that I am in any way to seeing

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Speaker 1: their influence on me, because you know, I think that

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Speaker 1: I you know, they provided plenty of unique benefits for

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Speaker 1: me as well in terms of socialization, conflict resolution and

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Speaker 1: all of that. But I'm pretty proud to learn that

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Speaker 1: sisters kind of where it's at. Well, I guess, you know,

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Speaker 1: maybe I'm providing a valuable service for my brother. And

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Speaker 1: I never wanted a sister growing up to be perfectly

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Speaker 1: honest because some of the stereotypes about them or that

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Speaker 1: they're so Cattie and Jealous stealing your clothes? How many

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Speaker 1: sitcoms did I watch where the sister stole the other

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Speaker 1: sister's clothes that I can tell you that absolutely happened,

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Speaker 1: and so I wanted no part of that. Yeah. Well,

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Speaker 1: I think we've said all that we can say about sisters.

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Speaker 1: I think it's time to turn it over to our

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Speaker 1: wonderful listeners and see what they think sisters positive, negative.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sure that the responses are going to

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Speaker 1: be all over the place, so I can't wait to

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Speaker 1: see what folks out there think from their own experience.

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Speaker 1: And also, only children chime in. I mean, are you

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Speaker 1: glad that you kind of missed out on the whole

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Speaker 1: sibling dynamic? Was it nice to have just all that

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Speaker 1: attention paid to number one? There are times when I

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Speaker 1: kind of wish that I had been the only child.

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Speaker 1: So let us know what you think. You can send

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Speaker 1: us an email at mom Stuff at how stuff works

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Speaker 1: dot com, and also you can share it on our

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Speaker 1: Facebook page. But in the meantime, let's read a couple

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Speaker 1: of emails. I have one here from Brittany and it's

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Speaker 1: about the adult Acne podcast. She writes as someone who

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Speaker 1: has always suffered from severe acne that got worse in

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Speaker 1: my early twenties. It was refreshing to hear you, guys

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Speaker 1: to spell rumors about acnees, such as chocolate and bad

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Speaker 1: hygiene being causes forsits. As a side note, I tried

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Speaker 1: everything to get rid of my acne and nothing worked

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Speaker 1: until I tried accutane. It's been a year since I

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Speaker 1: finished the medicine and my skin is still act me free.

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Speaker 1: It's important for anyone with this prompt to consult a

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Speaker 1: dermatologist because I can tell you from experience that over

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Speaker 1: the counter solutions don't help, but it's nothing to be

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Speaker 1: ashamed of and can be easily controlled with the doctor's help.

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Speaker 1: It would be great if you could share this information

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Speaker 1: with your listeners. So thank you, Brittany. And you are

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Speaker 1: not the only one who had success with accutament. Heard

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Speaker 1: from a few listeners who had good luck with that one,

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Speaker 1: So there you go. Well, I've got an email here

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Speaker 1: from Sam and she was writing in response to our

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Speaker 1: podcast on motorcycles and she just got her motorcycle license

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Speaker 1: in March of this year. And she actually got her

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Speaker 1: motorcycle license before she got a driver's license. And she

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Speaker 1: writes as a new writer, I strongly encourage anyone male

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Speaker 1: or female to go take a rider's safety course before

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Speaker 1: going out on your brand new bike. In Canada, where

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Speaker 1: I'm from, these courses are usually offered through your province's

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Speaker 1: Ministry of Transportation. I would also recommend that new riders

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Speaker 1: start on smaller bikes. The upside is a small except

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Speaker 1: two or three years old have a high resale value

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Speaker 1: because they're always new writers sleeping for that first bike.

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Speaker 1: As it stands now, my bike is bigger and faster

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Speaker 1: than my boyfriends because he only has a small scooter

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Speaker 1: until he can save up for a bigger bike. And

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Speaker 1: I try not to rub it in too often. So

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Speaker 1: thanks for writing in, Sam and again, our email address

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Speaker 1: is mom Stuff at how stuff works dot com. Also,

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Speaker 1: we'd love to see you over on Facebook and follow

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Speaker 1: us on Twitter where we are mom Stuff Podcast. And

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Speaker 1: then at last you can check out what we're doing

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Speaker 1: during the week. It's on our blogs stuff Mom Never

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Speaker 1: told You at how stuff works dot com for moralness

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Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics. Because at how stuff works

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