Letter to my bickering children.

To any of you lucky parents with more than one child, you'll understand my pain at seeing your children fight and bicker. So after spending yet another afternoon refereeing and segregating my sons, I thought I'd write a letter to prove to them this battle is only temporary and one day your brother will stop farting on your pillow while you're brushing your teeth at bed time.

The insults will be replaced by harmless adult banter. 

Life would be less interesting without someone to insult on a daily basis, in school they call it bullying. At home it's known as character building. This competitiveness you have now will mean you'll go out into the big wide world always striving to be the better person. The fight for my attention will be replaced by the urge to impress your boss, you'll be the perfect employee and make CEO by your mid thirties. When someone calls you a rude word in the pub on a Saturday night, you'll brush it off. It's nothing you've never heard before. You've built up a resilience. 

Why bother retaliating when you can be chatting up that beautiful brunette at the bar. 

You'll always have someone who understands why you like to put cheese in your bacon sandwiches. 

Or why brown bananas can never be thrown away and you can't go to bed on Christmas Eve until you've whitnessed a drunk Grandad stumble around the back garden with a red light on his head, jingling bells. These things might seem normal to you right now, but someday you'll realise it's not what every family does. You may even have to explain it to a future spouse, but your brother will always know where you're coming from. He'll share your quirks, he'll get your back when you need it. In your brother you'll have a comrade for life. 

You'll have someone who will provide instant playmates to you're children. 

The thought of being a parent is not something you will be thinking right now, but one day you will and if I've done my job right, you'll be a bloody good one. Hopefully your brother will be one too so your children will have cousins. Just think how much you love spending time with your own cousins right now, they're your best friends, they make school holidays fun.Without cousins, family gatherings would be boring, listening to adults gossip instead of semi naked trampolining with Elvis the dog. (Maybe you'll explain to me one day why you boys always found it funny to strip down to your pants, no matter what the season, on Auntie Lynsey's trampoline?). In your cousins you have diffusion, someone to laugh with about Nanny getting her words wrong and someone who shares the love of the word 'poo.' Without your brother, there will be no cousins for your children. 

Imagine that.

A life without cousins. 

I know you didn't start it.

But today you weren't so good at the sneaky punches, I'm sorry I missed the kick off and only banished you to your room. It was only when I caught the sneaky smile from your brother while was doing a bloody good impression of a man who'd just had his arm blown off, that I realised I'd got it wrong but you were already in your room and the thought of a possible ceasefire in the living room was far to appealing. I'm not sure you noticed but the next time it happened I gave you the benefit of the doubt and made your brother walk the dog. You've learnt about karma in having a brother. 

You'll never get irritated by other people on public transport
I know even the shortest of car journeys can, at times, seem unbearable. That elbows are weapons when you have no where else to hide and the power of the sound of your brother sucking drink through a straw is tantamount to hot knives being inserted in your ear. But all this is building an immunity. An immunity to the annoying man talking loudly on his mobile on the the train, to the teenager with his music blaring from his head phones. Other people around you will be squirming in their seats, but no you. Not you, you're immune. You endured long hall flights, train journeys and endless holidays to Cornwall and fought through the pain spurned by the the threat of "we'll turn the car around and go home if you don't stop annoying your brother." 
You'll look out of the window and count silver cars.
 We taught you this game under the guise of distraction to the temptation to liven up the journey by hiding your brother's Nintendo DS. 
Silver cars will be your coping mechanism. 

So next time you beg for us to put your brother up for adoption.
It's only temporary, in a brother, you'll always have a friend. 

Remember these promises. 

With love from Mum
x

I have no idea who these people are, but it makes me chuckle.