Reply to Onlies born to older parents- seems unfair now

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The 3 daughters movie captures sibling dynamics for lots of families in final days of parents. Don’t think it would change minds of anyone posted here. The pro-more siblings would watch and see the parts to conclude good the sisters had each other and the pro-no siblings would watch and say that’s what want to avoid.[/quote]

Agreed that movie is interesting in this respect. And my takeaway is that grief is messy and individual and you can't "game" it.

All of the sisters in that movie had lost a parent previously (their mothers) and it sounded like they had not really been there for each other when that happened. They were younger and their dad was alive and he was really grieving so dynamics were different. Also one of the sisters was abandoned by her bio dad which is a different kind of grief that the other two don't get at all. So she's alone in that grief and in her unique relationship to their shared father even though she also "has" her sisters.

It's also notable to me that all of the sisters have significant others and you see them all reaching out to these people with various levels of support. And because of the focus of the movie you don't see the relationship between the two married sisters and their husbands who never appear. For some people your partners is the main source of support. For others they aren't. It depends on everyone's relationship and personality. In the movie it seems like the husbands really have their hands full with their children while the sisters are with their dad -- families are complicated and sometimes the person grieving the loss of a parent is not the one with the highest level of need if there are young kids or others who just require a lot of support.

What I have concluded as both a child and a parent (and a DIL and SIL) is that the best way to prepare your kids for the grief of your own passing is to create loving relationships between everyone to the degree that you can and encourage empathy and forgiveness and flexibility. These are the qualities that seem to be most helpful whether someone is an only or has siblings. The situation always sucks so it's about having skills and characteristics that help you get through a sucky situation as well as you can. That doesn't really have anything to do with siblings. It's not the most relevant thing.[/quote]

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