“YOUR young one is getting a bit beyond herself,” Sister One said to Sister Two.
“What do you mean?” Sister Two sharply asked.
“You know. Impudent, a bit cheeky,” Sister One replied, fully aware of the minefield she was talking herself into.
“That’s utter sh**e. She’s a lovely girl. I won’t have a word said against her,” Sister Three fired back, defending Sister Two.
Sister Two, wounded by the first remark, threw a grenade in by shouting at the sibling who offended her in the first place. “You can’t talk. Look at your middle lad. A complete brat, spoilt rotten.”
With that, all hell broke loose as my six sisters, all of them mothers of young children, yelled abuse about each other’s kids. We were sitting around the table in my mother’s kitchen while all around us their youngsters were tearing around the house, whooping and hollering and generally being kids.
I was 15 years’ old when I witnessed this scene but I’ll never forget it.
Being one of the youngest in the family, my older siblings all had children at that stage.
I, on the other hand, sat in the splendid isolation that only teenage years can bring. Back then, I barely had any tolerance of my nieces and nephews. From my lofty perch of youth, I viewed them as rugrats, ankle snappers who, whenever they came to visit, were in our house to cause disruption.
That evening, in particular, the mayhem was only made worse when each of their mothers began defending them. My sisters couldn’t bear a cross word about their own child and they fought furiously for their family units as passionately as soldiers would fight for their country. As my sisters raged war against each other about their respective offspring, I resolved there and then never, ever, to criticise their parenting skills.
Because even then I could see that my sisters were raising their children in different ways.
One sister believed in traditional methods and kept her rugrats on a tight leash but encouraged or scolded her kids depending on their behaviour. Another sister, the hippiest one, gave her two young ones lots of freedom. Her children called her and her husband by their first names and attended a radical new school in Dublin. She believed that if children were allowed to explore their lives and make mistakes (within limits, of course – we are talking about children here), it would stand to them in adult life. She reckoned that it would make them independent and better equipped to make good decisions later in life.
Yet another sister, the one who loved pretty things and who was unashamedly indulged by our mother, gave her four children whatever their hearts desired. In other words, they were spoilt, just like her.
And so, in the big melting pot that was our family, there were so many personalities, temperaments and lifestyle choices. Add my nieces and nephews into the mix and that’s a whole lot of family to be dealing with.
Over the years, there were countless tantrums and battles of wills between my sisters and their children. The small ones grew into teenagers and another round of battles and stand-offs played itself out.
But like I resolved, I kept well out of it and kept my mouth shut. I bit my tongue and never criticised any of them on their parenting skills. Because all of my sisters, every one of them, tried their damnedest in their own ways to keep their children happy and safe.
There were pitfalls, and I witnessed several of the young lose their way for a while. Getting into trouble in school, having blatant disregard for authority or simply choosing the wrong thing to do with their lives, whether in their careers or their messy love lives – it was all par for the course.
Somehow, my sisters and their various families got through the business of growing up and my nieces and nephews are now adults.
Finally, peace broke out.
So while once I could barely tolerate the playing and laughing, the yelling and whining, the chaos and disruption that they brought into my life as a teenager, I now appreciate them all. They’re all so different to each other.
Some are swaggeringly confident, others are shy, some are fiercely intelligent, others are just fiercely argumentative. Some are high achievers, others don’t give a toss about the status quo. But all of them are lovely people.
They are all great friends and are now role models for my own teenage daughter.
They adore her and she adores them. And rightly so.
