Siblinghood

Jill mentioned the Boy Alone memoir by Karl Taro Greenfield, and that some of the comments left on the NPR site berated Greenfield for selfishness and lack of empathy when discussing his special-needs sibling.

Yet even a special-needs parent doesn’t face the Everest of most sibs. Don Meyer, Washington state-based pioneer of the contemporary sibshop model, has noted that some of these siblings will be in the lives of and overseeing care of special-needs brothers and sisters for as much as 70 years. Seventy years. No one who doesn’t face such a thing has any right, I think, to open their mouths.

“The brother or sister is closer than the parent is,” says Ned, Alex’s 8-year-old typically developing brother. “The same height, same age, same thoughts, same idea of playing.” In the case of someone like Ned, even a future spouse may have to be on board with caring for Alex.

That’s the kind of responsibility they bat around in sibshops. “How many of you have ever heard of sibshops?” I ask audiences of social workers, education majors, teachers. Few hands go up, and that’s too bad.

Sibshops generally comprise sibs between ages 5 and 18 or so (there are models around for teen and adult sibshops, too). Everybody does arts and crafts and plays games, but the younger participants play more childhood games; older kids tend to sit and ask questions in a more mature setting. The theme is the same: Tell about a time your sibling embarrassed you in public. Tell about a time your sibling made you proud. Tell about a time you were really mad at your sibling. Tell about a time a friend really understood about your sibling.

Sibshops don’t siphon all the feelings, but at least they make somebody feel less alone. It staggered me, a dad of autism who attended one of Ned’s shops, watching these little kids run around in play and thinking about the burden their futures might hold.

Do we sell Ned short? Will he be on NPR one day warning parents about creating a lesser sibling in the family?

“I hope Alex lives with me,” Ned says.

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For more on sibs, sibshops, and Don Meyer, see The Sibling Support Project.