I Was Too Busy Caring for My Daughter to Hear My Son

By Laura Spiegel

This week, Paint Her in Color added an exciting new resource to our “What About Siblings?” page. The Sibling Support Project is best known for helping local communities start Sibshops, lively peer support groups for school-age brothers and sisters of kids with special health care needs. Recently, they also asked more than fifty adult brothers and sisters of people with special health care needs: “When you were younger, what did your parents, family members, and service providers do to make you feel special and let you know they cared?”

Each time I read the words of these brothers and sisters, I am struck by their consistency and their power. And each time, I glean a little extra something to help me help my own young son feel seen, heard, and loved.

The other day, I found myself on the bathroom floor with my nine-year-old son. It was after ten o’clock on a school night, and we had both been through the ringer. I had screamed, threatened, and in general, behaved badly. My barefoot son had hoofed it out the front door in his pajamas and declared that he was heading for greener pastures. He didn’t want to be in our family anymore. In his words, he was an “idiot” who was loved by no one.

To be honest, I can’t fully recall what led us to this moment. I’m sure it was more of the usual. Struggles to put my younger daughter (who lives with cystic fibrosis) to bed. Futile attempts to remain calm while my daughter crept out of bed and infringed on my son’s “me” time. My son is very particular about his bedtime routine. He wants the same prayer in the same order every night. Once I mixed it up and threw in an additional prayer request. You’d have thought I had summoned Satan based on his horror. After prayers, we sing Edelweiss, and I tell him that I love him with all my heart and that I’m proud of him. Usually, this happens while his dad is sitting next to him or at the very least, in a nearby chair. The absence of my husband, especially if he has been called to lie down with my daughter, is not acceptable. In fact, the only worse thing than prayer and songs without Daddy is prayer and songs with Sissy in the room, as well. Touching his things. Asking questions about anything and everything. Interrupting his “me” time.

I struggled to understand my son’s insistence on this routine for the longest time. I explained over and over that if we could just finish his sissy’s routine first, she would head off to bed, and my husband and I would be “all his.” I couldn’t understand his inflexibility and resorted to huffing and puffing when he refused to see this logic. Refused to accommodate. Refused to be second in line.

I now get it.

As my son and I sat on the bathroom floor that night, I tried my hardest to listen more than I talked. I asked him how he felt and absorbed his words without letting my thoughts be clouded by preparation for my next response. I allowed myself to sit in silence as my nine-year-old processed through his feelings and shared them with a wisdom and self-awareness beyond his years. We talked about a lot that night, but my son’s biggest frustration was that I didn’t ask what he wanted to do nearly enough. What he wanted to do was not complex. It was not unattainable or unrealistic or grandiose. He wanted to go to Donatos Pizza and play a board game called Cat Crimes while we waited for our pizza to arrive. That was it. That’s exactly what he would have wanted to do… if someone had only asked him.

I have a feeling that there’s a lot more to this than a simple request for a game and a pizza. On the surface, my son clearly has a need to control what he can in our frequently chaotic home and to protect the sanctity of what is his. But he also has a need to feel loved and accepted and treasured for who he is outside of the context of his sister. He needs to feel like he is first in his own life and that his needs are considered right there alongside his sister’s. Not second. Not immediately after. Right alongside.

As time goes on, I want to have more of these intentional talks with my son to continue to unpack his thoughts. I want to know what he’s feeling. Whether he feels treasured for who he is. Whether his thoughts are being valued and his emotional needs met. I want my son to feel seen, heard, and loved every single day of his life. And that will require me to make the time to ask the right questions and to really listen to his responses - time and time again.

One day my son may attend a Sibshop. One day he may even start one. But in the meantime, I will continue to read the words from the Sibling Support Project’s brothers and sisters and seek out pearls of guidance to help my boy feel loved.

And I will never go an evening without singing,

“Edelweiss, edelweiss

Every morning you greet me

Small and white, clean and bright

You look happy to meet me

Blossom of snow, may you bloom and grow

Bloom and grow forever

Edelweiss, edelweiss

Bless my sweet boy forever”