Why Do Older Siblings Hide Things: What I Learned When My Older Daughter Hid My Younger Daughter’s Soccer Jersey
The pancake batter was starting to burn on the griddle Saturday morning, my coffee was half spilled down the front of my old sweatpants, and my 9-year-old Mia was standing in the middle of the living room screaming that her soccer jersey was gone. It wasn’t just any jersey—it was the one she’d gotten two weeks prior, when she moved up to the 10U team and got named alternate captain. She’d sewn the little blue captain’s patch on the sleeve herself the night before, and slept with it folded on her pillow.
My 12-year-old Lila, the older sister, was leaning against the counter scrolling TikTok, one foot swinging. “Haven’t seen it,” she said, not looking up. “Probably left it at practice last week.”
I tore the burning pancakes off the griddle, wiped my hands on my sweatpants, and joined the search. We dumped out Mia’s soccer bag, sorted the laundry basket, moved the couch cushions, checked under every bed. Mia was crying by this point, saying she couldn’t play without it, that the team would make her sit the bench. I almost called the coach to say we’d be late when I remembered Lila had an extra fleece I could borrow for Mia to wear on the sidelines, so I headed to Lila’s closet, reached up to the back top shelf, and my hand hit crumpled polyester right behind the gallon of milk Lila stashed up there so Mia wouldn’t drink it.
I pulled it out, and the crumpled blue jersey with the hand-sewn patch stared right back at me.
Admit it, if you’re a parent of multiple kids, you know what I thought first. Ugh, the older one. Always picking on the younger one. Just being mean. Jealous. I marched back out, jersey in hand, ready to give Lila the speech I’ve given a hundred times: That’s your sister, you should be nice to her, what if she did that to you, you’re grounded for a week, give me your phone.
But I stopped. Because Lila’s face didn’t go defensive like it usually does. It just went blank, and she looked at her feet. We still drove to the game, borrowed an extra jersey from another mom, Mia scored a goal in the second half, and we stopped for fries on the way home like we always do. After Mia ran inside to show her dad the game ball she’d gotten for the goal, I sat down on the porch step next to Lila, who was picking at the paint on the railing.
I didn’t start with “why did you hide the jersey.” I just said, “It’s been all Mia all soccer all the time lately, hasn’t it? That must get boring.”
That’s when she started talking, quiet, not looking at me. She said before Mia got into the big soccer thing, she was the soccer kid. She’d been the one we drove an hour every weekend to watch, the one we put all the trophies on the shelf, the one everyone asked about after games. She quit travel soccer three months ago because she didn’t make the starting lineup, and she said she didn’t want to play anymore. No one had asked her since then what she did want to do. We just all shifted to talking about Mia’s games every night at dinner. “I didn’t even mean to hide it that bad,” she said, picking at the paint. “I just moved it from the couch so I could sit down, and then I forgot to tell anyone. And then everyone was panicking, and I didn’t know how to say I did it.”
That’s when I realized I’d been doing this wrong this whole time. When older siblings act out against younger ones, most of the time we default to punishing the bad behavior, because it’s obvious: they hid the thing, they broke the rule, they get a consequence. But hiding a thing isn’t usually about the thing. It’s the only way they know how to say they feel invisible, because they don’t have the words to say that out loud yet.
I didn’t make Lila apologize to Mia right that second, which is what I would’ve done before. I also didn’t tell her she should be happy for her sister, that being the older means you have to be okay with second place. I just told her I got it, that it would feel weird to go from the main event to the person who just sits in the stands watching. Then I asked her what one small thing we could change that would make it feel better.
She said she wanted to be asked about her graphic novel drawing every day, not just when we remembered. She said she missed being around soccer, even if she didn’t want to play anymore. That was three weeks ago, and we’ve made two small changes that take almost no extra effort, which is the only kind of change I can actually keep up with as a working parent. First, every night after dinner, each kid gets five minutes alone with one of us, no sister allowed, to talk about whatever they want. No interruptions, no switching topics to the other kid’s stuff. Second, I emailed Mia’s coach and asked if Lila could help out with the U6 practice one night a week, teaching the little kids how to dribble. She said yes, and now Lila comes home talking about how one of the 5-year-olds called her “the best soccer teacher ever” and that’s the first thing we hear about at dinner now.
Lila did apologize to Mia a few days after the jersey incident. Mia rolled her eyes and said “whatever, just don’t do it again” and then asked Lila to help her practice free kicks after school, because Lila still has a better kick than anyone else on her team. It wasn’t some big heartfelt moment, just kids being kids.
It’s not like all the fighting stopped. Last week Lila hid Mia’s new glitter hair clip that she got for her birthday, because Mia wore it to dinner and everyone kept complimenting it. I still have to remind myself to stop and check first, before I yell. The jersey’s back on Mia’s pillow now, and Lila still stashes her milk on the top shelf so Mia won’t drink it. Some things don’t change, but the way I see the fighting has. It’s not just the older kid being mean. It’s just them asking, in the only messy way they know how, for their spot to still be there.
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