My 13 and 9 Year Old Sons Fight Constantly. I’m Starting to Think That’s Just Normal.
Last Saturday I was folding matching socks at the kitchen table, listening to the hum of the fridge and whatever true crime podcast I had on half-volume, when I heard the thud. It wasn’t the “somebody fell and broke a bone” thud, just the “somebody just slammed their whole body into a door” thud, followed by a string of words I’m pretty sure Jax picked up from his skate park friends that I pretend I don’t hear. By the time I got to the living room, Milo was red-faced screaming that Jax “stole his controller” and Jax was glowering by the TV, saying it was his turn because Milo had been pausing every 30 seconds to fish a goldfish cracker out of the couch crack and Jax was this close to losing his rank in whatever game he plays that I don’t understand.
I used to drop everything and step in immediately, right? Back when they were 7 and 3, any fight meant someone was gonna end up with a bite mark or a bleeding lip, so I got in the habit of playing referee 24/7. I’d Google “how to stop sibling rivalry” at 10 PM after they were asleep, read all these takes that said either “never take sides” or “intervene early to stop bad habits” and I’d lie awake worrying that I was messing them up. That if they fought this much now, they’d never talk to each other when they grew up, that one would always resent the other, that I didn’t give them enough one-on-one time or whatever the hot take was that month.
It’s so different now than when they were little, anyway. Back then fights were over who got the blue cup, who got to sit next to me in the car. Now it’s all this weird, layered stuff that I barely get. Jax is 13, so his whole life is about being separate from the little kid who follows him everywhere. Milo is 9, and his whole life is about trying to be just like Jax. He wears Jax’s hand-me-down hoodies even though they go down to his knees, he calls his new scooter “my sick ride” just like Jax calls his skateboard, he even asks for the same kind of strawberry protein shake for breakfast that Jax drinks, even though he admits it tastes like chalk. Jax acts like this is the worst thing that’s ever happened to him. If Milo so much as opens Jax’s bedroom door when he has friends over, Jax snaps like a rubber band about to break.
Last week Jax had his friend Cole over, they were playing video games with the door cracked. Milo hovered in the hallway for 10 minutes, then just wandered in and stood by the couch, waiting for an invitation to play. Jax got so red his ears turned purple, and he yelled “Milo, get out of my room, you’re being so annoying.” I was standing by the laundry room, and my first instinct was to march in there and tell Jax he couldn’t talk to his brother that way, send him to his room for the rest of the afternoon. But I paused, leaned against the wall, waited. Ten minutes later, Milo came sniffling out, went and sat on the porch step. I got him a cherry popsicle, sat with him for a minute, didn’t say anything. Another five minutes after that, Jax snuck out with two slices of pepperoni pizza Cole’s mom had brought, handed one to Milo without making eye contact, and went back inside. No apology, no big speech, just that.
I used to think normal sibling rivalry was the occasional tiff over a toy, maybe a little pushing, nothing this loud or this mean. I thought if it was constant, that meant it was bad, that I was doing something wrong. But lately I’ve been noticing all the little stuff that happens between the fights. Like, when Milo had his first pinewood derby last month, Jax showed up with his hood up, acted like he only came because I made him, but he stayed the whole time, cheered louder than anyone when Milo’s car won third place. Or when Jax failed his algebra test last week and locked himself in his room, Milo made him a get-well-soon card that said “algebra sucks” and drew a dinosaur peeing on a math problem, and slid it under the door. Jax still has that taped to his desk, I saw it when I went in to pick up laundry the other day.
It’s normal for it to be messy, right? Jax isn’t being a monster for needing his space, for getting annoyed when his little brother crashes his time with friends. He’s 13, he’s trying to figure out who he is outside of being “the big brother,” so pushing Milo away is just part of that. And Milo isn’t being a brat for bugging him, for wanting to hang out with the coolest person he knows. He’s 9, he looks up to Jax more than anyone, even me or his dad. The fights aren’t about hating each other, most of the time. They’re about figuring out boundaries, about learning how to argue and how to make up without a parent stepping in every time. I still step in when it gets physical, when someone says something that’s too far, but a lot of the time now I just hang back, fold my socks, let them work it out.
Last night I went to check on them before bed, like I do. Jax’s door was cracked, so I peeked in. They were both sitting on Jax’s bed, Milo was asking Jax if all the weird puberty stuff his friend Tommy talked about is actually true. Jax was laughing, demonstrating how his voice cracks when he talks too loud, and then he got quiet and said “if Tommy ever calls you a dork again for being bad at soccer, just tell me. I’ll kick his ass, okay, don’t tell mom I said that.” Milo said okay, then asked if he could have Jax’s old AirPods that don’t hold a charge anymore, the ones Jax said he was gonna throw away. Jax sighed and said “fine, but if you lose them I’m taking your Nintendo Switch for a week. Deal?” Then Milo tried to grab them out of Jax’s hand, tripped over the gaming chair, and they went tumbling under the bed, and then I heard yelling again, and Jax called Milo an idiot, and Milo threw a sock at Jax’s head. I turned around and walked back down the hall, didn’t go in to stop it.
This is what normal looks like, I think. It’s not all quiet game nights and matching hugs for Instagram. It’s yelling one minute, secret kindness the next, and a whole lot of mess in between. I don’t know if they’ll be best friends when they grow up. I don’t have any nice tidy answer for what normal is, really. But right now, this is okay. (1187 words)
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