My 13- and 9-Year-Olds Fight Constantly — I’m Still Learning What Counts As Normal
I was halfway through pouring my first coffee this morning when I heard the crash from the living room. By the time I got there, my 13-year-old Jax was red-faced and yelling, my 9-year-old Milo was half in and half out of the clean laundry basket, and Jax’s custom PlayStation controller — the one he saved three months of allowance to buy, the one he won’t let anyone even breathe on — was skittering across the hardwood under the couch.
Milo had grabbed it without asking, of course. He’d gotten up early, finished his weekend homework, and decided he was going to play Fortnite while Jax was still sleeping off his week of early school mornings. Jax came down, saw it in his brother’s grubby popsicle-sticky hands, and shoved him hard enough that he stumbled back into the basket. An entire load of folded crew socks went everywhere.
This isn’t the sibling rivalry I remember from when they were little. Back then, fights were over who got the blue cup, who got to sit next to me in the movie theater, who got to press the elevator button. They were over quick, forgotten before the crying stopped. Now it’s different. It’s sharper, quieter sometimes, and deafening other times. I catch myself scrolling through random parent groups late at night, wondering if this is normal, if I should be doing more, if I’m letting it go too far or stepping in too much.
I used to think that as boys got older, the rivalry would calm down. I thought they’d grow out of hitting and yelling and grabbing stuff out of each other’s hands. Turns out it just mutates. Now it’s about boundaries Jax is only just learning how to claim, and attention Milo is only just learning how to ask for without bugging the shit out of his brother.
Last week, Jax had a friend over from school. They were up in Jax’s room with the door cracked, playing that new Zelda game everyone’s obsessed with. Milo kept creeping up there, popping his head in, shoving his new Lego Millennium Falcon — the one he got for his birthday, spent three days building — right in Jax’s face. After the third time, Jax blew up. Yelled so loud the dog next door started barking. “Can you just leave me the fuck alone for five minutes? No one cares about your stupid Lego!” I ran up the stairs, ready to pull Jax off him, and found Milo red-eyed, holding the Lego set to his chest, and Jax pacing the floor, breathing hard like he was just as shocked at his own yelling as I was. I tried that whole “let’s each talk about how we feel” thing all the parenting blogs swear by. Jax just rolled his eyes, mumbled “whatever” and slammed the door in my face. Milo kicked the wall and ran to his room. No perfect resolution that night. Just two hurt kids, and me picking up a fallen Lego piece off the hall carpet, wondering what I’m supposed to do next.
The thing is, it’s never just fighting. There’s all these weird, messy contradictions that make me think this is just how it’s supposed to be right now. Jax will tease Milo for an hour straight about still sleeping with that tattered old polar bear he’s had since he was a baby. Calls it Smelly Bear, says it’s baby stuff, makes fun of him for it in front of me and my wife at dinner. But last month, when some kid on the playground teased Milo about the bear, another mom I know told me Jax got right in that kid’s face and told him if he said it again he’d punch him. I didn’t even hear about it until a week later. Jax never mentioned it.
Sometimes Jax will refuse to sit next to Milo in the car, refuse to go to Milo’s little league games, act like Milo doesn’t even exist when his friends are around. And Milo will mope about it for an hour, say Jax hates him, that no one likes him. Then I’ll be folding laundry at night, and I’ll hear them through the wall. Jax is playing his game, Milo is sitting on the floor right outside his door, watching. Jax doesn’t yell at him to leave. He just sighs really loud every few minutes, like he’s annoyed, but when Milo asks what’s happening, he answers him. I stood there listening for five minutes once, and I didn’t even go in. It felt like a moment I wasn’t supposed to interrupt.
I don’t have any neat answers. I still don’t know exactly what normal is. Some days I think I should step in more, separate them, force them to be nice to each other. Some days I think I step in too much, that they need to work it out on their own. I read a lot of stuff online that says sibling rivalry is good for them, that it teaches them how to fight and make up. But that feels too neat, too polished, when you’re standing in a room full of scattered socks and two yelling kids, and you just want everyone to shut up so you can drink your cold coffee.
Last week, after the ice cream run where Jax refused to sit in the back with Milo, I found Jax left half his strawberry pop tart on the counter for Milo before he went to bed. He knows Milo goes crazy for strawberry filling, never gets enough of his own. I didn’t say anything about it to either of them. I just ate the rest of my own pop tart, and let it be.
I think normal right now is just this. A whole lot of messy, a whole lot of contradiction, a whole lot of yelling and shoving and hurt feelings, mixed in with these tiny little quiet moments that no one else sees. It’s not the perfect loving sibling relationship you see in TV commercials. It’s two boys figuring out who they are: one growing into being a teenager, desperate for space and independence, one still clinging to being a little kid, desperate for his big brother’s attention. Both of them trying to figure out how to share the same house, the same parents, the same life. That’s normal, I think. Even if I still don’t have it all figured out. (Word count: 1182)
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