Retire the old roles
Every family assigns parts early: the responsible one, the difficult one, the baby. Decades later, siblings still address the part and not the person, which is why a thirty-year-old surgeon can be treated at the holidays as someone who cannot be trusted with the gravy. Update your picture. Ask about your sibling's work and friendships as you would ask a friend, and resist correcting, teasing about old failures or offering advice that was not requested. If an old injury still sits between you, one direct sentence does more than years of avoidance: "I was unkind to you in high school, and I am sorry for it."
Build a direct line
In many families the parents are the switchboard, and siblings learn each other's news secondhand. That arrangement ends when the parents do. Build your own connection now.
- Keep a sibling group chat for small things such as photographs, jokes and the dog.
- Call one sibling on a regular schedule, even for ten minutes during a commute.
- Visit each other's homes, not only the parental house, where everyone reverts to age fourteen.
- Learn the names of their friends, their boss and their children's teachers, and ask about them.
- Do one thing a year together without parents or partners, even a single day.
Differences in money and life stage
Siblings diverge. One earns more, one has children, one lives far away. Do not keep score of who visits whom, and let the one with more money or fewer obligations travel more often without comment. Avoid lending money to a sibling unless you could afford never to see it again. If you do lend, write down the amount and the terms. Never let a parent recruit you as a messenger or an ally in a dispute with a brother or sister. The sentence you need is, "That is between the two of you, and I hope you will talk to each other."
When your parents age
Caring for aging parents is where sibling relationships are most often broken, usually because one person nearby does the work while the others offer opinions. Talk early, before a crisis, about who can give time, who can give money and who holds the legal documents. Share the facts in writing after every doctor's visit. The sibling who lives closest should be thanked often and overruled rarely.
Tip Remember the birthdays of your siblings' partners and children. Kindness to the people they love is the most direct route to a sibling's loyalty.
