I Make My Big Kids Play With Their Little Sister

I always knew I wanted three kids. I grew up the middle of three, and my siblings and I were incredibly close as kids. My big sister was five years older than me, and my little brother was two years younger — that age gap feels like it wouldn’t work, I know, but it did. And when I had all three of my daughters and realized the age gaps were similar (there are four years and then three years between my girls), I was determined to make sure they stayed as close as my own siblings and I did.

And that means I often make my big kids play with their little sister. Even if they don’t want to.

It’s not that I force them to babysit her or care for her. I don’t make them take her to the bathroom or do things like get her dressed or brush her teeth (although I for sure yell from the opposite end of the house when I have raw chicken in my hands, “Can someone please tie her shoes for her?!”).

But I do say to my 11-year-old and my 7-year-old, “Hey, I need you to play with your sister for a little bit.”

We aren’t running a Duggar house here. My youngest isn’t her sisters’ “responsibility.” I’m not asking them to parent her. But she is a member of this house who deserves to have playmates and friends in her sisters... even if they’d rather be doing something else.

I can feel the shift in the house when my kids aren’t spending enough time with each other. When I’ve let the big kids have their tablets for too long, or when they’ve all spent far too much time glued to the TV instead of talking to each other. It’s like everything gets a little off balance, and I have to course-correct — and that means making them hang out together.

Let me be clear: All of my girls adore each other. But everyone gets tired of hide-and-seek (my youngest’s favorite game) or the many, many questions asked during movies (my middle’s favorite pastime). Sometimes they’ve all just been in their own little worlds a little too much for me, and I need them all to reconnect.

And, selfishly, I need them to entertain their little sister so I can breathe. On any given day in my house, one of my three daughters is — and I say this full of gratitude and love and joy — up my ass. If I put out a ban on tablets for the day or tell them to go find something to do, that often means I still have one kid hanging around me in the kitchen like she’s never had to plan her own activity before. “Go play with your sister” is a command that works. Maybe they roll their eyes. Maybe they sigh and huff about it. Maybe they tell me, “Ughhhh, but I was about to get on a call with my friends.”

It’s OK. I know, sometimes you don’t want to. You can call your friends back later.

But please go play with your sister.

I want all of my girls to feel their full, individual selves. But I also want them to feel like a unit together as siblings. I want them to have their own language, their own code, their own honor system — things I’m not privy to, things they just have with each other.

I know some of that is going to be created in the days I force them to go play together. I don’t actually think sibling closeness is magic. I think a lot of it is built in these boring, ordinary moments when my kids are nudged closer instead of allowed to drift into separate corners of the house.

It never takes long for me to hear them all coming up with a game together or playing pretend library or making funny dances. All three of them have some language they speak in where they just say the same five words with different inflections, and I swear, they all know what each other is saying. All three of them still share a room, and at night I can hear them giggling and playing and climbing in and out of each other’s beds.

Because just like the dishes and laundry and picking up toys out of the yard, we all have to do our part in this house. Sometimes the part looks like singing Frozen songs with your 4-year-old sister.