A friend recently sent me this NY Times article by famed author and columnist Frank Bruni entitled, “The Gift of Siblings“.

I related to the piece both as a sibling and as a mother of siblings.

His piece revolves around the following quote, “Siblings are the only relatives, and perhaps the only people you’ll ever know, who are with you through the entire arc of your life,” the writer Jeffrey Kluger observed to Salon in 2011, the year his book “The Sibling Effect” was published. “Your parents leave you too soon and your kids and spouse come along late, but your siblings know you when you are in your most inchoate form.”

He goes on to discuss closeness with your siblings and varying degrees of geographic distance, philosophical and ideological differences.  Bruni theorizes that more siblings often equals more closeness (i.e. one of four moves away you still have three nearby). And unfortunately, life these days has made it much harder to have many kids.  Costs are astronomical and cultural changes – such as many of us starting the process later in life – hinders the multiple child family format.

A lot of this rang true for me.  I am one of four children and will most likely stop at two myself, which sometimes makes me sad.  Our lifestyle just makes it almost impossible to have more and I sincerely hope my two boys will remain close through their lives!

No matter your history/future, it’s a good read…