Oh, Sister ...

Sisters with Mom (on our best behavior)

I’m both a little sister and a big sister. Juvenile, really, to refer to the sibling relationship in these terms at age 57. But though the Wissink siblings—big sister Lois, older brother Jay, me (Bonnie), and baby sister Pam—may appear well-grounded and reasonably mature to the rest of the world, to each other we are still the same bossypants, rat finks, do-nothings and attention hogs we’ve always known.

Oh, nuts. I take that back (Lois, you know you’d make me). My siblings are admirable members of society, each gifted with unique abilities and abounding in wisdom—noble souls, all. Still, the truth is that the family roles we assumed as children are not easily shed.

Take sisters in particular. Lois, eleven years older than I, is used to being large and in charge—an (over?) achiever. Pam, three years younger, is used to being Mom’s coddled pet. I, as the middle sister, am used to being overlooked and underappreciated (you get the picture, right? Wah, wah.)

My earliest memories of Lois are of her competent, self-confident, breezy style—someone worthy of emulation, a natural-born leader. I would peep out the living-room window as she and her bubbly high-school friends stood chattering and laughing after school, showing off their circle skirts and saddle shoes. All of her teachers loved her (to hear Dad tell it). She was Homecoming queen. She got out of doing chores around the house because of her overbooked social calendar. She once baked Jay a birthday cake (probably because Mom was trying to get her to help out) with the words, “Happy birthday, Lard Butt” spelled out in chocolate chips. Dad once extolled the whiteness of Lois’s teeth in my presence, and at age 7 one of my life’s goals became having people notice MY white teeth. Lois’s life was good, probably because she wouldn’t have it any other way.



On the other hand, Pam and I were constant adversaries, vying for recognition, affirmation and the largest piece of Mom’s homemade chocolate cake. Nothing was too trivial to argue about—the number of peas on our plates; whose turn it was to dry the dishes; which of us Emile, the toy poodle, liked better; whether Mickey was cuter than Davey; and the loudness of my stereo during Pam’s clarinet practice. (This last incident escalated to the point of my life being threatened with clarinet assault. I was saved when the instrument in question, being waved about in a malicious manner, came apart and went flying across the room. Hilarious, to my way of thinking.) Of course, from my perspective Pam always got the favored parental treatment because of her smaller, cuter and more devious nature. Maddening though she was, we shared an ornery streak that gave us a lot to laugh about when we could get our parents’ goats. We weren’t bad, just high-spirited at times.

So how has all of this played out, 50 years later? You’d think that, as adults, we’ve all mellowed and learned to assert ourselves when our big sister is bossy, wouldn’t you? 

You’d be wrong.



On a recent visit to Sibley, Iowa, where my mom and Lois both live, Lois lugged two garbage bags of clothes that she no longer wanted into Mom’s house, and insisted I try them on and model each article for her approbation. If I said I didn’t like the way the capri pants fit, she’d say they were flattering on me. If I said I had enough casual black pants already, she argued that you could never have enough. (To her credit, when I said a hideous greenish top was ugly, she didn’t counter.) When I protested that I was flying and couldn’t possibly fit all this into my luggage, she offered an extra bag for me to carry on. When we went over to her house, she bade me go into the basement and paint on newspapers at the ping-pong table with her granddaughter while she altered some of the pants.



The kicker is, I did what she said—all of it. Painted watery daisies in the freezing basement, carried the castoff clothes through two airports. Why didn’t I just tell her no, thanks? Honestly, it didn’t even occur to me until I got home. We just played our respective parts as mindlessly as we’d always done.



And as for Pam? We were chatting on the phone the other day when she mentioned she is mad at me after reading my recent blog post listing a few things I’ve been doing. She was hurt that her May visit to my home (with her friend Barb) didn’t receive a mention.



Pam, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but this blog is not The Chicago Tribune or even the Cedar Falls Times. You’re a stoopnagle and my teeth are almost as white as Lois’s. Hahahahaha on you!