Ex-nay on your Eelings-fay.

I have four siblings: one brother with two sisters on either side. I'm the second oldest. There are benefits of having so many siblings, not least of which is that when there are quarrels--and there's always something brewing somewhere--chances are good that every one of us feels a connection to at least one of the others.

But there are certain repeat offenders in the social contract, and in a family that tends to mean that everyone else compensates, or assumes burdens unfairly; somehow--and I don't really get it--the offenders are rarely asked to make things right. They suffer in their way: they don't have the same intimate connection with their siblings that the rest do (though they seem to garner more attention from their parents, who, I suppose, worry about them more.) But they don't seem to mind. Or they don't mind enough to change. Or they don't see that the issue is their own.

The problem is, since the offender is not taken to task by the group, it tends to be the wounded party that's asked to pony up the peace: to show up at holiday gatherings and act As If; to let it go--to get over it. And if I could recount for you the offenses--not silly little offenses, but major, life-changing stuff--you'd understand why this blaming of the victim is so obscene. How does a person forgive a wound that's never even acknowledged? And why should they be asked to?

My younger sister--not an offender, not ever--has had more than her share of burdens to bear in this realm. It's in part because she's the most responsible of all of us: the saver, the careful planner, the conservative. (She's even gone over to the Other Side politically, which I have to forgive because I adore her so.) One sibling ruined her financially and then lied about having done it. In a year, this sister had put her life back together--had surpassed the rest of us in terms of togetherness, even. And having gone through that--and mind-boggling abuses that followed from another sibling--my sister got her head straight about what a person must bear in a family, and what's unreasonable to bear. And she's acting on it, without apology. But also, sadly, at additional cost to her.

I keep trying to watch for these bad patterns in my own family, with the kids. No sign of it yet, but I'm staying vigilant. They've only got each other: there's no room for nonsense and abuse.

Families, man. They're not for sissies.