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When our youngest daughter was born, as a conscientious parent intent on preventing sibling rivalry, I took the advice of a pediatric expert and bought an inflatable Bozo the Clown bop bag toy, an inflatable clown that stood almost as high as our two-year-old. The expert had warned that the first-born might feel displaced by the new baby and jealousy could follow. Bozo the Clown would be our elder daughter’s punching bag, a way for her to safely express her aggressive feelings. Here’s what happened. She eyed Bozo, with his goofy wide smile and orange hair, and ran away terrified. This isn’t to say she didn’t have jealous feelings. Rivalrous feelings can take many forms; outward aggression is only one.

Rivalry between siblings is as old as humankind. As a species, we navigate between a survival instinct that favors resource competition (Darwin’s survival of the fittest) and a survival instinct for connection (Bowlby’s attachment theory1). In the animal kingdom, we can well imagine puppies scrambling for their mother’s teat and forcing out the runt. But to survive, the runt needs to remain part of the pack. We humans are not so different. The sociolinguist Deborah Tannen, in her book, You Were Always Mom’s Favorite: Sisters in Conversation Throughout Their Lives, describes how deadly instinctive impulses can be among non-human species:

“Among some bird species, second eggs are laid as back-ups, needed only if the first hatchling dies. If the first hatched chick is healthy and hale, one of its jobs when the second egg hatches is to push the newcomer out of the nest. The second chick’s death is needed to ensure the first chick’s survival.”2

Some tadpoles, sand tiger........

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