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Originally Posted May 20, 2009
Avery calls her big brother, “bruh.” I don’t know when it started, but here we are. The lion add-on refers to his protective sibling heart.
1977 | Grade 2: A boy in my class told everyone my jacket was the colour of poop. He called me “Poop Coat” for the rest of the day. The other kids laughed hysterically. I mean, they were eight and anything poop related was hilarious. I was obviously traumatized as I still remember this clearly, decades… a lot of decades… later.
1981 | Grade 6: My three-some of best girlfriends became a lonely party of one when the other two ditched me. I was devastated—stomach aches, didn’t want to go to school, cried my eyes out. Funny enough, one of those bitches and I patched things up the next school year and have been best friends ever since. I should really remind her of how lucky she is that I forgave her.
The fact is, kids can be mean. Typical kids, atypical kids, nobody is exempt from bullying and teasing. Even the “kindhearteds” can get sucked into it. When I was teaching elementary school I was shocked at how quickly recess could suddenly descend into The Lord of the Flies territory, complete with pointy sticks. Until I blew my whistle and confiscated the sticks. Children can be like a pack of wild animals – lions, bears, predators sniff out and circle the weak, ready to attack.
When MY child is on the receiving end of this animal behaviour, I’m suddenly very in touch with my animal instincts. All parents go through it to some degree and if you haven’t yet, you will. “For example”, a kid rips a toy from your son’s hand and then pushes him to the floor at daycare (you see this through the window as you’re driving away to work). The teacher does nothing and your child starts to cry. This might push some new moms to the point where they call the daycare, roaring (though somewhat diminished by the sobbing) through their cell phone. Hypothetically speaking.
My son survived the daycare jungle unscathed. He was a sensitive, loving child and popular enough at school, but still I worried. His little sister is special. He didn’t know that yet. Not really. My husband and I felt like he needn’t be burdened with medical details and information wouldn’t fully understand. Hell, we still don’t understand it half the time ourselves.
His little sister had speech and gross motor delays and extreme feeding issues. At the time, he thought his sister’s challenges stemmed from the fact that she doesn’t eat enough. He wasn’t entirely wrong, but of course, that was just a small piece of the puzzle. He was aware however of what it meant to have “special needs.” I was forced to explain the term to him after he accompanied us to a speech therapy appointment. A child in the waiting room with us was screeching and lashing out at her parents. My son whispered, “Mummy, that girl is being very rude.”
On the way home I explained that she wasn’t in fact rude. Perhaps she was feeling scared or frustrated and wasn’t able to communicate using her words. “Imagine how hard that would be to have feelings, but not be able to communicate them?” He agreed that would be hard.
He was quiet for a while and then he said, “Avery has special needs, right? She needs us to help her learn to talk better.”
Minutes later he started pointing to objects in the car, repeating the words slowly and clearly, trying to teach her. The earnest way he immediately took on this responsibility made me teary (which isn’t ideal when you’re trying to merge onto the highway).
Later that night my son confessed that he sometimes feels like crying when he hugs Avery. He also said it feels sad in his heart when he sees her struggling to do something. And when he cuddles her on the couch, it makes his throat hurt.
I think he was trying to articulate that he feels protective of her.
I get it, because I feel it too.
He told me some of his friends were teasing him, saying his sister was so small that babies are born bigger than her. They also said it was creepy to have pneumonia. (He meant epilepsy.)
This was pretty tame on the bullying spectrum. But, what makes my mama lion mane stand on end is this—as my son gets older, he will become more aware of the challenges his sister is facing.
How will this sensitive sibling deal with it?
Will he grow up to resent her for all the attention diverted away from him, to her?
Knowing him and just seeing how he interacts with Avery when he thinks nobody is watching, I believe it’s very likely he’ll take on the role of protector.
And as heartwarming and soul affirming that is, I worry. Because it’s hard enough trying to find your own way in the world without having to watch over and protect somebody else. I don’t want that for him, but I also know that it’s not really my choice because I’m quite certain that this boy also has the heart of a lion.
Listen to Episode 98: My Bruh Is A Lion Recorded 14 years after this story was written, Avery’s big brother aka “Bruh” talks about growing up with a sibling who has disabilities. He also shares how he views the future as a ‘lion hearted’ trustee in Avery’s Microboard.
