by Izzy Kalman (June 2003)
No, I’m not talking about reproductive functions. I’m referring to helping their siblings. For years, I’ve been contending that human siblings, despite superficial impressions, are not biologically programmed to want to kill each other. If they did, you can be sure parents would be spending a good part of their lives in the emergency room. We have the illusion that siblings want to kill each other only because we spend so much time and effort trying to get them to stop fighting that it seems they would be goners if not for our efforts. As I demonstrate in my seminars and explain in my website, siblings actually want to get along; it’s only because of our attempts to make them stop fighting that they fight as much as they do.
In the world of Nature, siblings in higher species of animals are born protecting each other. Look what I came across in a cat calendar:
“Linda Wershing of Grey Eagle, Minnesota, writes that Bowie was the largest kitten in a litter of 10 but had a mellow personality even as a youngster. With the utmost graciousness, he made sure that each of his smaller siblings had access to the food dish.”
Certainly basic human nature is at least at the level of cats. Isn’t it?
Comments