Ouch! Ow! Eina! Is it a martial art? Is it all-in wrestling? No, it’s just two sisters having a good old-fashioned family fight. Kagiso Msimango, whose name means “peace”, reveals her meanest sisterly moment, as she watches her own offspring enduring the same raging battles
Being the second shortest person in the house sucks, mainly because of the shortest person in the house. My Thing 1’s life is becoming increasingly unbearable because of her sister. I can relate. I was the shortest person in the house for 6 years, before my sister happened.
Once the half a decade mark has passed you don’t expect your parents to spring a sibling on you. Liking my sister was going to be challenging, even if she had turned out to be angelic. She was demonic.
She was mean, manipulative and violent. She hoarded the attention. She destroyed my things. She would bite, scratch and hit me. The nanny would get tired of my constant crying, so she suggested I hit her back, not much, just enough to make the consequences of her physical abuse undesirable.
When I did hit her back, lightly and tentatively, she would wail as if I had impaled her with a hot poker. Even though her cries came with one volume setting – 100 decibels – the timing on the other hand was pretty flexible. When it suited her, she could cry at 6pm over a shove I administered at 10am. Why waste a good wail if you can wait until your parents get home?
The worst thing about younger siblings is that their jerky behaviour seems to bring out the worst in you, and you are the only one who gets in to trouble, because “she’s just a baby.”
I once pressed acetone soaked cotton wool against my sister’s nose until she passed out. That is a mean, horrible thing to do, and I am a nice person. Heck, my name means peace and I actually live up to it, so you can imagine what kind of conditions eventually brought out my inner psychopath.
She had just destroyed my entire collection of tapes, yes cassette tapes, after I had told her a thousand times that she was not welcome in my bedroom. Unfortunately, I happened upon her and the carnage while I had a cotton ball soaked in nail polish remover in my hand. And you know what the parents said, right? “Why was your stuff within reach? She’s just a baby.”
I was not going to be that kind of mom, who subjects my first-born child to sibling abuse just because “she’s just a baby”.
Alas, I have become that kind of mom. Thing 2 is just as mean to Thing 1 as my sister was to me. She slaps, scratches and bites my child. She destroys her toys. She pulls her by the hair to get at her food. Lately she must have Thing 1’s shoes and socks.
What do I do? I don’t defend Thing 1. Instead, I yell at her to give Thing 2 whatever she wants because “she’s just a baby.”
Thing 2 has perfected this high-pitched screech, which sounds like it is emanating from a deranged Banshee. It burrows into your body, implodes your brain and cracks your soul. It magically ceases when she gets her way. So Thing 2 gets her way.
Turns out “she’s just a baby” is a more polite way to say “Shut that Banshee the *&$% up!”
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