Why are little brothers so annoying?

Large family dynamics are at play in the 2003 film Cheaper By The Dozen. Evidence of the link between big families and happiness comes at a time when parents are having fewer children and the number of children growing up with large numbers of brothers and sisters is at an all-time low.

Large family dynamics are at play in the 2003 film Cheaper By The Dozen. Evidence of the link between big families and happiness comes at a time when parents are having fewer children and the number of children growing up with large numbers of brothers and sisters is at an all-time low.

Published Nov 6, 2014

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London - This Monday, my son Henry turned eight.

Frankly, I’m surprised he’s made it this far. His increasingly reckless behaviour as “the world’s most annoying little brother” makes me wonder if he’s got a secret death wish.

He’s so good at being a “pest of epic proportions”, as his two older sisters say, that I’m beginning to worry about his safety when he is out of my sight.

Henry’s skill as the “wedgie Ninja” - maybe you heard the hysterical screams of my 12-year-old, eldest daughter the last time he pulled that out of the bag - could be the thing that stops him reaching his ninth birthday.

I fear for the little fella in a house of women (two older sisters and one younger one), but to quote Jane Austen: “What strange creatures brothers are!”

I haven’t got one, so I’m not sure what motivates a small boy to aggravate his bigger sisters so relentlessly. I do, however, admire his foolhardy bravery - surely that’ll be useful in the future?

But, as a friend pointed out, the only women little brothers don’t irritate are their moms. To me, he is still the cuddly boy who used to promise “a thousand kisses” every time I put him to bed. I don’t see a pint-sized menace; I see a brown-eyed, floppy-haired hero whose new front teeth are endearingly too big for his ever-changing face.

Maybe his new tricks are belated revenge for the times his sisters used to paint his nails as a toddler, or experiment on him for their pretend surgery games. Or, perhaps, this is what little brothers do.

During a fish-and-chips tea on our half-term holiday, he quietly put his unwanted fish down the side of ten-year-old Gracie’s welly boot with impressive James Bond-style stealth. She really should wear socks.

He swaps the girls’ underwear into each other’s drawers, which drives them nuts on frenzied school mornings, and he secretly records them on my phone singing along to pop songs in the shower, then plays the uninhibited private wailing to visitors for comic effect. He revels in the power to embarrass as he nibbles away at their sensitive pre-teen self-esteem with comments like: “There is something weird on your face,” when they explore the new world of mascara.

No one wants to sit next to him at meal times because he is the messiest eater this side of London Zoo’s penguin enclosure. He squirts the toothpaste into a sticky mess every night, making the girls growl with fury.

It’s possible this could all be good training for the relationship years ahead of the girls (and sibling tensions are surely nature’s way of giving everyone a thicker skin to cope in the adult world). I hope it’s a phase but, as I’ve said, I don’t have a brother, so I don’t know what to expect. Are all little men-to-be like this?

Every day, he learns a bit more about what specifically winds up his sisters. I notice he’s carefully absorbing their reactions to his emotional hand grenades and refining his modus operandi for ever more explosive responses. It’s like an intriguing experiment to gain insight into female thinking. How will he use what he’s learned in years to come? I can only hope all the detail he’s picked up is moulding him into becoming an understanding dad in the future.

There is a moving description of a father in a biography out this week which brought me to the above conclusion. In the book, a young woman writes: “The careful reliable attention of this man has been integral to my sense of security.”

Henry is paying “careful and reliable attention” to his sisters’ every move, though for very different motives, but maybe it’s all part of a bigger plan.

And perhaps that’s why my husband, himself a little brother, is such a good dad. He’s much calmer in the face of my daughters’ often irrational and volatile reactions than I am because he’s seen it all before. - Daily Mail

* Lorrane Candy is editor-in-chief of Elle magazine.

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