Is Anything More Complicated Than Sisterhood? Esther Freud, Sister of Bella, Reflects on a Lifelong Bond

Vogue

5 days ago

'I don't know how to… hate… you…'
As children, my sister Bella and I had our own anthem. It was a bastardized version of a song from Jesus Christ Superstar, the words of which we'd reformed to suit our needs. We'd narrow our eyes, lower our voices, advance until we collided, teeth bared and nails out, laughing as we rolled across the floor.
Bella was two years old when I was born. Our mother—single, barely out of her teens—arrived home to her third-floor flat on Camden Road and set me down on the bed. She didn't immediately respond when my crying drifted through to the kitchen, but when the noise escalated to an ear-piercing scream she rushed to my side. Bella was beaming. 'I told the baby to be quiet,' she said. She'd caught my cheek with her nail. Beads of blood were blooming. Mum turned on her. Her first daughter had transformed into a threat; her second, tiny in comparison, defenseless, had become the one she must protect. And so the dynamics of our relationships were set.
I've always been interested in birth order. How the roles are laid out from the start. The expectation that the elder sibling will be responsible and high-achieving, while the next child will placidly follow in their wake. I admire those who rebel, those with the courage to leap over the boundaries. I'm aware myself how carefully the younger sister needs to tread, how mindful she must be not to threaten the equilibrium, not to blossom too early or too obviously, if she wants to keep her sibling as a friend.
Recently I met a woman whose daughters were openly and miserably competitive. Both clever, the younger had the effrontery to be popular and sporty, too. By their mid-teens the elder had sunk into despair. In their 20s they embarked on couples counseling together. It only took a few sessions, and newly united, they turned around and blamed their mother. The woman laughed as she told me this. She was just glad, she said, to see them getting on.
I read that Tina Knowles took her girls to therapy when Beyoncé's success began affecting the confidence of her younger daughter, Solange. It helped, apparently, but would it have worked so well if the global superstar had been the youngest member of the family? Would Solange have been able to operate in a shadow cast from below?