One More Relationship Tested by the Pandemic: Siblings

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/17/us/virus-siblings-stay-at-home.html

Version 0 of 1.

The isolation and close quarters of self-quarantine have shifted the balance in relationships between spouses and partners, employees and bosses, children and parents, students and teachers.

Add to this list a classification of people who typically spend years — even in the absence of a pandemic — fighting for resources and turf while seeking to coexist in forced proximity.

We are talking about siblings.

The new reality for brothers and sisters is that they must spend much of their time together, in absence of friends, school peers or teammates. Parents say that long days at home are peppered with arguments. But not just that. Plenty of families are also noticing a positive development on the new home front: the redefining and even deepening of sibling relationships.

Here is how five sets of siblings are navigating their new dynamics. (Some of these interviews have been edited and condensed from two conversations.)

Elizabeth McGuire, a photographer and writer in Austin, Texas, who chronicles sibling relationships through candid portraits, sees value in organized activities to help provide structure amid chaos. The McGuire children, Ava, 17, Owen, 15, and Henry, 11, each have opinions on their mother’s philosophy.

With her father, Robert McGuire, Ava has been building a treehouse in the backyard. Owen and Henry have made chalk art on the driveway. The kids all take daily mom-mandated walks. At night, the family chooses a movie to watch through a tournament-like bracket system, which was Henry’s idea.

Is it a special time of unforgettable bonding? “That’s how adults like to think of it,” Owen said.

Ava, 17: I think we get along pretty well. It’s nice to have time to notice the little things. I’ve noticed that Owen has really loud footsteps. And that he is getting really good at juggling. It’s nice to gather to play games. It’s just sometimes if you pick the wrong game, it goes downhill quickly. Like if you pick Monopoly, you can get into a lot of fights.

Owen, 15: We’re doing a jigsaw puzzle with 3,000 pieces. It’s just because we have nothing to do, and Mom said we can’t play video games. I’ve decided that online learning is somehow worse than regular school because it’s all homework. So it does make me enjoy some of the little things. Like me and Henry are reading the “Narnia” books. I’m reading aloud to him. I’m hooked.

Henry, 11: We are doing movie brackets to pick what to watch. The only problem is I can’t watch rated-R movies. Also, our dad picks movies like “Bridge on the River Kwai.”

Dr. Dav and Christine Doodnauth of Lexington, Ky., maintained tight control over their children’s technology use before the pandemic, prohibiting screen time during the week.

Now, with school closed for Adora, 12, Darwin, 10, and Aliya, 7, and with all of their soccer practices, dance lessons and play dates canceled, the parents have eased the rules a bit, letting the children spend an hour a day on iPads and computers to play Roblox and to FaceTime with friends.

Adora and Darwin are busy with home-school during the day. That still leaves plenty of free time to fill. Darwin loves soccer, but his sisters do not. The girls like to dance; Darwin, not so much. They have had to work to find games they all enjoy, like building forts and playing a variation on Hide and Seek that brings in the knock-down-your-sibling elements of Tag. As games with siblings do, these sometimes end in fights. But there is always a new day and a new opportunity for someone else to be “it.”

Adora, 12: I make up games, so we all can agree. On our bikes, one person sways the hose and the other two ride up and down the driveway and try to avoid getting hit by water. Darwin and Aliya argue with each other, and I stay out of it.

Darwin, 10: We argue about silly stuff. The fights usually end with Aliya running off.

Aliya, 7: Darwin kicks a ball and we try not to get hit by the ball. We do it in the house. I don’t think we have broken anything yet.

Dominic Abreu-Martinez, 11, Mikaela Martinez, 4, and Ezekiel Martinez, 2, are the children of Nastasia Martinez. The family lives in Riverdale, the Bronx, in a two-bedroom house, from which Ms. Martinez, a single mother who has Crohn’s disease, tends to her job as a prior authorization specialist at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital. She does this while cooking, cleaning and trying to create a school curriculum for Mikaela, a pre-K student prone to break out in dance midsentence.

It is only with the help of her eldest child, Dominic, that she is managing. “I couldn’t function without him,” she said, talking over FaceTime while holding a squirmy Ezekiel, dressed in a T-shirt that said “My Brother Did It.”

Dominic, 11: I learned about my brother and sister and what I’ve learned is that they actually can’t sit still for a minute. I’m trying to teach them how to relax and sit still. I do some school with my sister. We started off doing a lot of addition, getting up to 18, I believe. I was very impressed with her. Ezekiel, he is more than a handful. He is a school bus’s worth of handfuls. At night I write into a journal the events of the day. There is so much going on being at home so much, it helps.

Mikaela, 4: I’m good at school. One plus zero equal one. Two plus three equals five. Let me show you my dance.

Juan Jr., Joaquín, Analeise and Alizabeth Martínez (no relation to Nastasia Martinez) are not used to spending this much time together. That is because Juan, who is 18 and goes by J.J., and Joaquín, 16, typically live Monday to Friday with their grandparents in Detroit to be closer to their school. Analeise, 11, and Alizabeth, 8, live with their parents, about an hour away in Saline, Mich. But now they are all together, all the time.

Twice since the stay-at-home order began, the family has piled onto bean bags and couches for living room sleepover parties. J.J. was absent from the first party because he was staying in Detroit to help care for his grandfather, who had the coronavirus. After his grandfather recovered and it was safe for J.J. to return home, the siblings planned a second party, this one to celebrate J.J.’s acceptance to the University of Michigan next fall. They watched “Smallfoot,” an animated film.

The siblings are learning that agreeing on movie choices, and things to do, takes compromise.

J.J., 18: It was nerve-racking when my grandpa was sick, but it would have been worse if I wasn’t there to help. Joaquín and I would talk every day. I did kind of miss my sisters, too. The part that is hard is knowing that is what it’s going to be like when I’m off at college.

Joaquín, 16: It takes us a long time to pick a movie. I wanted to watch the show “Money Heist” but it’s not good for the girls. I’ve watched a lot of their movies. “Frozen 2” is pretty OK, actually, but “Mary Poppins” was tough to take. With younger kids, you have to do their thing.

Analeise, 11: We played basketball. I recorded Joaquín so he could look and see if his ankle is landing right. He’s usually at my grandma’s house so it’s fun to be with him all the time. Sometimes we have to talk him into stuff or bribe him. Like for him to sleep in the living room with us, we had to make a bed for him.

Alizabeth, 8: I have been cooking a lot. I made breakfast a couple days ago for my brothers. I made eggs and fruit and pancakes shaped like hearts.

When Miguel Brandão, 18, left his family in Minneapolis for his first year of college at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh last fall, his sister, Zeca, was entering her freshman year in high school. Miguel had always been an outgoing talker, while his younger sister, 15, was the introverted listener.

That changed this fall, with Zeca emerging as an outspoken and opinionated teenager who presided over lively family dinners. An accomplished musician who plays the piano, cello, guitar and euphonium, Zeca took over the space left vacant by her brother, calling it her “second bedroom,” said Vikki Reich, one of their mothers.

When Miguel’s college shifted to a remote-learning curriculum and he returned home in March, he and Zeca established a new dynamic. For the first time, they say, they are developing a friendship. When they are not busy with school, they have taken drives to get out of the house, gone on walks, made TikToks together, had pillow and water fights and have spent time at the piano keyboard.

Miguel, 18: We bicker. I’ll mess around on her piano and she’ll yell at me and I make fun of her. I want her to teach me to play a song, “Blinding Lights,” from The Weeknd’s album. I also sometimes listen to her play. She’s good.

Zeca, 15: It felt normal to have him gone, so it’s weird that he’s back. But I get bored and it’s nice to have someone to be with who is not necessarily your own age but at least is not like 40.