it is the day before Thanksgiving and a lot of people are going to be
ilove you are traveling today a lot of people are going to be getting together
with family tomorrow
we hope to the the you know the airline gods willing or
whatever a weather gods but
just a lil an interesting little science fact wide
and and how this plays into
how are you going to have a conversation
with your family about the
events of the day the news the day particularly Michael Brown shooting
and so these two things I wanna share the Jessica Goldstein wrote a piece
over and the progress on their blog a yesterday I think it was
Epting progress dot org it's titled why you fight with your siblings over
Thanksgiving
according to science and
she's basing this on an interview that she had with
fellow by the name a frank solloway who is an adjunct professor psychology at UC
berkeley
and rotor border rebel birth order family family dynamics in creative lives
and also hugh a publisher
research piece titled why siblings are like doctor once finches birth order
sibling
competition and adaptive divergence within the family and
here's the net-net what their same when we are little kids
we when we have siblings we have brothers or sisters
or brother or sister when we were little kids
if if were if you're the oldest
you are bigger more physically competent
more intellectually competent more emotionally competent the new young girl
younger siblings
and when you're two three four five six seven eight nine ten
11 12 years old even a year or two makes a big difference
in physical competence emotional competence
intellectual competence the oldest child typically takes on
a role up soon apparent basically on in fact
very very frequently parents will ask the oldest child to babysit
which is soon appeared
youngest children and younger children
on the other hand are less physically competent
and less emotionally mature and intellectually strong and so
they depend to a certain extent on their older siblings for their success in
their survival
in the family and so while the older
siblings the older child tends to be the
the the wanna runs things basically the the one who's the pseudo parent
the younger child tends to be the the pleaser the one who
who makes who tries to make everybody happy now these are appropriate roles
during childhood they help us survive as kids
when we grow up and we go out into the world
we set aside those roles or
we tap them down it's not appropriate to behave toward other people
as you would behave as a 10-year-old to your seven-year-old
a younger brother sister or it's not appropriate to behave
I with your coworkers or your
your partner a as you would behave if you are the seven-year-old
trying to interact with the 10-year-old so we learn how to modulate how to
mediate those behaviors
what happens as we get back together for Thanksgiving or Christmas irv or
honicker whatever may be
for holidays we slip into those all roles because we don't see the siblings
out of it and the majority of our
life experience interacting with her siblings was in these roles have older
child younger child and so we slip into these roles
and there's part of us that like just kinda falls in the role and then there's
no privacy goes
holy crap YZ tree treaty may like like
a like a little child and bus
you end up with the sibling fights so to prevent settling fights at the holidays
just know be aware of the fact that
we all have a tendency to revert to type to go back to
to the way that we behaved as children with
hours siblings with the kids that we grew up with and try to
behave instead like an adult and in fact
reinvent your relationships with his siblings as adult relationships
number one number two how then if you're getting together with your family in
party your family are regular Fox News viewers for example how do you discuss
Michael Brown with people like that
in you know if they're going off at all I got a black people go crazy
I need how do you respond to that
I mean it's it's really easy to get angry or call people races right but it
doesn't work
especially a family I mean out in public IP I have no problem with that
you know slapping down some idiot or some fool
um in in public or in even in private me but
but family you've got a maintain a relationship with you
that a I I don't object to labeling behavior
like that but it's not necessarily the most productive I would suggest
this larger frame that I've been talking about for two days here
maybe a safe
way to have these kinds of conversations with family and not make things worse
not make things in your family wears and that is to say
you know it may be the Wilson was right or wrong maybe the Michael Brown was
right or wrong
it may be that this witness is right or wrong or that witness's right or wrong
but the fact of the matter is that we'll never really know
because the the
the system that we have in a system that we have
the person who watches the police
local prosecutor also depends on the police for his job he depends on them
for his ability to prosecute cases
he depends on him to get his conviction rate up so he's well ranked
or gets reelected he depends on the police
it for his it will literally for his job
and that working relationship very often also becomes a
a social relationship and
that's not the kind and fireman out of which you're going to get
objective information you get objective information
I dove jury trials with adversarial procedures
with with prosecution and defense and both having the ability to cross
for cross-examine witnesses and that did not happen in this case
and it does not happen in the majority of police involved
a possible crimes by police officers and
I think we can all agree I may be wrong on this but I had a couple people call
it a go
are you talking about heroes reduced carers are still on me is a criminal and
the
bargain rararara boy and I N you know my response to them as you don't know that
and I don't know that because there's been no adversarial process there's been
no confrontational
legal process and the needs to be
we need to figure out a way to have you know it
we need to answer the question who will watch the watchers who will watch who
will police the police
and until we figure out a way to do that this country we're gonna continue to
have these kind of problems
that's that's one and that's that's even setting aside the issues a brace
which you can't really set aside but if you don't want to argue at that level
than you
the argue that this twenty thousand foot level and you can probably find
some level agreement and this is also the level at which we begin to solve the
problem so
ain't just some thoughts for the holiday
speaking as the oldest child the oldest 24
so of course you know my role was no at all and
a up you know I'll take care the sand and
you know as as the oldest get the family that's thats
I guess oldest old is child
you know whatever so
as your distro I am Telling You losses are you have to well
obviously you don't have to but it's just some some thoughts and advice that
I thought might be a value
I shared many times the story
you know growing up with my dad fighting with my dad constantly about politics
throughout our lives but has passed away no
and and how
how much I valued then at which I learned from that
that we learned ultimately to have political disagreements
and not and not hit below the belt
because one I was sixteen seventeen-years-old we
would both be polite I'd say nasty things to him and each amino house once
when I was 16 and
you know it it was a very difficult time in our relationship
and thank God we got through and so I
you know I I wish you all I wish you the very best in
the holiday season no I'm not rapping show is wrapping up a sweat
on the very best the holiday season hopefully what I said
just then has some value to your home because in
in I still feel like I've done my job is the older brother we'll be right back
this is the Thom Hartmann program