Jeanne Safer

I have an unusual suggestion: don't think so much about your children. Think about your childhood. Think about your relationships with your own siblings, absolutely openly. Who was favored? How your parents felt. What position you had, and they had, in the family. All of your feelings, totally honestly. If you do that you will tend to project less on your children. Show less «

[on lessons from the Old Testament] A really critical character to my mind is Esau, who was not favored, and - in fact - was screwed by everybody in the family. He gets over it. He has his own life.He doesn't allow what happened to him as a child to define him. He says, 'I have enough'. I think that's the most critical, profound psychological thing in the Book of Genesis. Having your own life. Getting out of being a victim. Acknowledging the favoritism that you didn't deserve, if you were the favorite. That's the way out. Show less «

I think it's a huge relief to people to know that they are not required by God, by therapists, or by society to get along with a brother or sister simply because they have a biological relationship. Brotherhood and sisterhood must be earned. Show less «

We have relationships with our family in us until the day we die. I think it's a hopeful message - when you work things out you don't have to be enemies, even with an impossible sibling. You can have a certain sympathetic understanding of how they got that way..You can mourn your loss, the loss of the possibility of a good relationship. When you mourn you are able to go on. I want people to think about this, so we can get rid of Cain's legacy for ever and ever, and have Esau's legacy instead. Show less «

I think we are full of love and hate. In family relationships, particularly with siblings, aggression and difficulties precede affection and love. At first this person seems like a rival and then, later on, you can have kinds of feelings. But there is a great deal of it built in. It makes sense: evolution requires us to be the one who survives, to be the one who prevails. But I think what screws up siblings more than anything else are parents. Show less «