Do we tend to forget our siblings when we grow up? Is the sibling relationship undervalued?

[Berthamay]

I can understand not staying close to some cousins because the truth is that everyone does get very busy with work and immediate family. I cannot imagine not being close with parents and siblings. I am very close with my family and with my husband's family. Holidays wouldn't be the same without them, but in between holidays we always know what is going on in each others lives.

[Escort Rider]

I have read only the first two pages of this thread and the last two. A lot of the debate seems to revolve around which pattern is the norm in the United States - closeness to siblings or relative estrangement from then? Each poster seems to be using his or her own family as a template for which situation is "normal". Of course we are all most influenced by what we experience personally, but it is all too easy to assume that our own situation is the rule, and differences from it are the exception. That is poor reasoning.

I do not pretend to know which is more common, but I know there is plenty of both. I have a large number of first cousins on both sides of my family, so I have had ample opportunity to observe how those cousins relate to their own siblings (and there is only one only child among them). The relationships run the gamut, from close, loving, and supportive to resentful, bitter, and hateful.

And there is another aspect to all this, namely the OP's implication of what "ought" to be (and that would be closeness and concern). While I agree that in an ideal world, that "ought" to be the norm, there is no point in lamenting the unfortunate reality that toxicity reigns in some families, and that some people are greedy, self-centered, and mean-spirited, and that some of those people may well be our own siblings.

When siblings have been used as pawns by their parents in the parents' battles with each other, the resentment thus engendered is not very easy to overcome and set aside. Fortunately (as several other posters have mentioned) it is fairly common (though far from universal) that siblings get along better later in life. One of my uncles and his sister (my aunt) remained bitterly estranged until death at age 84.

All that is life and we can't change any of it.

[Chava61]

I have a sister and brother. I am much closer emotionally to my younger brother than to my sister (who is closer to me in age) but that is just a continuation of our childhood relationships. But just because I am not so close emotionally to my sister it doesn't mean that she or I have forgotten each other.