【推荐1】Siblings refer to one’s brothers and sisters. We’re attached to siblings as adults far longer than we are as children. Our sibling relationships, in fact, are the longest-lasting family ties we have.

“Paul, my younger brother, and I, kind of annoyed each other when we were kids,” said Anna, an interviewee,“But as adults, we’ve always had each other’s back, especially when dealing with our mother’s health crisis. Paul is the first person I want to talk to when something worries me.”

There’s probably a biological explanation for the close bond of the sibling relationship. Siblings share half their genes, which biologists say should be motivation enough for each other’s devotion.

One thing that can weaken closeness in adulthood is a parent who played favorites in childhood; this sense of hatred can last a lifetime. The simple concept of parental favoritism was enough to shake their relationship.

“What Paul and I are pretty sure is our parents treated us the same when we were growing up. Yet we’re very different people,” Anna said,“Paul is outgoing while I’m shy. Paul is an amateur pianist while I can’t read music or carry a tune. In families with more than one child, every sibling seems to get a label in contrast to every other sibling.”

The very presence of siblings in the household can be an education. When a new baby is born, the older sibling gains social skills by interacting with the younger, and the younger gains cognitively（认知角度地）by imitating the older. They learn from the friction between them, too, as they fight for their parents’attention. Mild conflict between brothers and sisters teaches them how to interact with friends and co-workers for the rest of their lives.

It’s so sad when things between siblings fall apart, which happens when aging parents need care or die — old feelings of contradiction and jealousy erupt all over again. Many families get through their parents’illnesses just fine, establishing networks where the workload is divided pretty much equally. But about 40 percent of the time there is a single primary caregiver who feels like she is not getting any help from her brothers and sisters, which can lead to serious conflicts.

Throughout adulthood, the sibling relationship “is powerful and unchanged,” said Jane Mersky Leder, author of the new e-book The Sibling Connection. Whether we are close to our siblings or distant, she writes, they remain our brothers and sisters — for better or for worse.

So remember the immortal（永恒的）words of folksinger Loudon Wainwright Ⅲ, in a song called Thanksgiving.“On this brilliant occasion, this special family dinner, if I argue with a loved one, please make me...”