A Little Mediation By Mom Gets Warring Sisters Out Of A Tights Spot
“Brittany, just give me the tights!! You know they’re not yours, they’re way too big for you!”
“No they aren’t Anna, they’re mine. Now get out of my room!”
“I’m not getting out because then I won’t get the tights.”
“They’re mine and I need them for the band concert tomorrow night!”
“Well then, why don’t you prove it by trying them on?”
“No! Get out!”
“I’ll get out if you try on the tights! You just don’t want to ‘cause you know they’re mine”
“The Bible says ‘Thou shalt not steal.”’
“Ughhhhh! I can’t steal something that was mine to begin with!”
“GET OUT… MO-OM!”
We just kept going around in circles, yelling and screaming and hitting and biting. Whenever we tried to talk we just ended up arguing and getting nowhere.
“Here we go again,” I thought. My younger sister and I seem to fight constantly and about everything. Despite the fact that my mom says we acted alike growing up, I think we have completely different personalities now. We just butt heads. I do not even know why I let her get to me. I am a junior in high school bickering with a mere fifth grader!
In this particular case, I felt fed up, frustrated and angry. A few days before the big blow up occurred, I took a pair of my tights with a pair of my friend’s tights out of Brittany’s drawer. Big mistake! Although I knew that my mother simply misplaced the tights while doing the laundry, I had no idea getting them back would be such an ordeal.
One night I had had enough. I could not go one day further knowing that my waif sister held my only pair of white tights captive in her underwear drawer. I marched up to her room and rather violently attempted to resolve the mess, which brings me back to the fight.
Between the wrestling and the shouting, we got just about nothing accomplished! Except now our angry emotions soared. We had been in her room for the past 15 minutes and still had made no progress. So, maybe out of exhaustion or maybe with our last ounce of compassion, we finally decided to set our feelings aside and settle this once and for all, peacefully.
“Look,” I said, “I don’t want to put this off any more. Let’s just go downstairs and talk this over like rational people.”
“Fine,” she replied. “Just get out of my room.”
She followed me down the stairs to the kitchen, both of us with a death grip on either end of the tights. Then we both sat down and took a deep breath.
“First of all, you need to tell me exactly what you want right now.”
“I want my tights. DUH!” said my perturbed sister.
“OK, well, that’s what I want too. I was just checking.”
“I’m tired and worn out,” she whined. “Why can’t we just do this tomorrow?”
“Because I’m tired of putting it off. I get really frustrated thinking about it because now I don’t have any white tights! Plus, I’m angry at you for being so stubborn when you know they’re mine.”
“Anna, you’re bigger than me, so you can push me around and stuff. I’m mad that you kept me up this late.”
“OK,” I replied. “I guess if I were you I’d feel kind of over-powered, too. I just don’t understand why you insist on having these tights.”
“Well, I know they’re mine! I guess you probably did have some white tights too, but you lost them. These are mine and I’m wearing them tomorrow.”
“Look, it’s getting pretty late, so how can we finally decide? We’ve already tried to prove they’re ours by remembering the stains and the tag, but that didn’t work. We can’t simply try them on and see who they fit, either, because you refuse to do that. So let’s just wait until mom gets home and she can decide.”
“OK.”
When my mother returned from her walk, we confronted her with the problem. Both of us pleaded our cases through tears and sniffles, on a mission to gain the tights.
“Woah, woah,” she said calmly, “Brittany these tights are obviously too big for you.”
“Nuh uhh! I remember those red stains on them from Christmas!” sobbed my exhausted sister.
“No,” replied my mom, “I threw those out.”
“Oh,” Brittany said sadly.
“I’ll just buy you a new pair for the band concert tomorrow night, all right? Now head up to bed.”
I stood there with my mouth wide open, stunned at the scene I had just witnessed. I could not believe we only needed a little mediation and more information to solve our problem!
We also had to let down our guards and accept my mom’s word. When we took the time to get our feelings out and listen to each other, we accomplished the most, and that eventually led us to the resolution.
In the end, we both gave up some pride because I wanted Brittany to admit that the tights did not belong to her and she lost the tights. We also both gained something because I got my tights back and she got a new pair for the concert.
I learned from this experience. First of all, I saw that physical fighting took me nowhere. Also, conflicts can seem large, especially late at night, but in reality they can be solved through certain steps and actions involving both people and possibly a mediator.