A few weeks ago, one of my nieces called me and we ended up talking about her misunderstanding with her other aunt. The conversation dragged on for long.At the height of it was why family members just can’t get along. Being the aunt and one to always be quick to look for solutions, I began some kind of lecture.

Family feuds are as old as mankind. In the Bible our first encounter with sibling rivalry is the gruesome murder of Abel by Cain (Genesis 4). We have also been told how royal children fought to become heirs to the throne. What starts from childhood as sibling rivalry (which is normal) often continues into adulthood, where it sometimes gets very nasty. However, this reality is hard to accept and we therefore try, by all means possible to avoid conflicts in our families.

To make her feel better, I told my niece that such conflicts are unavoidable; that the cousins, aunts, uncles that we are not very close to now are actually siblings. Their parents were siblings as well, which follows that such relations, if not nurtured, also die. Believe me, at that point I did not think I made sense but later, it dawned on me, this was the truth.

Yes, we love our families. We do not choose where we are born. We assume that our blood relatives always have our best interests at heart hence the common proverb blood is thicker than water. That may be true, only if the family members make that choice. When I was younger, I thought it came naturally for family members to look out for each other. Boy, was I wrong and naive! The fact of the matter is the family consists of different personalities, which may either work for or against the unit. Over the years, I have learnt to accept this truth and it keeps me sane. Now I know that I cannot control how other people behave towards me, it is beyond me, but I can control how I react.