Here's a story of two siblings, one a 10-year-old girl and the other a 6-year-old boy. They also happen to be my relatives (kids of my cousin), and are very fond of me.
The 10-year-old was just about to cut my hair, but being impatient, I asked the younger one to do it, just so there's progress by the time the older finishes doing whatever she was doing. Little did I know hell's about to break loose. As the older one asked the younger one to hand over the machine, he refused, and an argument ensued. None of the two were relenting, even with my repeated pleading:
- "Please let your brother do the cutting, and you can do the finishing touches"
- "Please let your sister do the cutting, and you'll get a chance next time"
- "Please share the task"
It was a weird moment, seeing people actually fight for what looks to me like unrewarding work... a chore. There was even tears from the brother, who was very hurt, even mentioning how unfair it is, citing facts like how the sister always gets to cut my hair, and mentioning other benefits she gets that he doesn't, specifically the fact that I tend to ride far with her on my bike (I don't have a helmet small enough for the boy). He even hurled abuse to the sister in anger, "you are fat", which wasn't taken lightly. Being immature, they each would have had the work not go on than allow the other to proceed. This went on for several minutes, and as I proved ineffective in having any progress, asked their older (15-year-old) sister to do the job, but she also sees a chore, so she wasn't very interested. She did intervene though, and was rather effective, even though she sided more with the 10-year-old, citing experience... "what do you know about cutting hair". The 6-year-old eventually relented.
Perhaps I'm pushing it... have you ever seen kids this young cut hair? But I was thinking Why The Fuck Not!
Anyways, this whole exercise was weird as fuck and so unbelievable. It's an interesting display of sibling rivalry, and these two do have constant conflicts. I just didn't think they'd also fight over who gets to do work. It was also the most impassioned and long-drawn I remember seeing between them. Luckily it wasn't violent, even though one tried to forcefully take the machine from the other.