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I wouldn't say that it's hard for sisters to treat each other with respect. Many do.

Having lots of siblings is like having built-in best friends.

Certainly, people can get along without siblings. Single children do, and there are people who have irreparably estranged relationships with their siblings who live full and satisfying lives, but to have siblings and not make the most of that resource is squandering one of the greatest interpersonal resources you'll ever have.

For each other, at each other: Sisters can be either or both. The same could be said of people in any close relationship. Yet there is something special about sisters - specially gratifying and specially fraught.

I can't tell you how many times I heard from younger sisters that their older sisters were bossy and judgmental.

For me being the youngest, there was never ever anything that was an issue to cause rivalry between me and my sisters.

Sister is probably the most competitive relationship within the family, but once the sisters are grown, it becomes the strongest relationship.

When I watch my kids, and I see the primal level at which the sibling relationships are formed, then I completely understand what these unresolved adult sibling problems are based on. You know, 'Mom liked you better' and, 'You got your own room and I didn't.'

Many people don't have relationships to their siblings in adulthood, or they have superficial ones. It's sort of unfashionable, particularly in America, to be close to your family.