The Perpetual Button Pushers

As the oldest of six children, I had the the privilege of honing my babysitting skills at an early age. I was lucky enough to have four brothers, one of whom was a Master Button Pusher. You know, the one who incessantly pushes the buttons that really tick someone else off?  It's quite an art, really, as the buttons vary from person to person. But Brother #1, as we'll call him, was an expert at knowing exactly what to say to push someone over the edge.

Brother #2 is a bit of a hothead, and always reached his boiling point a good deal faster than the rest of us. Therefore, when you put Brothers #1 and #2 together, a fun time can be guaranteed for all. Especially their babysitter, who, incidentally, was usually me.

I still remember one especially momentous day of babysitting when Brother #1 pushed a little too hard and Brother #2, in his anger, ran into the kitchen and pulled a butcher knife from the knife block. Now, my mother likes to keep her knives especially dull so perhaps I shouldn't have been too worried, but as a fourteen-year-old girl faced with a raging, knife-wielding, stocky, nine-year old boy, I was sufficiently terrified.

Brother #1, however, remained cool and confident and continued mercilessly hounding angry Brother #2, all while dancing just out of reach of the knife. I was hollering hysterically in the background, begging for them to stop fighting. I felt rather like a terrified matador, hiding behind the dancing red cape (Brother #1), waiting for the angry bull (Brother #2) to charge.

Unfortunately, I don't recall the end of the story or how we diffused the situation, though I do know that no blood was spilled that day. I'm also certain that the red cape did not take a very long break before coming out to play again.

While I use my brother as an example, I feel compelled to admit that he was not the only button pusher in the family. I recall engaging in my own form of button pushing from time to time, though I always stopped before knives became involved. For example, I used to love sticking pieces of scotch tape to my baby sister's fingers. I would then step back and watch in amusement as her frustration level grew the longer she spent trying to get the tape off. Each time she pulled it off with one hand, it became stuck to the other. The cycle continued until she was red in the face, shaking her hands in a futile attempt to get the tape off and screaming in frustration, while I was rolling in laughter on the floor. She was just so cute when she got mad, I simply couldn't resist!

As I grew older, I came to believe that these were isolated incidents, unique to my own family. We were just bad kids, right?

Now, years later and much to my chagrin, I see the same thing happening with my own children. We have several button pushers in our family, and one who particularly enjoys pushing his mother's buttons as well as his younger siblings'.

And though it is always upsetting when a button pusher is feeling particularly vicious, I recently noticed an important detail I had previously overlooked: The roles of 'pusher' and 'pushed' seem to rotate over time, at least in my own little family. There was a time when we had two sets of best friends living in our home and, though life was not always harmonious, I had high hopes that the button pushing gene was slowly slipping into dormancy.

I don't believe it was the addition of Caboose to our family that sparked the faction now existing among the previous Besties, but rather the natural changes that occur over time. As Energy moved into a level of maturity beyond Mellow's, for example, the tension rose. The same is happening with Bright and Plucky. I now see Mellow and Bright becoming fast friends while the outliers on either end are struggling to find a place to fit in. And Plucky is overjoyed that Caboose is now old enough to be the 'pushed', allowing her to fill the role of  'pusher' for the first time in her life. Poor little Caboose--he will have to get creative as he grows if he's ever going to have a shot at being the pusher.

The good news is that it won't last forever (at least that's what I'm telling myself--please don't burst my bubble if I'm wrong). Hopefully the cycle will run it's course and we will have some more  BFFs running around before too long.

Until then, I have come up with some possible reasons for why siblings feel the need to push each others buttons, if for no other purpose than to make me feel better:


Pushing buttons makes one feel important
Watching the face of the tormented is just plain funny
The button pusher enjoys the sense of power
Sometimes, it's just too easy to pass up
It is genetically ingrained in their brains and passed down from one generation to the next
They are jealous
Its a way to show affection, though even the button pusher himself may not realize it
They need attention and pushing buttons is a good way to get it
Throughout the ages, the weak, non-button pushers as a breed are slowly dying out, leaving only the aggressive button pushers to take their places
There's really no good explanation--they do it just because


But here's my favorite and the one I will pretend is true:
They love each other so, so much, but just don't have the words to say it.