TURF WARS
Plants do it. Countries do it. Neighbors and co-workers do it. And certainly, siblings do it. I’m talking about the skirmishes that we fight to protect our turfs.
Imagine a tangle of roots beneath the ground, all of them thirsting for water. In a place where moisture is at a premium, those roots will fight bitterly for every drop. Plants will viciously crowd out their neighbors to capture any available water and crane their necks at each other’s expense for a scrap of life-giving sunlight.
When it comes to the nutrients that that living things need to stay alive, it’s often a fight to the death.
Human beings are not so different. How much blood has been spilled through the ages over territory disputed by neighboring countries? Russia’s recent invasion of Ukraine is a prime example. Mother Russia considers Ukraine part of her ancestral “turf” and marched in with guns blazing to take her property back. But she was hardly the first to come up with the idea.
Since time immemorial, wars have been fought over pieces of ground which one tribe or country deems necessary to its identity, or its survival, or both. Some of those conflicts have been prolonged to the point of seeming almost never-ending. Whole generations have been born, raised and died while in a state of war. As countries or as individuals, we will fight tooth and nail for what’s ours.
Probably the most common cause of conflict between neighbors revolves around territory. Your balcony is blocking the view from mine; your tree is shedding into my yard; by rights, the fence surrounding your field should be three feet closer to my property. Corporations squabble all the time over patents and commercial rights. Deep-sea fishermen bicker over the best fishing grounds. Inner-city gangs battle over the square footage of blocks that make up their respective turfs.
People fight all the time over the territory they own, or believe they own, or think they ought to own. Especially if owning it will enhance their prestige or their pocketbook.
Office politics can turn ugly when one employee senses that another is encroaching on his or her territory. Suppose he’s considered the best salesman in the firm, or she’s the most productive bookkeeper. If someone else comes along and tries to “steal” the limelight in those areas, the affected employee’s reaction may appear to be disproportionately vehement.
That’s because the newcomer has robbed those employees of a very precious commodity: the recognition that their abilities have earned for them. Their place in the office hierarchy. Sometimes, their very sense of self-worth in the marketplace. This can feel extremely threatening.
The Family Circle
Nowhere is the battle for “turf” more pronounced, or more heartbreaking, than the one that rages within the family.
It’s not uncommon for children to grow up with labels attached to them. She’s the smart one; he’s the practical one. She’s a dreamer; he’s a macher. He’s a leader and she’s the peace maker. When we’re young, these labels can mean a lot to us. They can shape the way we look at ourselves and gauge our value in the world.
Sometimes parents make the mistake of assigning “good” or “bad” labels to their children. This can be most glaring when there are only two offspring, both constantly riding the seesaw of their parents’ approval or disapproval. What better breeding grounds for sibling rivalry and even hatred, r”l? But the same ugliness can arise in larger families, if the parents regularly compare their children to one another. “Why can’t you be more like your sister?” “Why don’t you behave more like your brother?”
It’s painful enough to incur a parent’s criticism without also being measured against a sibling and found wanting. If not nipped in the bud, such tactics can lead to lifelong jealousy and resentment. Instead of taking the parents’ criticism to heart, the child directs her bad feelings toward the praised sibling and lets the ache sour into ill will. The praised brother or sister ends up becoming a source of pain: the enemy.
There are parents who choose one child to hold up to the others as the “good” one when that child pleases them but then go ahead and relegate the same child to the “bad” list when another child pleases them more. For decades afterward, those grown-up siblings may jockey for the top position in their parents’ esteem, even as they know they probably won’t hold onto it for long. It’s an insecure way of existing, and a hurtful one.
We find grown-up siblings quarreling over their aging parent’s medical treatments, hosting schedule, visiting rights, and so on. Perhaps based on longstanding patterns within the nuclear family, each sibling wants to be seen as the smart one, the competent one, or the one the parent needs most. And the desire to shine in their parents’ eyes transfers itself into a desire to be looked up to by their siblings as well. Two or more may fight for a place at the top of the ladder.
Unfortunately, when siblings have clashing desires for recognition and power within the family circle, loving interactions can fly out the window.
A parent’s first and primary job is to treat all her children with fairness and to take the trouble to understand what makes each of them tick. “Chanoch l’na’ar al pi darko”. It’s the deepest wisdom to guide parenting, and the one that ensures the most success. Only if a child knows that he is truly seen, and that his whole self, weaknesses and all, is embraced with love, will he be amenable to his parents’ guidance.
No one wants to be forced into an uncomfortable or even a downright painful fit. We all want to be accepted as the people we truly are. Especially by our parents.
Turf wars, whether physical or emotional, can be so single-minded, and sometimes so harrowing, that they feel like life and death. Like plants straining for the water that they need to live, we can go through our days feeling as if we must elbow others aside in order to find our own place in the sun. Our competitive instincts can fool us into believing that there’s only one prize, and that we must fight to the finish to win it.
The truth is that there are many prizes to be won in life. Hakadosh Boruch Hu has given us different temperaments, different talents, and different struggles. He also ordains different tests and fortunes for each of His creatures. If someone seems to be encroaching on “my” territory, perhaps it wasn’t really supposed to be mine to begin with. Maybe I’m fighting the wrong war.
Any time we find ourselves thinking about another person as “the enemy,” even if not in so many words, we need to stop and ponder why that fence has sprung up between us. Do I feel as if they’re taking something away from me that I desperately want? If so, it helps to direct our eyes upward, and to remind ourselves that there’s a Master Plan and a Master Planner who knows what we want but gives us what we need.
And Who hates to see us fighting turf wars over territory that He was kind enough to give us in the first place!
