Do you find yourself wondering about the kind of relationship your children will have with each other as they get older? Ben from our Parent Panel shares the vision of brotherhood that he has for his two sons.

I never had a brother growing up. My mother decided in her infinite wisdom to spawn me a couple of younger sisters at a time when I thought girls were ‘gross’ and ‘yucky’. I was always keen on having a brother, someone with whom I could play Subbuteo and LEGO, and get into scraps with. Instead I had to make do with the various girly things my sisters offered – although one sister and I did have a game where we saw who could kick the other person the hardest in the crotch; but that’s a different – and more painful – story.

Twenty years later, I’m all grown up and have two sons, with about two and a half years between them, and it’s great to watch them grow up together. They’re not at the age yet when they’re constantly fighting – the eldest is 4; instead, the youngest just copies everything that his older brother does. But I find myself living out the brotherhood I never had through them.

I often wonder what they’ll be like when they’re older, and whether they’ll be an inseparable sibling duo, like the Hardy Boys or Ant and Dec (OK, so they’re not brothers by blood, but they’re practically joined at the hip). I want them to go to the same school, and for one to see the other getting picked on and wade in, fists flailing, having no regard for how much he is going to be told off, instead concerned only with the welfare of his brother. I want them to sneak food up to their bedrooms in the middle of the night, and for me to find them in the morning face-down in a sea of chocolate bar wrappers and cans of Coke.

When they’re older still, I want them to talk in hushed tones together about girls, and for one to console the other in the event of a break-up. I want them to be able to tell each other anything, to be best friends, to go out on the town and have a laugh knowing that each one has the other’s back at all times.

Moving on a few years, I want them to be Best Man at each other’s wedding, and to stand up in front of a hundred guests and tell story after embarrassing story, and I’ll be as proud as punch. And I want them to come over on Christmas Day when I’m old and grey and have lost most of my bladder control, and I can sit in the corner and watch them play with their kids before they nip off to the pub for a swift pint.

But that’s a long way away, and it’s doubtful that they’ll turn out exactly like that. They’ll probably fall out, or go to different universities, and end up being more friends than brothers. But only time will tell. One thing is for sure, though: no matter how big they get, they’ll never be able to beat their dad in a fight.

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