Spending time with siblings can be a bit of a reality check.

Betsy and Susie were home for a few days and we spent a couple of evenings together. It's always interesting to check my memory of our childhood with theirs. My memory more or less sucks. I don't remember much. There are also the shifting experiences that each sibling had. Susie, the youngest, undoubtedly had a completely different experience than Mike, the oldest.

Linda and I have been watching "Evil" on TV. The family has four little girls who all talk at the same time. It's a maddening cacophony.

"That's not how it works," I told Linda, who was much younger than her siblings, almost an only child. We have that somewhat in common in that I was a middle child, in-between a couple of close couples of siblings as well as there being a 4 year gap between me and my sister Tina.

"What happens is that things shake out, that there is a priority of attention. When Mike and Tina were home, I couldn't get a word in edgewise. When they were gone, Betsy probably became the most vocal. I was probably quieter, and I think, so was Susie."

Anyway, much of the dysfunction in our family came earlier, and probably became less severe as time went on.

I've also always maintained that each of us McGeary kids married spouses who had much less fucked up notions about money. I think we also married people who had much more even tempers (which was probably just about anyone.)

Now what I may say about the "temper" issue may sound bad, but I've come to the conclusion that there was a positive side to it.

Basically, we all had volcanic tempers that could erupt and become a full-blown firefight.

But here's the thing. It was usually over fast, and no one ever held a grudge. It was just accepted that it was blowing off steam. It was so accepted that I don't think we thought it abnormal. There would be a huge fight in the morning, and by afternoon everyone would have forgotten about it.

Venture into the work-a-day world, and we find out that venting steam doesn't work too well. People tend to take it personally, and they don't tend to forget it. I also think each of our spouses had to make accommodations to us McGeary fireballs.

But here's the thing. We McGeary kids have never had any kinds of estrangements. We simply don't hold grudges. I'm not sure that letting out our grievances in one eruption and then forgetting it is the worst way to do things. At least, among us--who are accustomed to such behavior and understand it.

But I know one thing--it doesn't work when you're a boss, and it took me a long, long time to learn to adjust my behavior. I didn't always succeed, though I hope and believe that over the years I've gotten better with each new wave of employees.

It also doesn't work with spouses and friends who tend to see such temper tantrums as the end of the world.

Like I said, I think because of my middle of the family position, I became much more of a loner than the rest of my siblings, so I often missed out on what was going on. So talking to Bets and Sue is always revealing, mostly in a reassuring way.