In our family lore, as told mostly by my mother, my brother was extremely protective of me. He was also wonderful, smart, talented, etc., etc. In fact, even if a story she told started out being about me, it ended up with him as the star.
When we would go someplace, she would urge him, "Watch out for your sister!" while urging me, "Listen to your brother!"
Years later, as an adult, I found out something that I think quite significant. My grandmother, my mother's mother, was alarmed at how compliant I was and how easily my brother bossed me around, as if I was under his spell or something. She feared what sort of adult I would become: would all men control me that easily? She warned my mother to intervene and not to allow this dynamic to continue.
Apparently my mother either disagreed or didn't care. She found it amusing how my brother would boss me around. She laughed about how he wanted to become world dictator. Not only did she never suggest, encourage, or empower me to stand up to him, she continued to insist, "Listen to your brother!"
She never discouraged me brother from his attempts to control me either. She never said, "You have no right to order your sister around!" Instead, she seemed to encourage it.
