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There are six kids in my family, and I am the youngest. For several years we all lived in the same house. During those years the unspoken and sensible rule was that the six of us were supposed to share two bathrooms located upstairs only a few feet away from each other.

The rule was broken one day when my oldest brother, who was then 16, declared that one of the bathrooms was "his" and that the rest of us had to share the other one.

Yes, he made up a rule that no one was allowed to use his bathroom. Presumably, this meant until he was 18 and went off to college at which point he wouldn't care anymore who used either bathroom.

He was serious. Two years seemed like a long time at the time.

To the rest of us kids, this, on its face, seemed unfair. Why should five people use one bathroom and one get one to himself? He was the oldest, but that didn't seem a strong enough reason. Beyond the fairness issue, his declaration struck all of us the same way: slightly if not completely selfish, and slightly if not completely presumptuous, and slightly if not completely combustible enough to tear at the fabric of our family.

It seemed to us as if he was breaking ranks with our unspoken but well understood family code that everyone should be treated fairly and that we all shared in household things equally.

For a while as we digested his new rule, we allowed it to go on. This occurred, I think, because we were reeling that he made such a bold and questionable intra-family maneuver. We didn't know how to react. The move had to be absorbed and chewed on first.

"OK, well, maybe because he is the oldest, and he does deserve his own bathroom," we seemed to say to ourselves. At least I did being nine years younger than him.

This was new territory for me, a family shockwave that took me awhile to process. My older siblings, however, had more life experiences. They were able to sense in the deepest crevices of their beings that our older brother had crossed a family red line. He had intentionally garbled the family code.

While he continued shaving, brushing his teeth and showering in his own bathroom for a few weeks, you could sense rumblings of rebellion building in the house among the second- and third-oldest brothers, and oldest- and second-oldest sisters.

Day after day we were having to wait in line to take showers in our one bathroom - "our" bathroom as opposed to "his" bathroom. It was becoming a daily nuisance especially as we saw our oldest brother prance in and out of his any time he pleased.

Plus our bathroom was getting dirtier and more disheveled. What's more, it wasn't the prettier bathroom. It had a dark green carpet; his was lively pink. In his bathroom it was easier to be put in a happier mood by the brighter color and the less trampled rug and mushier towels.

My oldest sister, known to have the strongest opinions and principles in all family matters, started calling my oldest brother out more often, seemingly daily, that his decision was wrong on its face.

I seem to recall she raised this point a few times while our whole family ate dinner. And you know who is always at a family dinner: Mom and Dad.

Until this, I don't think Mom and Dad had been made aware of their oldest son's dubious behavior. He had been sly, announcing his bathroom to us when Mom and Dad were not around. He may have calculated that they would never find out because he was older and wiser and maybe his younger siblings would buy into his decision. It's also possible he believed that if Mom and Dad asked him about it, they would agree that because he was the oldest he deserved his own bathroom.

I don't recall Mom and Dad getting involved in resolving this family spat. But I do remember that the more my oldest sister pointed out the inequity and inhumaneness, the pressure on my brother mounted even though he would not show he was feeling it.

"This is my bathroom," he would say.

In other words, get out of his bathroom.

Even as a naïve and uneducated seven-year-old, this didn't sound right to me. And I had not yet experienced much of interpersonal relationships and self-centeredness. How could it be "his" bathroom, I remember thinking, when he did not own the house? Mom and Dad did. How could it be "his" bathroom just because he told us it was? If he could do that, I could declare the other bathroom "mine" and tell the others to go to the downstairs bathroom. Just declaring something seemed a powerful tool to wield. But how could he think it right and just to have five people lowering the quality of their lives as the quality of his life soared? Why does he get the better life than us?

By then, my second- and third-oldest brothers had become taller than my oldest. So physical intimidation to change his policy may have been a factor in the reversal of this proclamation. But the biggest reason we stopped this madness were the annoyingly well-articulated, prickly, and sometimes unsettling complaints by my oldest sister. She did not see any way around the fact that this bathroom rule was not right. And when she decided something was not right, she was going to let you hear about it and the chances of her changing her mind were zero.

While my oldest brother never relented in claiming "his" bathroom, the rest of us just starting using his bathroom without asking his permission. There were never any arguments or fisticuffs. It just became the rule of the other five kids that we were not going to let Big Brother push us around.

Even as the youngest I remember going in that bathroom when I felt like it and not worrying about my oldest brother ripping on me to get out. I had four other siblings, a Band of Brothers and Sisters, who had my back. Our family feud dissipated.

My oldest brother went to college two years later. Going to college resolves many family issues. And my oldest sister continued to call anybody out in our family who she believed was being unprincipled.

The bathroom situation was a bonding experience for our family, and a blow to my oldest brother. We are all better for it.

To all of them, I declare that this essay is "mine."

- Charles Hartley

Charles Hartley is a freelance writer who has had more than 1,000 articles published in a wide range of media outlets focused on humor, sports, business, technology and consumers. He has earned master's degrees in journalism and business administration and a bachelor's degree in English and communications.