Why can’t you be more like your brother? That’s what my family had always told me. From a very young age, I learned that almost all parents compare their children to their siblings, other kids, and even themselves. They do this because they are ‘better’ than their child at something or they are ‘more’ successful than their kids. They compare their kids with others to motivate them to excel. But they don’t know that comparing their children to their siblings or other kids has the opposite effect on motivation and the child who is being compared may feel sad and develop low self-esteem.

Jealousy can be linked to comparisons with siblings, the results of an online survey show that “Social comparisons between siblings generally predicted feelings of sibling jealousy, which, in turn, were positively related to young adults' depressive symptoms and sibling conflict.”  These findings give knowledge about the nature and implications of sibling relationships during emerging adulthood and clarify the links between young adults' mental and emotional problems that they develop during their childhood. This shows that the feeling of jealousy many people experience is related to the comparisons that we receive with our siblings and besides causing this feeling of jealousy. It also affects our mental health in our childhood and our adulthood.

Our parent’s biggest mistake when they compare us to our siblings is thinking that it will give us the motivation to excel. But this is wrong because this takes away our motivation. When I started middle school my family started to tell me how I needed to be like my older brother because he was always doing good in school, so I always did my best in school. I always tried to get good grades like B’s or A’s but sometimes I couldn’t, and sometimes I would get C’s and a lot of B’s. I know people may think that’s good, but my family wasn’t thinking they were good grades because they started saying “Why are you not like your brother” or “Your brother is so smart you should be like him.” I love my brother but since my family started telling me all these things, I started to get so jealous of him, I started to wish I could be like him. But this also started to affect me so much because I started to think that because I wasn’t like my brother I was never going to be successful, so I started to lose all my motivation, and all the goals I had disappeared by that time.

Comparing your children to their siblings is not OKAY! Parents should stop doing this, so if your parents or family are doing this to you and if is affecting your life, I suggest that you talk to your parents and tell them that what they are doing is not right and you don’t feel comfortable with you being compared to your siblings. tell them to please stop doing this. 

Resources-  Hamwey, Meghan K., and Shawn D. Whiteman. "Jealousy Links Comparisons with Siblings to Adjustment among Emerging Adults." Family Relations, vol. 70, no. 2, 2021, pp. 483-497. ProQuest, proquest.com/scholarly-journals/jealousy-links-comparisons-with-siblings/docview/2500510597/se-2, doi:doi.org/10.1111/fare.12428.

Funkhouser, Carter J., et al. "Prospectively Predicting Adult Depressive Symptoms from Adolescent Peer Dysfunction: A Sibling Comparison Study." Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology, vol. 50, no. 8, 2022, pp. 1081-1093. ProQuest, proquest.com/scholarly-journals/prospectively-predicting-adult-depressive/docview/2705201958/se-2, doi:doi.org/10.1007/s10802-022-00906-4.