Writing Odyssey articles usually consists of taking a personal experience, seeing how you can make it relatable, and putting it on paper in a way that brings people to question their experiences or reflect on some part of their lives that they never considered before. So, the topic which I would like to discuss with you today revolves around the topic of siblings. Particularly, I am going to focus on how absolutely stupid and frankly dangerous it is for siblings to be compared (in an academic arena or otherwise.)

To avoid hurting feelings and overstepping boundaries I'm going to step away from my own personal experience and speak in a broader sense, mainly on the subject of education. When you're a kid, everything is pretty simple in the academic scope of things. Of course, some kids hate math or English but you just practice and things become easier. They have to become easier as you're basically putting down the foundation for the rest of your education.

Further down the line, one might still hate either English or math (there are other subjects one can hate, I'm just sticking to these two for my convenience) and sometimes it's not because it's difficult, they just find the material bland and useless! However, in the eyes of a parent—or any authority figure—a child disinterested in academic pursuits looks severely more dangerous.

Here is where we come to the rivalry part. I'm not talking about siblings hating each other for pointless reasons, I'm talking about parents (or whoever) comparing kids (siblings) to a point where they become so obsessed with one-upping the other for approval that nothing else matters. It's unhealthy, pointless, and it needs to stop.

Not only does this rivalry continue after one has completed their academic journey in life, these feelings of animosity continue well into adulthood. Instead of siblings supporting each other in their respective pursuits in either the humanities or STEM fields, they are looking over their shoulders at what adults are saying. How they might be perceiving one's success as compared to their brother's or sister's.

Sibling rivalry also serves to lower one's self-esteem when they don't reach up to their sibling's achievements. Being left in the shadow of a more successful sibling only makes one feel worse about themselves for not achieving a goal which was obviously achievable, as showcased by their own sibling.

Now that I've got all that out of my system, it's important to look toward solutions to the problem. Of course, it's difficult to change the mindset that comes with such a deeply ingrained concept to compare siblings to one another, however, not comparing yourself to your siblings is equally important. Instead of standing by the comparisons, ignore them. Help your siblings better themselves while also trying to improve yourself. If we continue to let ourselves be compared it can only lead to poisonous relationships that may never recover.