One of my daughters names as her most aggravating school assignment the “Compare and Contrast” essay so common in middle and high school English classes. She hates it passionately, saying it makes her feel creatively inhibited and “stuck” being reactionary. It occurred to me that this isn’t so different from “real life”—especial family life where we tend to constantly be comparing ourselves with others and contrasting our choices, decisions and burdens with others. For siblings, “compare and contrast” seems to be a fact of life, and for many of us parents, it’s pretty darn tough to avoid comparing our children to each other, other people’s children, ourselves when we were children, and on and on and on.
I’ve learned over the years to bite my tongue HARD when I feel a comparison coming on. Slipping up and saying something like, “Your sister usually remembers to call and tell me of her plans” can be major, bad cheese (as we like to say at our house when things are just not good or pleasant or right). And definitely, combating the inevitable comparisons with each other, the neighbors, kids at school, and kids on television—oh, you name it—the opportunities for comparisons are certainly out there! And it’s quite rare that any good can come of it, if you ask me.
It takes a great deal of personal strength and internal confidence to avoid comparisons. It’s really about trusting in each person’s individuality and understanding that we all have different strengths and weaknesses—as parents, as children, and as people. Our Western world seems to only operate in terms of competition, comparison and reaction—so it doesn’t come easily for us to let that go and just celebrate the uniqueness of each individual without having to compare him or her to someone else in order to do it.
To get a grasp of how tough it is to avoid comparisons, try being aware for just one day—try taking note of all the times you compare what you’re wearing with the other people in the grocery store, what’s in your cart compared to the others, your children’s behavior to each other or to your friend’s children—take notice of the conversations you have with people and how much comparing and contrasting is going on with just about every subject. I wonder if my daughter is right and we get stuck being reactionary when we’re trained to think of everything as a comparison with something or someone else?
Related Articles: How to Deal With Sibling Rivalry,
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Giving Siblings a Break from Each Other