Curse OF Having A super-sibling
They grew up in the shadow of their gifted brothers or sisters – and never lost the feelings of inadequacy. Here, in unflinching accounts that will chime with so many, they reveal the...
sCHOOl report day in Hazel edwards’s childhood home was always a fraught time. Not because she was a low-achiever or trouble maker — far from it.
The mother- of-two was a good student who took her schoolwork very seriously, and had earned a place at the grammar school. The cause of her distress was the glittering, praise-dripping, A-grade piece of wonder her highly intelligent big brother brought home.
After attending the same private primary school — where he was known as ‘the clever one’ — Hazel’s older brother won a scholarship to a top fee-paying secondary school, before studying law at Cambridge.
There’s only two years between the pair, but from a young age Hazel, now 45, was highly attuned to her older brother’s academic prowess and what she saw as her own mediocrity in comparison.
While her parents didn’t compare the two and worked hard to ensure Hazel never felt she was second best, Hazel says her brother’s brilliance, and spending her entire life in his shade, gave her an inferiority complex that she’s only just beginning to shake off.
‘My brother was a quiet, studious, highachiever; while i was rowdy, scatty, and creative but not very academic,’ reflects Hazel, who lives in Kent with her husband Mark, 51, a civil servant, and their children aged 17 and 14.
‘For a long time i didn’t try as hard as i could have done, because i didn’t think it was worth it to compete. i’d never be as clever as him,’ she says. ‘As an adult, that sense of not being as talented has eaten into my relationships and held me back about 20 years in my career choices.’
She is just one example of a rarely recognised but sizable demographic — the adults who feel held back and humiliated for their whole lives, after vying with a gifted brother or sister as a child.
Sibling rivalries are as common in childhood as sticky fingers and temper tantrums. But there is a distinct difference between tussles over toys, or Mum’s attention, and feeling consistently overlooked in favour of someone who is particularly talented (be it in academia, music, art or sport).
Margaret McAllister, an educational psychologist, says it’s common for there to be lasting discord where there’s one child who feels noticeably less gifted.
‘How it affects that child, and for how long, depends on how the parents handle it,’ she says. ‘Some parents are rather unwise and if their first one or two children are clearly very able and talented, they then expect subsequent children to be the same.
‘if children are the same gender, any differences between their abilities can be even more pronounced, as there’s likely to be more direct comparisons or competition between them.’
Hazel recently unearthed her old school reports during a clear out, and found they bore testament to her sense of being decidedly average, featuring frequent comments such as ‘Hazel must be more confident’ and ‘Hazel needs to push herself forwards more’.
WHile
it’s easy to blame the parents, many children with talented siblings develop insecurities, however encouraged and supported they might be by Mum and Dad.
Hazel, who spent years helping to run her mother’s bridal shop and has recently launched her own bridal accessories business, says: ‘i didn’t understand that by passing the 11-plus to go to grammar school, i’d done very well, too.
‘i remember my parents being really pleased i’d got in, but i still felt average. i thought my creative abilities were of less value than my brother’s academic brain.
‘Mum and Dad never made negative comments or comparisons, but every time my brother achieved something, such as an A-grade, i decided i wasn’t good enough. in hindsight, it’s ridiculous.
‘ Other people were always making comments about my brother, such as: “He’s so bright.” He’s also the only grandson on my mum’s side, amidst a lot of girls, so he was seen as a bit of a God — although he was never arrogant.
‘i knocked my own confidence by comparing myself to him and it has eaten into lots of areas of my life, including my marriage, where my lack of self-esteem has caused countless rows over the years.
‘even now i still have a tendency to run myself down, which infuriates my husband. He’ll often say: “Have you heard yourself? You’re so self-critical.” ’
After Cambridge, her brother landed a corporate management role and is a director of analytics for a media company. After school, Hazel went to the london School of Printing and spent ten tears in the printing industry before having her children.
‘i’d never have been a doctor or a lawyer, even if i’d worked harder, but i would certainly have had the confidence to set up my own business 20 years earlier if i hadn’t felt so inferior,’ she says.
it was only when she joined a local business group a year ago, where she was encouraged to scrutinise her own abilities and values, that Hazel’s thought patterns finally started to shift.
‘Mum read something i’d written for an exercise i had to do at the business group about my own perceived failings as a child and said it made her feel really sad, because they never once thought of me as being second best.
‘i reassured her that it wasn’t her fault — it’s just how i chose to see things. i had no idea until recently that she has kept lots of the little things i made as a child, such as dolls clothes, a matchbox bedroom and pieces of embroidery.
‘As a parent, i now understand that mums and dads just want their child to be happy. They don’t need them to set the world alight.’
Ms McAllister says that doing an honest audit of their own abilities — as Hazel did — can be a very powerful process for people who have grown up feeling inferior.
‘They may have been the less obviously talented sibling, for example if they weren’t top of the class, but what they must do as adults is examine the things they like most or least, what they’re good at and the things they find difficult,’ she explains.
‘That way, you begin to get a clearer picture of yourself and how you can perform in the wider world, rather than how you compare to your brother or sister. You might realise that, though you don’t have what it takes to be a judge, you’re nevertheless very creative, or you have great empathy and understanding for others.’
‘All children are individuals and nobody’s good at everything. if you’re a parent of young children, be aware of their feelings and interests and put those above your own expectations. Make it clear each child is valued. it’s important to acknowledge when they have done something well.’
it all sounds familiar to Yee Kwan Chan, 42, who grew up in Sheffield with five academically gifted siblings — three older sisters and a younger brother and sister.
They all breezed through exams and university and went on to become an investment banker, a marketing expert at a private equity firm, a high-flying lawyer, a fine artist and the head of sales at the NASDAQ in Hong Kong.
Meanwhile, Yee Kwan worried she lagged behind. ‘i felt like the dunce of the family from the moment i started secondary school, where there was suddenly so much focus on academic subjects and exams,’ says Yee Kwan, who lives in Sheffield with her husband Anthony, 43, a property developer, and their three children aged 11, six and four.
‘i was sporty and represented the school at rounders, netball and athletics, but unlike my siblings i
‘After years of feeling inferior, maybe I’ve had the last laugh’
wasn’t particularly studious. Nevertheless, I felt I had to try and emulate their achievements.
‘Although my parents, who owned a takeaway, never said anything, the unspoken rule was that they expected me to keep up academically. But I got poor grades, while my sisters all got amazing results. Coupled with being bullied at secondary school, it affected my confidence. To try to prove myself to my parents I went through clearing to get into university.
‘I chose a degree in quantity surveying, purely because it sounded professional and I thought my parents would approve — but I had no clue what it would entail.’ Yee Kwan scraped through with a third class degree, and got a place on a graduate training scheme with a contractor. Eight years later she achieved chartered surveyor status.
‘I hated my job, but I thought at least I’d proved to my parents that I wasn’t a failure and showed my sisters I was worth respecting.’
After being made redundant during the recession in 2008, Yee Kwan finally decided to indulge her true passions. The results have been spectacular. Inspired by a year spent travelling around Asia with her husband, she launched an ice cream brand (called Yee Kwan) featuring East Asian flavours.
A decade on, she employs seven staff, exports to ten countries in Europe and has signed a deal with a Chinese distributor worth more than £2 million.
Though her mother died in 2004, her father was very supportive. ‘I’m finally doing something that I love, instead of feeling that I have to live up to my siblings,’ Yee Kwan explains. ‘But after all those years of feeling inferior, maybe I’ve had the last laugh because I’m now doing something I truly adore.’
Dr Peter Congdon, educational psychologist and founder of the Gifted Children’s Information Centre in Solihull, says: ‘Parents and teachers need to be careful not to overlook one child in favour of another. I always tell parents that it’s all very well having high intelligence, but in the end it’s motivation, drive and flair that counts.
‘The best preparation for growing up is to have lived fully as a child, and parents of very clever children should not forget this. Pressurising them can come at the expense of slowing down their social and emotional growth. Harness their interests and, above all, allow them to be children.’
Far from spurring them on, having a prodigiously talented brother or sister can hold back a more run-of-the-mill sibling in life, as Kathryn Vaughan can attest.
A qualified teacher, who currently works part-time as a teaching assistant, she believes she could have achieved far more had she not allowed herself to feel inferior to her two younger sisters.
kathryn, 32, who lives in Hertfordshire with her husband and their children, aged four and two, says: ‘My middle sister has always been academically gifted, and my younger sister (who is blind) has overcome so many obstacles and made a real success of her life.
‘All three of us are musical but they both have amazing singing voices, particularly my middle sister, and they sang in a youth choir with whom they travelled to Italy most summers on tour.
‘Our parents didn’t compare us but I still always thought my middle sister was the favourite. It caused a lot of resentment when I was aged 11 to 15, because I felt I wasn’t doing as well as her.
‘I became rebellious towards teachers and flunked my GCSEs and A-levels, even crossing out questions and writing swear words to sabotage myself.’
Kathryn scraped into university in Plymouth to study international management and very nearly failed her degree, but ‘redeemed’ herself by studying for a PGCE teaching qualification.
Her middle sister got a first- class degree from Bath and has just completed a PhD in biochemistry, while her younger sister is a civil servant.
‘My sisters and I all get on wonderfully well now and I have so much respect for them, but when I look at their achievements I still beat myself up for “just” getting married and having children,’ she says.
‘They fulfilled my dad’s academic expectations, whereas in the end he felt my only hope would be to marry a man with a very good job and become a mum. ‘Had I not been so hung up on comparing myself to my sisters, I’d have focused on what actually interested me and may have gone into paediatric nutrition. I worry it’s too late now.
‘But despite my frustrations and feeling envious that my sisters are now living the lives I’d have loved to have, I know that I’m so lucky in many other ways.
‘It’s time to try to stop comparing myself to them.’