Elaine Brandi's Brother

I grew up the younger sibling to quite the extraordinary older brother. It was always, "so, you're Chris Anderson's sister. We expect big things from you." The ongoing comparisons caused me to dub him "Golden Boy" when I was around 10. Even in college, I was right on his heels and in direct comparison. I remember one professor stopping mid-lecture as it suddenly dawned on him that I was that Anderson. He seemed truly flummoxed that I belonged to Chris.

I suppose the whole situation could have been worse if I weren't an above average student myself. While I wasn't "Chris" smart, I wasn't hurting in the intellect department, and I had a few talents that Chris did not, so my self-esteem didn't take a crushing blow from falling short of my older brother's achievements. But, I won't pretend that it didn't grow tiring being identified as "Chris's sister."

Rest assured that at 34 I'm not feeling the chill of Golden Boy's shadow. But those old feelings were stirred up over the weekend when realizing I compare Nick to Lainey much more than I should. While I suppose it's natural to use Lainey as a benchmark for development (she is the baby I know best), I get a little too antsy when Nick's not at the same milestone she was at his age. While she has always blown away the standard developmental markers (sometimes by months), he recently "failed" his 10-month developmental questionnaire. His communication and fine motor skills are solid, but he's struggling a bit in the gross motor category. After talking through a few items with the doctor and the progress he's made in the past month, she felt confident it was nothing to be worried about and he didn't require and extra trip to the office before his one-year check up. She gave me the "all babies develop differently" speech, but I still joked with Mark that Nick is going to grow up "Elaine Brandi's brother."

I suppose comparisons are inevitable if  you have a sibling close in age, and the younger one will always be the second on the scene. It's just something I want to be cognizant of as they grow and start pursuing interests. There are a lot of things I did along the way simply because Chris did them first, not because I was particularly interested. And there were also things I didn't go after, because he had already been there, done that, and killed it, so why even bother.

As time goes on and things getting more complicated than who sat up or walked first, I'm not sure what I'll do from a parenting standpoint to help my kids find their own identities independent of each other. I'll just have to wait and see how things shake out. Who knows, maybe this will be a complete non-issue for them. At the end of the day, if my biggest worry for my kids' well being is whether they both get ample opportunity to shine, I'll take it and count my blessings!

I hope I can still get this shot when they're teenagers