It must have been weird right? How do you cope with him being smarter than you? Do you ever feel inferior? Is he like Sheldon from the Big Bang Theory?
To them, the knowledge that someone could be at university at 13 years old is strange.
But to me, this has simply been the everyday of my life. This was my normal.
My brother Jacob is younger than me by three and a half years. By the time he was eight years old, he was already able to do university-level calculus. By the time he was 10, he was bumped up to Year 10 mathematics. By the time he was 12, he completed Extension two and Extension one HSC mathematics for Year 12. After finishing a Bachelor of Advanced Mathematics (Honours I) at 18, he is now in America studying to get a PhD.
To me, however, the story is a little different.
Up until Jacob was 8 years old, he was an adorable little kid who I was able to convince to wear my purple fairy dress with wings. By the time he was 10, he had accidentally stabbed me in the hand with a pick axe (that we were definitely not supposed to be playing with) while we were searching for worms to feed our pet yabbie that we took home from the farm. By the time he was 13, I was filming him complete his maths homework while providing commentary as David Attenborough with a bad accent. While he was finishing a Bachelor of Advanced Mathematics (Honours I), we would carpool on the way to uni and sing these stupid songs along the way. Now, he is in America, eating $1 New York pizza slices and attempting to navigate moving out of home for the first time.
To be completely honest with you, growing up with Jacob was exactly the same as growing up with any other younger brother. He just happened to be a child genius.
Sometimes, he was annoying. Most of the time, I annoyed him. In the end though, we love each other and we have each other’s backs (but don’t tell him I said that).
"As cliché as it is, I may not be gifted in maths as he is, but I am gifted in my own way."
Was it difficult at times? Sure it was. As a teenager, sometimes I would question my own self-worth or feel inferior. But really, what teenager doesn’t feel these things at times?
The thing is, these feelings of inadequacy and comparing oneself to your sibling is not unique to me. It’s just part of human nature to feel that way sometimes.
Maybe your sibling is just that little bit more successful than you or has always been better looking than you or has always been a little more social than you. Mine just happens to be really, really good at maths.
As cliché as it is, I may not be gifted in maths as he is, but I am gifted in my own way. In the same way, we all have our own gifts and things that we are good at – whether it be something academic, practical, athletic, social or anything.
