Peg Kehret

The comparison between siblings has become a universal problem over the past several decades, as implied in Peg Kehret’s elementary monologue, I’m NOT My Brother; I’m Me. Through Jonathan, Kehret expresses the valuable message to never judge people based on the characteristics of their siblings. As the oldest child in my family, I support Kehret’s message and additionally believe that every individual is different and hence, should not be judged or compared with their siblings, family members or friends.
To begin, I witness these judgments, comparisons and assumptions being made almost every day amongst my family, leaving me astonished with human nature’s judgmental side. As the oldest child in my family, my brother is always expected to be

as capable of achieving good marks, having great organizational skills and becoming a future IB student, as me. As a result, my brother becomes worried and anxious as to whether he will be able to meet the expectations set by relatives and family friends. To me, it seems that people can no longer distinguish the difference between each individual and their family, thus expecting siblings to be exactly like each other, which is far from the reality. Furthermore, we can see examples of such discrimination in modern literature. As Suzanne Collin’s Mockingjay comes to an end, many trivial characters decide to organize one last “Hunger Games” using the Capitol children as tributes. During this debate, Plutarch points out that President Snow happens to have a young granddaughter, thus implying that she deserves to be a tribute in the final games, despite being the complete opposite of her villainous grandfather: sweet, and gentle as the rain. By judging her based on her family, she is assumed to be as heartless as them and as a result, sentenced to death. Similarly, Calypso, daughter of Atlas (Greek mythology) experiences an identical fate, when she is imprisoned on an island because of the father’s actions during the war between the Titans and the Gods. After their victory, the gods believed Calypso to be just as violent and villainous as her father, and was soon imprisoned, left alone in misery to pay for the crimes of her father even though, she was completely different person. Such stories reveal how family-oriented comparison can completely alter the life of an individual.
Many examples from my personal life, history, mythology and literature have taught me how severely dangerous it is to judge someone based on their siblings, family or friends.