Blogs by Flo Fitzpatrick
P.O.S.S. (Perfect Older Sibling Syndrome)
8/23/2025 7:12:34 AM
With school starting, I thought I’d share some words of wisdom about P.O.S.S. More commonly known as Perfect Older Sibling Syndrome.
P.O.S.S. occurs in families with a younger child following behind an older, always brilliant and/or talented, sibling in school and ending up with the same teacher that Big Bro or Sis so greatly impressed. A teacher (or coach or head of the Scouts etc.) who looks at Little Bro or Sis, flashes an indescribably superior expression I call THE LOOK and then asks THE QUESTION: “ARE YOU AS SMART AND TALENTED AS YOUR OLDER BROTHER (OR SISTER)?” Little Bro or Sis immediately stares at the flooring searching for a trap door that will open up and deliver them into the basement where they can spend the day with the school custodian who doesn’t give a rap about their IQ or ability to compose a symphony rivaling one of Beethoven’s.
I’m a younger sibling who dealt with P.O.S.S. And, for me, it was double the problem because I was following twins. Two syndromes for the price of one. (On the plus side, maybe it’s why I became a dancer. The twins were very musical but neither was anywhere near being Fred Astaire.)
Now…let’s be clear. I dearly loved my older brothers. They read to me when I was a baby. They taught me to play baseball. They let me hang out with them and their friends. They didn’t rat me out when I snuck into the den past bedtime to watch episodes of Twilight Zone. Not once did they sneak a snake or frog or any other critter into my bed or lunch box. They introduced me to cool music and lent me their Hardy Boys and Tom Swift novels. They played Clue with me after I broke my arm. They took meTrick R’ Treating at Halloween. Seriously, folks…truly wonderful brothers. They did make fun of the first novel I wrote at age nine by pointing out that it wasn’t feasible for The Skinner Family to visit their Aunt Donna in Ireland by taking a train from New York to Dublin… but that’s another story. Back to the bros. Wonderful, yes, but also smart and talented. Both of them.
The problem wasn’t with the twins…it was with the teachers. Usually nuns. Make that almost always nuns. Every year at the beginning of school, there was at least one nun who spotted my last name, then gave me the “look,” which was followed by THE QUESTION. “You’re Don and Bob’s little sister! Are you as smart and talented as they are?” I swear there was a conspiracy among the school principals because, even though I was four years younger than the twins, somehow Sister Mary Misanthrope who taught them in 6th grade would be assigned to 3rd grade the next year so I couldn’t escape.
But…back to THE QUESTION. Kids with P.O.S.S. hear it and it begins. The despair. The desire to head to the principal’s office and request a transfer to a school out of state. Or the country. The fumbling for words with which to respond. The hope that no one else was within hearing distance. The hunt for a desk large enough to crawl under. It’s not pretty.
And, worse, it doesn’t go away the next year because there is always at least one teacher who adored the older sibling. (Heck, I was crazy enough to attend the same durn college as my brothers and actually got THE QUESTION from a professor or two…although by that time I’d figured out the perfect response.)
Which I will now share with all the kids suffering from P.O.S.S. It will change your life. And it’s simple. It’s one word.
Ready? The response. First…smile. You have to smile. This doesn’t work unless you smile.
Then take a beat. This doesn’t work unless you take a beat… a short one.
Let me repeat THE QUESTION (Yeah, I know you know it, but it works better for the ending).
“Are you as smart and as talented as your sibling?”
Smile. Take a beat.
Then. Just. Say, “No.”
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