People who grew up with siblings may have felt that they were being treated unfairly by their parents compared to their brother or sister at least once. Maybe because parents aren’t as strict with their younger children as they were with the older. Maybe because the older sibling gets cooler presents than the younger.
The worst part here is that some parents don’t understand why one of their children may be upset. They may disregard their feelings and tell them to be content if they get anything at all, which would make the child feel even worse, as it shows that the feeling they had was wrong.
A clueless dad like this came to Reddit asking if he was wrong for giving his daughter $4,000 for Christmas and $800 worth of presents to his son as he expressed he felt it was unfair.
Parents give their older daughter a more valuable Christmas gift compared to their son's and the dad wants to shake off the blame
Image credits: Nicole Michalou (not the actual image)
The Original Poster (OP) has two adult children and the younger son, who is 22 years old, is still living with them while the older daughter moved out a few years ago and moved into her own home last summer.
The family gathered to celebrate Christmas and exchanged gifts. The daughter received an ugly jar that she was disappointed to get but when she opened it, the mood changed entirely as it contained $4,000. The parents thought it would come in handy as they remember that when they had just moved into their house, it needed repairs, which exhausted their funds very quickly. The son, on the other hand, received a few different gifts that the parents spent about $800 on.
After the holidays passed and the daughter left, the son approached his parents and expressed that he felt hurt that his and his sister’s presents were so different in value. He felt that the parents were more proud of the sister because she moved out at about the same age he is now and she already has a house.
The response the son received for his honesty was his mom’s frustration and anger. The dad tried to justify their decision and explain their thought process, trying to convince the son that it didn’t mean that they love him any less.
The parents gifted their daughter $4,000 in cash and their son $800 worth of gifts
Image credits: u/JollyOldSaintNicki
That didn’t help the son feel better and he let his parents know that he is sad. So they tried to figure out how they could have done better. The son just wanted equally valuable gifts. He didn’t care if both of them got the smaller or the bigger amount.
After the son’s suggestion, the parents became defensive and called the son entitled because it’s their money and they can do whatever they want with it. While it is true, what they failed to consider was how those decisions may make their children feel.
The son was hurt and didn’t want to continue the conversation with his parents, which made the mom even more irritated, and the dad felt guilty that he made his son feel bad, but was unsure if he truly did something wrong.
The story received more than 6k responses in the comments in which people said that the situation was pretty bad and explained why they thought that the parents were being jerks and inconsiderate people.
After the daughter left, the son approached his parents and expressed that he felt hurt about getting the worse gift
Image credits: u/JollyOldSaintNicki
Bored Panda contacted Dr. Laura Markham of Aha! Parenting who was trained as a Clinical Psychologist at Columbia University and whose peaceful parenting philosophy is also grounded in her own experiences as a mother, to confirm that readers were right to describe the parents' behavior as dismissive. The expert agreed.
She also expanded on that, "Every parent has at some point been blind to their child's point of view. It's hard to then admit how clueless you were and how you inadvertently caused pain to your own child. Plus, these parents are under attack on the internet. Being under public attack does not motivate them to vulnerably admit their mistakes. But they do owe their son an apology and a repair. And they made things much worse by 'attacking' their son for being 'entitled.'"
The parents explained that the daughter just bought a house and it comes with its own expenses
Image credits: u/JollyOldSaintNicki
The redditors had a couple observations. First of all, their reaction to their son approaching them with his feelings in a mature way was pretty awful. They started making excuses instead of being compassionate and rather than validating her son’s feelings, the mom wanted him to know that now she is hurt.
Dr. Laura Markham believes that the parents in the story didn't even realise that the son wasn't complaining about how much the parents spent on him compared to his sister but what the difference meant to him, "They are on the defensive and are attacking their son for sharing his feelings with them. They are not actually offering him any understanding of how he feels and why."
It didn't seem like a good reason to the son and the way he saw it was that the parents weren't as proud of him as of their daughter
Image credits: u/JollyOldSaintNicki
Second of all, there wasn’t anything wrong in giving the daughter money, because she has a house and it comes with unexpected expenses. But the timing was terrible. Redditors thought that the children’s Christmas gifts should have been of similar value and the rest of the money for the daughter could have been gifted at any time in the year. It shouldn’t have been framed as a Christmas gift at all.
The parenting expert also agreed that "The rule of thumb for parents is to ALWAYS give kids gifts of roughly the same value for the holidays. It is fine to give the daughter money for her house. BUT that is not appropriate for a holiday present unless the son gets the same amount. The parents could have given both kids $800 or the equivalent (which by the way seems like a lot for a holiday present) and then, separately, given their daughter a housewarming present of $3200. They should do that openly and let the son know that when he gets his own place someday, they have $3200 set aside for him. (Yes, that could be years away, but it needs to be the same amount.)"
That being said, there were redditors who received a lot of support for saying that the parents are not at fault because they explained the reason in the disparity and it was logical assuming that they would do the same for their son when the occasion arose. Also, they found it weird that a 22 Y.O. would complain about this.
The son's complaints made the mom frustrated and the parents reminded the son that it's their money and they can do whatever they want with it
Image credits: u/JollyOldSaintNicki
However, there were a lot more people pointing out the parents’ unacceptable behavior and the dad saw those comments, so he invited his son to talk about his feelings a bit more.
Turns out, the son felt unwelcome in his parents’ house and thought their unequal treatment of him was proof of that. He deduced that since his sister moved out at 21 years old, his parents expected him to do the same.
The dad reassured that he doesn’t mind his son staying at his house longer than his sister, but the mom was pretty annoyed that her son was being gloomy and again turned the narrative to become the victim because her son never even thanked the parents for their present and only told them that he liked them.
After this conflict, the son stopped talking with his parents and the story on Reddit went pretty viral, with many people having their own opinions
Image credits: JoslynLM (not the actual image)
Image credits: u/JollyOldSaintNicki
She also attacked him for making it look like he only lived with his parents because it was free, which made the 22-year-old cry. However, it seems that the son was pretty unhappy with his life in general. He thought he wasn’t successful like his sister, so his parents weren’t as proud. He also didn’t believe that he could be successful and he might just be stuck where he is for the rest of his life.
What would Dr. Laura Markham suggest parents to say in a situation when their childen come to them expressing they don't feel loved enough is smething of the following statements: "I hear how upset you are about this. Tell me more." "I can see why you felt this way. We certainly did not mean it this way." "I am so sorry. I never intended to hurt you." "We love you so much and we could never love anyone more than we love you. We see how you are interpreting this as loving your sister more, even though we never meant it that way. Thank you so much for telling us. We are so sorry we did not see this from your point of view."
The truly felt inferior to his sister and maybe that’s why he was so upset when he saw that his parents gave her so much more for Christmas than him. It was not about the presents themselves, but about what they meant for him.
When anwering Bored Panda's questions the expert wanted to point out that "The son showed remarkable maturity in waiting to bring this up with the parents until after their holiday celebration and his sister had left. HIs parents now have the responsibility of apology and repair. Maybe they can use this opportunity to become closer to their son instead of driving him away."
Many of them agreed that it wasn't right to combine the Christmas and housewarming gifts and that was what lead to these comparisons
Image credits: u/JollyOldSaintNicki
Readers had quite a strong reaction to the update as well, pointing out how the mom kept pulling the attention away from her son’s issue to herself. And they suspected that the son might have some serious issues that need sorting out.
They once again came to the conclusion that the parents are dismissing their child’s emotions as was also confirmed by Dr. Laura Markham. Parenting For Brain explains that “An emotion-dismissing parent is a parent who consciously or unconsciously belittles their child’s negative feelings or emotional expression. They invalidate their child’s emotions and make the child feel bad about having those feelings.”
They also suspected that it wasn't about the money, but instead about the son feeling less loved
Image credits: u/JollyOldSaintNicki
Although it can be without the intention to hurt the child. Actually, it is pretty widespread and isn't restricted just to parent and child relationships. There can be a few reasons for parents being dismissive.
They might have been brought up with the same parenting style so if they ‘turned out just fine’ there is no harm. They also may believe that children just can’t have those emotions as they are wrong.
It is possible that the parents lack emotional intelligence and just don’t understand their children’s emotions, can’t relate to them and deny that they exist altogether.
Parenting For Brain also adds that some parents believe that if they ignore the negative emotions, they will go away, but in reality, the children just suppress them or close off to their parents.
The dad read through those comments and initiated a conversation with his son, during which he found out that he was afraid of being a disappointment
Image credits: u/JollyOldSaintNicki
Image credits: Christian Erfurt (not the actual image)
Being raised by such parents can lead to a number of side effects that adult children will be suffering from. Medium points out that “As the adult children of dismissive parents, it is often hard for us to harbor healthy romantic relationships. This occurs because of an intrinsic fear of attachment and love, which comes from an unfamiliarity with the subject altogether.”
Not only that, but it affects other relationships as well because the person may isolate themselves from everyone else, be selfish or allow themselves to remain in toxic relationships. Cognitive behavioral therapist Avigail Lev adds a number of other issues that might come up: low self-esteem, self-doubt, paranoid tendencies, difficulty making decisions, self-blaming and shame, tendency to be a people pleaser, etc.
The 22-year-old compared himself to his sister and to his parents and was hopeless that he would reach that level of success; on top of that, his job made him miserable
Image credits: u/JollyOldSaintNicki
It’s important to acknowledge the feelings of others but sometimes it’s hard to judge when it’s the other person in the wrong or when the problem is you. It seems that people in the comments tend to blame the parents more, but we would like to hear your opinions. Whose side are you on and how do you think this situation can be resolved?
However, what the readers took from the update was that the parents were pretty dismissive of their son's intention and especially disliked the mom's reactions
