Having a family that loves you and supports you at every step is no less than a blessing. A loving family means exploring life with the people you love the most because they’ll always be right by your side.
It provides you with a sense of peace and guarantees your mental well-being. Of course, there might be a few disagreements along the way, but you know that you can absolutely rely on them no matter what.
It’s only the best-case scenario. Unfortunately, many people struggle with toxic families that don’t follow the standard norm of a healthy relationship and choose to exist in emotional chaos. The environment starts to feel almost unbearable and what is supposed to be a home becomes a simple residential building.
Here’s a similar story of an online user who took it to one of Reddit’s famous communities to share his rather unfair story regarding his parents’ blatant display of favoritism towards their firstborn child. The post received nearly 13K upvotes and 1.6K worth of comments discussing the couple’s inexcusable behavior.
Having a big family is amazing, but only until your parents start to choose favorites
When choosing to have a big family, all parents know that it’s important to treat your kids equally. Having multiple children could potentially lead to some sort of unintentional favoritism – though usually, folks know that treating your offspring differently could lead to serious problems. However, it feels like this particular family is not so bothered by the feelings of their youngest son.
Family drama ensues after parents gifted their oldest son a car, but didn’t do the same for his sibling
The author begins his story with a little disclaimer. He explains that he knows how the title of the post truly sounds, though he asks the fellow Redditors to hear him out. The OP has an older brother who was lucky to get a car for his 18th birthday. It wasn’t a new vehicle nor it was something expensive – but it was in great condition. The sibling then revealed that his brother didn’t hesitate and teased him about the new addition for the rest of his senior year of high school.
To add some context, the author also mentions that in terms of grades and overall achievements, he was doing just as well as his older brother. Moreover, he used to volunteer and clean up garbage in their local area, so naturally, he was also expecting to receive a car as his 18th birthday gift. Of course, he didn’t want anything out of the ordinary – just a car that would get him around. But when the birthday finally came, the OP revealed that, frankly, it was nothing like the party his brother had.
Relatives supported the author when he decided to confront his parents
The sibling shared that his mother personally baked a cake for his brother’s birthday, whereas he was surprised with a supermarket sheet cake. The brother even had a DJ at his party, but the OP had his dad’s old boombox with a couple of mixed CDs. Eventually, the party was coming to an end and the author was hanging on his last thread of hope, thinking that his parents would surprise him in just a moment – however, that didn’t happen either. In the end, the OP decided that it was time to confront his parents and ask why he didn’t receive a vehicle if his older brother did. His folks openly said they believe that their oldest worked much harder for it, but the author didn’t accept this odd answer and wondered what his sibling did that he didn’t.
Luckily for the author, his grandmother was nearby and managed to hear this unpleasant conversation. The woman didn’t think twice and started voicing her utter disappointment about this whole favoritism situation. The conversation eventually turned into an actual family conflict, so the author decided that it’d be best to go and think about it in his room. Later on, the sibling shared that he had actually gotten a few phone calls from relatives saying how sorry they were and that his birthday was finished with an evening outing with his grandparents.
However, once the author came back home, his parents were pretty furious and told him that he had humiliated them in front of the whole family. The next few weeks were spent in complete silence, though the surprise was yet to come. One day, the parents gifted their youngest son that long-awaited car, yet the gift was practically thrown at him and given without any sort of enthusiasm. Naturally, the author felt horrible about it, as it seemed that he’d purely blackmailed his family into getting him that vehicle.
The author edited the post to address a few things and explain his situation more thoroughly
Once the post started getting some feedback from all the users, the author decided to edit it to debunk some speculation. The OP revealed that his parents make pretty good money and as far as he’s aware, the only thing that affects their finances is his older brother’s college tuition, though he has a partial scholarship. The sibling then goes to share that his intentions are completely opposite to his brother’s and that he plans to fully sponsor his own college education.
The sibling also shared that the reason behind the favoritism isn’t due to gender. He also added that his car cost his parents $1600, whereas his brother’s car was a whopping $3000. Additionally, he mentioned that he did talk about getting a car a few times prior to his birthday, but because his folks always dodged the conversations, he decided to stop talking about it all together.
In addition, we managed to reach out to the author to find out a little more about the relationship within the family. We asked the OP to describe what kind of bond he has with his older brother, to which he replied: “my brother… I almost don’t even have a relationship with him. He was nice to me when we were kids. But he got meaner as he got older. And my parents put their focus on him. And that only stroked his ego. After he left for college he changed a little. Wasn’t so cocky and arrogant towards me. He wasn’t anything towards me really. Was practically a robot that only said a few words.”
The OP thanked his parents for the long-awaited gift but they didn’t seem to be enthusiastic about it
We then wondered if the author could remember when the environment in the family started to change and the OP said: “as kids, my parents started out treating my brother and I equally. I wanna say it was around the time I was 10 that it started to change. From there, the rest is pretty obvious.” We then asked the author to elaborate on his relatives’ reaction to this event – “It was a borderline intervention that I wasn’t present for. And my parents tried to blame me for it. After that, my grandma told me that a good portion of the family was calling, texting, emailing, messaging, basically any form of communication my parents used.”
“And they used it to let them know exactly what they thought of them for weeks. And then it ended up not just being relatives too. But other people we know. My parents got me a car to try and save their own reputations. It didn’t really work, though, as they’ve been called out on that too. The only thing that’s even remotely gone their way is the family has mostly settled down now. But I have a feeling it’s not over.” The author also added: “my parents still barely speak to me. And I think they are just waiting for me to leave for college. My grandma says they’ll never go to family counseling because they’d get savaged again. So they are basically just laying low and waiting for this all to blow over.”
We are taught that family is everything, we are expected to forgive and forget just because we’re blood. It’s believed that we should be grateful for whatever we get – yet, this story proves that just because it’s family, it doesn’t mean that it’s not toxic. What do you think about this situation?
