Is there a pampered adult child in your family who the parents dote on?

[Anonymous]

DH’s adult younger sister is the ultimate princess. She’s 100% capable and perfectly fine mentally and not physically but boy she loves being coddled! MIL especially would wipe her butt for her if she could. SIL married well and has no kids so she will always be their baby. Fine by me because their elder care is all going to come from her and not me!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Both of my husband's brothers are like this. They are both volatile and so they are babied to avoid blowups and estrangement.

+1 but only one of the brothers

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In my family, it is my brother. He's the middle child. My mom has always claimed that she would never let him suffer for being the middle child, like she did. The result is an over-coddled man-baby. My parents bailed him out of foreclosure twice. Then he turned up on their doorstep with his mistress pleading homelessness. (He had a perfectly fine home with his wife and 2 children THAT MY PARENTS BAILED OUT OF FORECLOSURE TWICE) They've bought him multiple cars. He currently lives with aforementioned mistress and her 3 children from her marriage, and the 2 children they have together, in the house we grew up in, rent-free.

In DH's family, it is his sister. she is 6 years younger than him, attended college close to home (DH went 4 days drive away). MIL and SIL have this terribly co-dependent relationship. SIL says jump and MIL says "how high?" Currently SIL is attempting to hold Christmas Eve dinner hostage to her various whims and MIL is falling for it (me, I'm holding firm to the 5:00 reservation we have!). But SIL is largely incapable of being an adult. She has a nice job, but taking care of her kid? Managing her house? Basic adult things like keeping your car registration current? Nope. Can't do it, calls MIL crying, MIL takes care of it all. MIL loooooooves feeling needed.

In both cases, my brother and SIL are remarkably self-centered people who have spent their 30+ years upon this earth having every obstacle bulldozed out of their way by mothers who have their identity incredibly intertwined with their child.

Reading this was such a great reminder that my job is to successfully launch my kids, not derive my identity from them thus rendering them incapable. Thank you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think parents want to be needed in a perverted way so they punish the independent child and continue to maintain the codependency of the other child

This is how my parents are. My younger sister is single, never married, no kids and pretty much relies on my parents for too much. There have been mild mental health issues but she’s overcome them. I think she just doesn’t like to put in the big effort to be on her own. I always wished she’d move across the country and be truly independent but my parents make it too easy. Must recently they gave her a huge down payment for a condo close to where they live. Good way to ensure a tight rein as they age. Whenever they visit me and my family they pay for all of her expenses. She’s in her late 30s with a good job and they treat her like an unemployed 22 year old.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DH’s adult younger sister is the ultimate princess. She’s 100% capable and perfectly fine mentally and not physically but boy she loves being coddled! MIL especially would wipe her butt for her if she could. SIL married well and has no kids so she will always be their baby. Fine by me because their elder care is all going to come from her and not me!

Oh honey you are in for a rude awakening. My sister, coddled one, would show up and do NOTHING. She took photos with them to email to relatives to look like she did jack shit. After dealing with the verbal abuse only someone with dementia can dole out and a living hell between caregiver parent and ill parent I asked her to help caregiving parent plan the funeral because I wasn't feeling well. Well she made sure every living relative knew and she gave me zero credit for anything I had done leading up. There is a reason her only "friends" mostly just are available by phone and she has no friends where she lives.

[Anonymous]

Yep.

I'm the oldest (girl) with two younger brothers. We're each roughly 2 years apart. The youngest brother is BY FAR the "Golden Child." My parents do everything for him. He is still on their cell phone plan (at age 40!)
He was on it after graduating college (understandable...)
In his mid 20's he got married and got on a cell phone plan with his wife.
2 years later he and wife divorced so he went back on my parents cell phone plan.
A few years later he married again and got on THAT wife's cell phone plan.
A few years later divorced THAT wife and got back on my parents plan...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I caught up with an old friend and we found we both have the same situation. We both have a pampered sibling who the parents cater to and favor. In both cases the sibling is bright and accomplished, but has few friends, is self-absorbed, cannot make a relationship with a significant other work and still acts very much like a spoiled immature child. When they visit the parents they are coddled, cooked for, driven places and fussed over. No diagnosed mental illness in either case which I guess does not rule it out. It's like the parents enable atrocious self-centered and immature behavior and yet in both cases a ridiculous amount of expectations are put on us, no accommodating and we set boundaries to keep our own family units healthy and happy and consequently we become the scapegoat. Just wondering how common this dynamic is.

I was that child for a while, and I'm sure I still will be if we were ever in the same place. For various legitimate reasons, I was academically more successful than my sister, which led to a good university and good job upon graduation. She was caught in the vagaries of the civil war and substandard education, and therefore couldn't really get a good job that would support financial independence. I ended up inviting her to come stay with me, and the dynamics were such that I earned the money and ran our social lives while doing absolutely nothing at home. She took care of all cleaning, cooking, ironing etc. Years later, I'm sure my mom sees me as a picture of success and her as a victim of circumstances - which she is, in large degree. The odd thing is that we are very close and love each other very much.

[Anonymous]

I am an only child and I suppose my parents coddle me, but I find them terribly suffocating and avoid spending much time with them as a result. When I am with them they try to treat me like I'm disabled, they question all of my choices, they review every bad decision I have ever made, and they treat DH horribly. They try to win us back with food or money or gifts for the kids but who needs that. I just want to be treated like an adult and have my parents respect my choices. I am fully independent, have a good job, a good marriage, etc.

[Anonymous]

This is my younger brother. He’s very smart but has no drive and is very lazy in general. My parents “got tough” on him by saying they’d no longer supplement his rent. If he couldn’t pay, that was on him and he could get roommates or move home. He moved home. That went on for 3 years.

My parents sold their house 2 years ago and bought some land big enough to build a massive garage with an apartment above. My parents built the garage apartment to be like the old luxury apartment he lived in in Arlington.

He tells everyone he rents the apartment but he lives there for free. He works a couple of hours a week at a vinyl store and says he’s working on a novel the rest of the time but he’s really just getting high and playing video games like a college kid. He’s 33.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am an only child and I suppose my parents coddle me, but I find them terribly suffocating and avoid spending much time with them as a result. When I am with them they try to treat me like I'm disabled, they question all of my choices, they review every bad decision I have ever made, and they treat DH horribly. They try to win us back with food or money or gifts for the kids but who needs that. I just want to be treated like an adult and have my parents respect my choices. I am fully independent, have a good job, a good marriage, etc.

Same here except it all came to a head, they became verbally abusive (out of anxiety on my behalf - I know, makes no sense) and I cut off contact for a while. Now we’re good because they understood there was a line.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think parents want to be needed in a perverted way so they punish the independent child and continue to maintain the codependency of the other child

That's been my experience (as an independent child)

+2. True in both my family and DHs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think parents want to be needed in a perverted way so they punish the independent child and continue to maintain the codependency of the other child

That's been my experience (as an independent child)

+2. True in both my family and DHs.

OMG, yes! I posted up-thread about a sibling. I'll never forgot the absolute gut punch when I told my mom I got into a PhD program that required me to move. "You're just like your father, always worried about getting your next degree." Said with such disdain.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In DH's family, it is his sister. she is 6 years younger than him, attended college close to home (DH went 4 days drive away). MIL and SIL have this terribly co-dependent relationship. SIL says jump and MIL says "how high?" Currently SIL is attempting to hold Christmas Eve dinner hostage to her various whims and MIL is falling for it (me, I'm holding firm to the 5:00 reservation we have!). But SIL is largely incapable of being an adult. She has a nice job, but taking care of her kid? Managing her house? Basic adult things like keeping your car registration current? Nope. Can't do it, calls MIL crying, MIL takes care of it all. MIL loooooooves feeling needed.

In both cases, my brother and SIL are remarkably self-centered people who have spent their 30+ years upon this earth having every obstacle bulldozed out of their way by mothers who have their identity incredibly intertwined with their child.

We have the same sister-in-law! Mine cannot manage her children or her life AT ALL. My MIL complains behind her back but she loves being in control and having a purpose. My SIL bought a house on the same block as MIL and it’s going to get even worse. They already literally break into her house using the garage code and take her groceries for themselves. When I was younger and more naive, I thought “that’s fine, SIL can suck up all the attention and resources, but at least we are off the hook for MIL’s elder care”. I now realize how silly that is, because my SIL isn’t suddenly going to become an un-selfish, competent person. My MIL is super well off, but I’m so afraid that SIL will spend all the money before MIL dies and we will be left holding the bag.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yep.

I'm the oldest (girl) with two younger brothers. We're each roughly 2 years apart. The youngest brother is BY FAR the "Golden Child." My parents do everything for him. He is still on their cell phone plan (at age 40!)
He was on it after graduating college (understandable...)
In his mid 20's he got married and got on a cell phone plan with his wife.
2 years later he and wife divorced so he went back on my parents cell phone plan.
A few years later he married again and got on THAT wife's cell phone plan.
A few years later divorced THAT wife and got back on my parents plan...

does he pay his share? then maybe it's not as big a deal... of course on the surface it is embarrassing and moochy, but let's face it, it's cheaper to to in with others.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think parents want to be needed in a perverted way so they punish the independent child and continue to maintain the codependency of the other child

This is how my parents are. My younger sister is single, never married, no kids and pretty much relies on my parents for too much. There have been mild mental health issues but she’s overcome them. I think she just doesn’t like to put in the big effort to be on her own. I always wished she’d move across the country and be truly independent but my parents make it too easy. Must recently they gave her a huge down payment for a condo close to where they live. Good way to ensure a tight rein as they age. Whenever they visit me and my family they pay for all of her expenses. She’s in her late 30s with a good job and they treat her like an unemployed 22 year old.

I wouldn't be so sure about the bolded. I've seen this before. The sister may have a ton of fear and anxiety, relying on old patterns to actually have somewhat of a life. Even if that's with them. are they old and feeble, or totally self-sufficient?