Parent favoring one sibling

[Anonymous]

This has been an ongoing, lifelong thing. My mom not so subtly favors my sister. Most of the time, it's not much of an issue, but once every couple years, it comes to a head and I just get pissed off. It builds because the times I do see my mom, she basically talks about my sister 90% of the time.

Background - I am a WOHM with a young child. My DH works full time and between our two incomes we do well for ourselves but are very conservative with our money. My sister is a SAHM with a young child. Her DH works full time + and between his one income, they do very well for themselves (probably comparable to us) but are not at all conservative with their money. They just bought a pricey house which (by their own admission) is a stretch for them financially.

As I work full time, my child goes to daycare/preschool full time. My sisters child does not attend any care outside of the home. We recently had to switch my child to a new daycare and last week was rough with hysterical drop offs, stressful work deadlines and my husband being on his quarterly deadline where I basically single parent for 2 weeks straight once a quarter. It was hectic and I was glad when the week was over.

I was spending time with my family this weekend and just sharing what a crazy week it was. My mom jumped in and compared my situation to that of my sister's "Oh little Larlo (my nephew) has had SUCH a hard time adjusting to the new house" and how she was going over there to help watch my nephew so my sister can organize the house. She totally interrupted me and disregarded what I was saying (as typical for her) and didn't even ask if my child was doing better with drop offs, if we needed any help, etc. I just got so irritated that I blurted out "Oh yeah, must be really rough to transition from one million dollar house to another. Talk to me when you have to drop your hysterical child off at daycare and physically pry them off of you so you can then drive 80 mph in rush hour traffic to get to your job by 7:30am.". She acted like I was really out of line, but I'm just stating the obvious. My sister has a cushy life where her biggest problem currently is organizing her walk in closet (which of course is shown step by step in videos on Instagram). Neither she nor my mom ever seem to acknowledge this and it drives me crazy. Would it kill her to just say "Oh man, that sucks. What a crappy week. Let me know how I can help." I just didn't have the energy ...

[Anonymous]

My husbands mother favored his sister over him and it drives him crazy. Unfortunately his sister passed, and his mom still talks nonstop about her, and never asks how he is doing or about our kids.

[Anonymous]

spend less time dealing with her and when she is old, let your sister do ALL the heavy lifting when it comes to her care. Pour all your love and attention to your nuclear family.

It sounds like your mom and sister are both needy and your mom is punishing you a bit for not needing her. There is a similar dynamic with my mother's siblings and I wish she had gone to therapy to get some peace about it 30 years ago.

[Anonymous]

OP, you sound a bit like my sister.

She is adamant that my mother favors me, and while I'd like to have an understanding of where she's coming from, she is much too far over the top about it.

She's often playing the victim and commenting to me how much easier my life is and how things always work out for me. Uh, no dear sister, my life has problems, I just don't complain about all of them to you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, you sound a bit like my sister.

She is adamant that my mother favors me, and while I'd like to have an understanding of where she's coming from, she is much too far over the top about it.

She's often playing the victim and commenting to me how much easier my life is and how things always work out for me. Uh, no dear sister, my life has problems, I just don't complain about all of them to you.

If you are the one getting way more help and support from the mom, you ARE favored. Only a golden child talks this way.....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, you sound a bit like my sister.

She is adamant that my mother favors me, and while I'd like to have an understanding of where she's coming from, she is much too far over the top about it.

She's often playing the victim and commenting to me how much easier my life is and how things always work out for me. Uh, no dear sister, my life has problems, I just don't complain about all of them to you.

If you are the one getting way more help and support from the mom, you ARE favored. Only a golden child talks this way.....

I live 800 miles away. "Unfavored" sister (who is a married adult) lives within 20 minutes and has her bathrooms cleaned and daily dog walks by my mother.

I'm just saying, please have some self-awareness about these things. It's never all one person's doing.

[Anonymous]

I think both my siblings and I would say our mom favors someone else. She's brilliant at bragging on you to others but being dismissive and passive-aggressive to your face. All the other kids are great it's too bad you don't stack up -- I'm not sure if she does it deliberately or not, but we're all onto her. We joke we're all her least favorites when we're there and her favorite when we're not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, you sound a bit like my sister.

She is adamant that my mother favors me, and while I'd like to have an understanding of where she's coming from, she is much too far over the top about it.

She's often playing the victim and commenting to me how much easier my life is and how things always work out for me. Uh, no dear sister, my life has problems, I just don't complain about all of them to you.

If you are the one getting way more help and support from the mom, you ARE favored. Only a golden child talks this way.....

I live 800 miles away. "Unfavored" sister (who is a married adult) lives within 20 minutes and has her bathrooms cleaned and daily dog walks by my mother.

I'm just saying, please have some self-awareness about these things. It's never all one person's doing.

Your situation sounds nothing like the OP. So you need some self awareness!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, you sound a bit like my sister.

She is adamant that my mother favors me, and while I'd like to have an understanding of where she's coming from, she is much too far over the top about it.

She's often playing the victim and commenting to me how much easier my life is and how things always work out for me. Uh, no dear sister, my life has problems, I just don't complain about all of them to you.

If you are the one getting way more help and support from the mom, you ARE favored. Only a golden child talks this way.....

I live 800 miles away. "Unfavored" sister (who is a married adult) lives within 20 minutes and has her bathrooms cleaned and daily dog walks by my mother.

I'm just saying, please have some self-awareness about these things. It's never all one person's doing.

Your situation sounds nothing like the OP. So you need some self awareness!

Eh, to me it sounds like my sister could have written this. So, maybe you don't know everything.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, you sound a bit like my sister.

She is adamant that my mother favors me, and while I'd like to have an understanding of where she's coming from, she is much too far over the top about it.

She's often playing the victim and commenting to me how much easier my life is and how things always work out for me. Uh, no dear sister, my life has problems, I just don't complain about all of them to you.

If you are the one getting way more help and support from the mom, you ARE favored. Only a golden child talks this way.....

I live 800 miles away. "Unfavored" sister (who is a married adult) lives within 20 minutes and has her bathrooms cleaned and daily dog walks by my mother.

I'm just saying, please have some self-awareness about these things. It's never all one person's doing.

OP here ... I can assure you I do not receive ANY help from my mom. My sister cannot say the same. My mom takes time off work from her job to watch my daughter's child so she can do personal activities. Meanwhile, I've asked her 2x if she could bail us out when daycare was closed and we both had can't miss meetings. Any guess what she was doing BOTH times? Watching my sister's kid.

[Anonymous]

Is there a chance that your mother doesn't necessarily favor your sister but just finds her more helpless and hapless?

My mother is always helping out my sister more. Once I questioned her about it and she just said, "I don't worry about you. You've always figured out how to make your own way and figure things out."

It was a weird kind of compliment.

[Anonymous]

Forget it. My mom i she same way except she cater's to her boyfriend's grandkids and not mine (my sibling has none). She will have the kids over for weeks during the summer and mine has never slept over and she only sees them for a few hours every few weeks at best. The irony is she brags to her friends about how much she does for him and she buys him a teeshirt a year while on vacation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think both my siblings and I would say our mom favors someone else. She's brilliant at bragging on you to others but being dismissive and passive-aggressive to your face. All the other kids are great it's too bad you don't stack up -- I'm not sure if she does it deliberately or not, but we're all onto her. We joke we're all her least favorites when we're there and her favorite when we're not.

Same situation in my family. For a long time, my sisters resented the hell out of me because my mom spent all her time with them bragging on me while putting them down but then they found out how she did the same thing to me - put me down constantly while talking about how great my sisters were doing. I think it's my mom's (admittedly F-ed up) way of trying to keep us all connected but it just drove us apart for years. There is still resentment that boils up (mostly from my eldest sister - even though she gets the most hands on help from my mom by far, she also gets the most "Oh but Larla is doing soooooo well, don't you wish you had her job/life/husband/etc?") but we're learning to deal with it better and better as time goes on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is there a chance that your mother doesn't necessarily favor your sister but just finds her more helpless and hapless?

My mother is always helping out my sister more. Once I questioned her about it and she just said, "I don't worry about you. You've always figured out how to make your own way and figure things out."

It was a weird kind of compliment.

Yes, I could see this. My parents bought my sister a business for her first job out of college, so yeah, I could see it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This has been an ongoing, lifelong thing. My mom not so subtly favors my sister. Most of the time, it's not much of an issue, but once every couple years, it comes to a head and I just get pissed off. It builds because the times I do see my mom, she basically talks about my sister 90% of the time.

Background - I am a WOHM with a young child. My DH works full time and between our two incomes we do well for ourselves but are very conservative with our money. My sister is a SAHM with a young child. Her DH works full time + and between his one income, they do very well for themselves (probably comparable to us) but are not at all conservative with their money. They just bought a pricey house which (by their own admission) is a stretch for them financially.

As I work full time, my child goes to daycare/preschool full time. My sisters child does not attend any care outside of the home. We recently had to switch my child to a new daycare and last week was rough with hysterical drop offs, stressful work deadlines and my husband being on his quarterly deadline where I basically single parent for 2 weeks straight once a quarter. It was hectic and I was glad when the week was over.

I was spending time with my family this weekend and just sharing what a crazy week it was. My mom jumped in and compared my situation to that of my sister's "Oh little Larlo (my nephew) has had SUCH a hard time adjusting to the new house" and how she was going over there to help watch my nephew so my sister can organize the house. She totally interrupted me and disregarded what I was saying (as typical for her) and didn't even ask if my child was doing better with drop offs, if we needed any help, etc. I just got so irritated that I blurted out "Oh yeah, must be really rough to transition from one million dollar house to another. Talk to me when you have to drop your hysterical child off at daycare and physically pry them off of you so you can then drive 80 mph in rush hour traffic to get to your job by 7:30am.". She acted like I was really out of line, but I'm just stating the obvious. My sister has a cushy life where her biggest problem currently is organizing her walk in closet (which of course is shown step by step in videos on Instagram). Neither she nor my mom ever seem to acknowledge this and it drives me crazy. Would it kill her to just say "Oh man, that sucks. What a crappy week. Let me know how I can help." I just didn't have the energy ...

You were out of line and are proof positive that comparison is the thief of joy. Your desire to be extremely conservative with your money is not more virtuous than living in the moment.