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

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

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

[Anonymous]

Sounds like mental health issues. I think it’s complicated. If your child can’t move on with life, you don’t want to see them on the street. And it’s not like you can control an adult.

I have a seriously mentally teen. I often wonder if I’m going to be in these parents shoes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like mental health issues. I think it’s complicated. If your child can’t move on with life, you don’t want to see them on the street. And it’s not like you can control an adult.

I have a seriously mentally teen. I often wonder if I’m going to be in these parents shoes.

I can understand that as one of my kids has SN. However, in both cases they can hold down good jobs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like mental health issues. I think it’s complicated. If your child can’t move on with life, you don’t want to see them on the street. And it’s not like you can control an adult.

I have a seriously mentally teen. I often wonder if I’m going to be in these parents shoes.

I can understand that as one of my kids has SN. However, in both cases they can hold down good jobs.

OP again...thinking about this some more I think you are on to something. While in our sister's case there is no risk of homelessness in that they hold down good jobs, I do think in both cases there is some depression. They both feel the world owes them and we both find our sister's take out their misery on us and have distorted views about our lives. They think being married is always easy. They see our kids behave well and don't know the contortions we go through to have them be good during gatherings. They feel we owe them something because our life is a certain way and theirs isn't. Frankly I am exhausted and have dealt with her being nasty my whole life. I don't cater. For some reason she expects nothing of our brother, with whom I am closer. Parents don't dote on him either, but they do have lighter expectations for him than for me because they are sexist and think you are lucky if a boy does anything for you rather than abandoning you for his wife's family.

[Anonymous]

Yes, my husband’s brother. My MIL is so terrified of setting him off that she sacrifices all other relationships. She once told me that I should treat him like someone with a disability requiring accommodation. That would be fine if anyone had bothered getting him a diagnosis but instead we are all just supposed to pretend his behavior is normal.

[Anonymous]

Oh yes. My parents have gone to extreme lengths to coddle my stepsister, including basically stealing money from other relatives to give to her because she was having "such a hard time" with her loser husband not working ... Which is hilarious considering that I literally got zero money from them after 18, and wasn't even allowed to return home for the summers, whereas dear stepsister is close to 40.

[Anonymous]

I think it’s oven the parent’s doing, and unfortunately, it’s the sibling that everyone takes it out on. I know of a few of those cases (one of them in my own family), and I’m sorry, but that kid has *always* been treated differently, for myriad of reasons. Often, their main relationship with their parents is based on their learned helplessness, so it’s a double edged sword.

If the child has never learned proper coping skills, then they never learn to have those skills as an adult. The fact that your parents enable is on them, not on the sibling.

Each family seems to have its own reasons for that child being coddled. In my family, sibling was unexpected, premature, and had a dramatic entrance into the world. They never had any medical or psychosocial issues after that, but were always “special”. For my dear friend it was the opposite - she had a disability, and was always pushed to “be better”. In doing that, they didn’t help her brother become independent. In another family I know, it’s the firstborn son, and in another, it’s the long awaited daughter.

[Anonymous]

NP here with similar situation with both brothers. I'm curious--all those reporting to have this dynamic in the family, what is the birth order? I have always felt as the oldest I have been forced to handle my own problems and thus became a fully functioning adult, while my brothers have not. All 30 or older at this point.

[Anonymous]

OP here. In my case it is the oldest who is pampered. In friend's case it is the younger sibling. In both our cases it is females being pampered.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like mental health issues. I think it’s complicated. If your child can’t move on with life, you don’t want to see them on the street. And it’s not like you can control an adult.

I have a seriously mentally teen. I often wonder if I’m going to be in these parents shoes.

I can understand that as one of my kids has SN. However, in both cases they can hold down good jobs.

So can my teen. Doesn’t mean he isnt seriously mentally ill.

[Anonymous]

Yes, my older brother. He has a terrible anger problem ... I think he suffers from depression as well, and perhaps NPD. But of course there is never anything wrong with him. My parents have given him 2 full time jobs now when he loses his jobs because of attitude problems (everyone he works with is stupider than him and racist). It's awful.

[Anonymous]

DH’s brother, except he’s not accomplished—although FIL doesn’t accept reality and thinks that BIL’s failures at work (getting fired from multiple STATE jobs—in New Mexico) are the result of some sort of conspiracy.

BIL also almost killed FIL a couple of months ago because he disregarded the instructions that were went home with FIL regarding his medications afterwhat should have been a routine surgery. FIL ended up in ICU for several days and then praised BIL for “saving his life” because he had finally taken him to the ER. Totally delusional codependent relationship there. DH had offered to drive the 8 hours to help out before the surgery but was totally rebuffed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP here with similar situation with both brothers. I'm curious--all those reporting to have this dynamic in the family, what is the birth order? I have always felt as the oldest I have been forced to handle my own problems and thus became a fully functioning adult, while my brothers have not. All 30 or older at this point.

I'm one of the PP, husband is the oldest. I am also the oldest but this dynamic doesn't play out in my bio family. It is present in both sides of my step-siblings (each has a coddled/codependent addict, one dead)

[Anonymous]

My parents coddle my sister by doing everything for her and being overinvolved in her life. She acts helpless and resents their intrusion yet accepts their offers to "help". I believe this is a form of co-dependency.