What if brother or sister parents love more

Parents are supposed to love all their children. equally and unconditionally - regardless of obedience and grades at school, whether or not they conform to their ideas about well-being, success, visual appeal, and other criteria. But for various reasons, attention in the family can be distributed unevenly: for example, when part of responsibility for the younger is shifted to the elder, and the younger child struggles for the attention of the mother or father. And even if parents try not to single out someone, often a brother or sister may feel a lack of love, although at first glance there are no objective reasons for this. Our heroines told how they competed with brothers and sisters for the attention of parents in childhood and how their relationship with their family is developing now.

Interview: Irina Kuzmichyova

Alina

My sister and I are twins. Outwardly, they are very similar, and the characters are opposite: she is flint, I am much softer and more flexible. As a child, I was sure that my mother loves her sister more than me. But it never occurred to me to get angry about my mother or my sister because of this — I just accepted the situation as a climate that is impossible to influence. There were enough reasons for minor conflicts, but I love my sister and admire her no matter what.

Unfortunately, the scenario of a “secondary hero” imposed on its own psyche could not but affect my life. For many years I was not sure of myself and constantly sought the approval of my sister. I thought she deserved more than me.

I think my sister is more talented than me, but parents love children not for that. Today, I think my mother loved us the same way - just my sister demanded more attention and could not stand it when she was denied. I couldn’t insist on my own, so I got it by residual principle. Our childhood was in the nineties, mother brought us up alone, thinking about some problems of children, besides food and clothing, she simply had no time. Now I have three children myself, and to distribute an equal amount of attention and love is a supernatural task. I can only assure them that I love them equally strongly (this is true), and hope that they believe it.

Nastya

Up to six years, I was given a lot of attention, and then my younger brother burst into my life. I didn’t work with him right away: it was difficult to accept that my parents switched from me to a small, always screaming bundle. When he grew up and we were left alone in the room, I could hit his head on the closet door or hit me with a toy. I think my parents saw and understood my aggression, but instead of talking, I received a solid slap with a heavy mother's hand and an hour of standing in the corner. Naturally, life did not get any simpler from this, and the dislike for his brother, who at the same time was embraced and pitied, only grew.

I studied well, went to different circles. But there was no intimate relationship within the family: I had to be perfect in order to deserve the hugs and kisses of my mother - my brother received them just like that. The situation changed when my second brother was born. The parents switched to him, and the same thing happened to the average that happened to me at the age of six (he, by the way, was the same at that time): instead of love, he felt only aggression towards the younger one. At the age of twelve, I was fully grown up and took the role of a nanny: I took the youngest to the kindergarten and played with him. The middle brother found a way out of aggression from lack of attention - he switched to computer games and went to himself.

Now my relationship with my middle brother introverte is much better. Perhaps because after the divorce of his parents, he went to live with his dad in another country. I rarely see him and miss him. But we have enough half an hour to communicate, then the computer takes over, and my questions run out. Junior lives with his mother. He remained the most spoiled child, and at ten he still starts screaming in public, if, for example, you don’t buy him a toy. I do not indulge him, it translates into conflict with tears and door slamming. I can not take it out more than two hours a day.

Until now, I have a feeling that I was left abandoned and disliked wolf too early. Until now, I need to encourage parents. Thanks to them for instilling in me perseverance, discipline and ability to go to their heads. But at what cost? I would prefer to be softer. Perhaps, if the parents behaved differently, my life would have been different, and I would not look at the institution of the family as a life sentence. I did not discuss this with my parents: such conversations would knock the ground out from under my feet, but they would not be affected in any way.

Karina

Perhaps our family can be called a cliché. I am a classic "daddy's daughter", my older brother is a "sissy". No, he is very independent, just my mother loved him more, and my father - me, and it seems that it was mutual. I fought with my brother for the attention not of both parents, but only of mom. For example, when I, learning in high school, late came hungry from parties, my mother told me to cook for myself. And when her brother came back from work even later, she always made dinner for him. Probably, it sounds petty, but attention is shown including in details, and it is especially necessary for a teenager.

Mom, I must give her her due, never even raised her voice to me - that is her character. But I do not remember the manifestations of the opposite feelings - joint games in childhood, hugs, words of love. I do not remember my dad spending much time with his brother. More precisely, I know that it was so, but before my birth: a brother is eleven years older than me. I think that later they began to treat him as an adult. And when he really grew up, his father supported him financially: he brought food and things to the army at the other end of the country several times, after the army he helped me get a job, my grandmother’s apartment also went to her brother. But all this was done reluctantly, with complaints, they say, you are a man, you cope. The fact that the brother was helped through power, of course, was not without her mother's influence.

Only now I understand that, probably, the brother, being a teenager, was also jealous of my mother and therefore in every way I was tormented. He said that my parents do not like me, that they took me from an orphanage or that they found me in a garbage dump. I doused me with cold water in the morning, ostensibly so that I would wake up faster, choke me with a pillow, and once I hung it upside down on a horizontal bar, let go, and I bumped my head on the floor - such survival games. He does not remember this. By the way, I never took revenge on him and always adored him. I just lacked the attention of my mother, her approval, support, pride in me. My brother had all this, although he had just graduated from school and had not entered the university (I finished my studies with a red diploma).

By Soviet standards, they gave birth to me rather late: now my mother is as old as the grandmothers of my younger friends, and this does not contribute to mutual understanding. The brother lives "correctly": he married early and for the rest of his life, he has been working in the civil service for more than twenty years, he spends the summer with his family in the country house he built. I don’t make my mother happy with bisexuality, work without a work record, I hate a dacha (I don’t know what’s worse for mom - or relationships with girls), and in general my life is far from stability. Periodically, she compares me with my brother, and not in my favor. Therefore, the feeling of dislike has not disappeared anywhere. A couple of times I tried to discuss it with my mother, she just waved away and this convinced me even more that I was right. Daddy is long gone, and I ceased to be his daughter, but never became my mother's. I see my brother a couple times a year on holidays, although we live nearby. Attention and approval in dealing with people is extremely important for me now. But I want them not to get something, but just like that.

Yana

There are three children in our family: an older brother, me and a younger sister. As a child, I was given little attention, because my brother had eternal problems at school, and her younger sister, she got the most tasty morsel of cake, and more parental attention. I was a quiet and independent child who did not feel loved.

The feeling of uselessness was superimposed on a bad relationship with my brother, which was aggravated during adolescence. We have only a year of difference with him, so we did everything together, even went to the same class. Often it came to fights with bruises and light concussions. Not a day was done without harassment, quibbles, and unpleasant acts towards me — not only my brother acted in this way, but also his school friends. I thought that the older brothers should protect the sisters, and cried at night because it was not so.

Parents always spoke with us on these topics separately, so I heard only one thing: I am to blame for everything, I provoke it, I must be wiser and not pay attention. I wanted what every child wants from their parents - warm words and hugs, not reproaches and moral teachings. My sister, in her turn, added fuel to the fire by constantly snitching and setting me up. This curly little angel with big golden-amber eyes and long cilia was always believed.

I did not see what my family needed — I was depressed, I didn’t want to live. Parents did not understand what the problem was. Dad was always on business trips, and my mother took care of her younger sister and went to the school principal to deal with her brother's behavior. We often quarreled before the pulsing veins on the forehead. It seemed to me that life was rolling downhill. The last straw before the visits to the psychologist was the moment when they dragged me off the window sill, and I shouted: "Nobody needs me, nobody loves me!"

Everything changed one case. A familiar guy hit me in the face. Five minutes later, a brother came with his friends to intercede for me. Then we studied in different classes and did not communicate at home - it was easier to avoid quarrels, but he came. I felt needed. It was this feeling that became the starting point for changing itself and good family relationships.

More than five years have passed, and I understand that at that time my attitude was distorted by transitional age and youthful maximalism. We forgave each other. Now, more than ever, I feel great support and love from my family, and above all my parents. I'm happy.

Lena

I have a beautiful older brother, we are the same age. We had a common childhood, and it was a good one, because basically we were friends. Sometimes dabbled, sometimes bit, but never fought. He was a quiet, calm, serious boy, and I loved to run and dance. I did not want to read, learn history and so on, but my brother managed to do it and even liked to do it.

It seemed to me that mother loves her son more. And it was clear to me why: he is smart, but I am not very. From time to time I told her directly about it, but I didn’t love her because of this less, I just sometimes felt sad. One day she told me that we were both her children, which means she could not love someone more, but someone less: “After all, if you choose which finger to cut off, you won’t be able to do it. You’ll hurt anyway it's a part of you. " This sensible explanation calmed me down.

When my brother and I were sixteen and seventeen, respectively, our younger sister was born. I took the middle position, which, I think, really balanced the situation. True, my sister also sometimes thinks that mom and I love my brother more.

Catherine

When I was seven years old, my father told me that my mother was pregnant. I waited for my sister's birth, I wanted to play with her. But I was completely unprepared for the world to stop spinning around me. The parents did not explain that my mother needed my help, they probably decided that I myself would guess. And I did not guess, and then it began. Ordinary domestic issues became a reason for family scandals with the eviction of me for a few days to my grandmother. If mom told (how she does it now) that dad is always at work and she needs simple physical help, I think I would understand. But they just told me that I had to wash the floors daily, and I hate it. So, because of some genders, we practically started a war with mom. About once a month, we screamed at each other, and then I played at my younger sister. Dad stood on my side, mom was even more offended. As a result, it turned out like this: I am “father's daughter”, and my sister is “mother's.”

Naturally, I was jealous of my mother to my sister. With her mother lissed, hugged, and I only scolded. Because of this, I began to hate my sister. This, of course, did not happen all the time, but I really thought that they didn’t love me, and if I had died, it would have been easier for everyone. Living with such thoughts is very difficult, especially when you are a teenager. Complexes grow like mushrooms, and it seems that all the problems are due to relatives.

This February, I threw an iron chair at the door the sister had just entered. Then my mother advised me to go to a psychologist. And the psychologist said an interesting thing to me: “You love each other very much. But neither your mother nor you were taught to tell your relatives“ I love you, ”so you express love as you can - with shouts and shouts.” This phrase calmed me down. At last they told me that my mother loved me, and gave a logical explanation for what was happening between us.

After the session with the psychologist, we began to live more peacefully. I work on myself, I know that my relatives love me, that they are my friends and support, and the whole problem is how I react. We didn’t stop swearing at all, but now I can apologize to my sister and explain why she reacted so. Relationship with my mother also became better. She understood my fears, and the phrase said by a psychologist found her addressees.

Photo: underworld - stock.adobe.com, Bert Folsom - stock.adobe.com (1, 2)

Watch the video: My Parents Love My Younger Sister More Than Me (November 2024).