Sibling 'rivalries'! (long)

[Amethyst Hunter]

When my immediate family and I get along, everything's cool. When we don't...

The other day my mom and I got into it (long story) over a couple of things. Some of them were minor things, or what I see as being minor. Afterwards, I got to thinking how I seldom saw this sort of conflict with my parents and my younger brother. They've let him off the hook for doing things that I, if I had done them, would have been *crucified* on the spot for.

And that really, really, really pisses me off.

I care about my brother, I really do. (Oddly enough, we were always at each other's throats as kids) But it angers me sometimes when I see differences, or what I perceive as differences, in the way that my folks have handled the two of us.

For instance, take cleaning. As I posted in the slob thread earlier, I am (mostly) an unrepentant messy person. Most of the time, the mess just affects me, because I can't find what I'm looking for. I hate cleaning and won't do it unless I really have to - but I have NEVER let anything as bad as, say, mold growing on the floor or insects/rodents kickstarting an invasion happen. A lot of my clutter is paper- and miscellaneous knickknack-related. I also hate dusting with a passion, because stirred-up dust + lifelong allergies = one VERY unhappy me.

I was always the one who got stuck with household chores, and my brother almost never had to do them (I can't say as I've ever really seen him do that stuff). If the kitchen was dirtied, I was the one who got yelled at, despite the fact that I wasn't the one who made 90% of that mess. I can appreciate the fact that both parents worked at the time while we were growing up, and doing one's part is one thing, but I don't understand why my brother never had to do any of that while I was saddled with it. I grew up very resentful of this imbalance, and it's one of the reasons I don't want kids and why I will probably stay single for the rest of my life - I KNOW I would get stuck with the majority of the mess. I saw my mom get dumped on this way by my dad over the years and I don't want to go that route.

My room is my sacred space. As long as there aren't animated molds ala' 'Ol Drippy (ATHF fans will get that reference) popping up from every corner, I don't get what the big deal over my messy room is. The door can always be closed (partially, anyway, or the critters will complain). Nothing strikes terror into the heart of a child like the threat of a female parental unit marching into said room with many Big Black Plastic Garbage Bags.

You know what my brother did to HIS room while he lived at home? This is just the partial list that I *know* of: He punched holes in the walls and door, ripped up the window screens, stained the carpet with who knows what (some were foods/drinks, but there was probably other stuff too) to the point where that carpet got so shitty it HAD to be ripped out and the bare floor sat for over a year, set off a smoke bomb and stunk up the entire upstairs once (I'm still amazed that my folks never found out about that one until years later), scribbled all over the walls in permanent black marker, ripped up the wallpaper...and God only knows what else. Oh, and he also was a smoker at the time so I'm sure that further stunk up the room.

The worst I ever did to MY room was maybe shred a few curtains (as a kid - we were both pretty destructive, partially due to our ADD, but he was definitely more so than I was) and have the occasional animal barf on the carpet (which I always cleaned up).

Guess which one of us always got nagged/yelled at more? I'll give you two guesses, and the first two don't count. :burnup:

Even now that we're older, it still seems to me that this imbalance persists. I honestly think sometimes that my brother is the 'favorite', if only because he's done the Life Script that so many people think one has to do in order to be considered a worthwhile person (i.e., he's married, had kids, has the whole house-with-a-picket-fence deal, etc.). I'm not ragging on him for that - he seems happy enough and there are issues concerning said mentions that I'd just as soon as never deal with. I just don't like the way that my parents seem to give him a free pass whenever he does things they don't agree with/like, and here I am pretty much ignored, or when I attempt to assert myself, then somebody needs a whipping scapegoat and I become the most convenient target.

I also feel sometimes like they take him more seriously than they do me. I can offer up a bit of information or advice that I KNOW is correct or sound, and sometimes I'll get brushed off or told that I don't know what I'm talking about. My brother can say anything and my folks will either go along with it or encourage him.

When we were kids, we both had serious bullying problems in school, but AFAIK my brother's problems actually decreased the further up in the grades that he went, whereas mine were basically steady right up to graduation day. My parents did go to bat for each of us when things got particularly bad, but I remember one day feeling very hurt and betrayed when this one piece of shit had been giving me a lot of misery and when I asked my mom for help, she said (and I will never forget this), "Have you ever thought that he's doing it because he likes you?"

I realize that picking on girls is the classic stupid way for idiot males to express interest. However, while I admit to a lifelong deficit in social graces, I KNOW the difference between annoying/benign teasing and teasing that is designed to destroy a person's esteem. I had enough of the latter to last several lifetimes and more than once I thought about Columbining my school long before that kind of thing became an epidemic. One of the reasons I don't bother talking to my parents much anymore about such stuff is because whenever I would bring up my thoughts I basically got dismissed and told some variant of 'suck it up', 'girls don't act like that', 'you just have to deal with it', et cetera.

I'm not sure what my brother got told, but I know he got in trouble with detentions and the like (not on a regular basis) and my folks pretty much took it with a shrug. If I were the one to get in trouble for fighting? Oh boy, you would've thought it was a national crisis.

Moving out at this time is not an option for me, for reasons which I won't go into here (another long story). I've pretty much resigned myself to coping with the situation the best that I can, which usually means staying out of the way as much as possible. My family are not bad people, far from it. But it's the nature of the beast, I guess.

How do you deal with yours?

[blas]

I hate being the oldest.

Quite similar to your story, although my brother and I are really close and get along well, my mother treats us differently. Dad has nothing to do it with, because mom wears the pants and dad isn't allowed an opinion on discipline or whatever have you.

This "oldest vs youngest" thing actually goes back generations on my mother's side of the family. I think because my mom is the oldest and her 4 half brothers all got treated better than her (her parents stuck her with her grandma to raise her, and they both moved away, married other people and had other kids, so I can see why she could be angry), she just naturally treats my little brother better, because it's been in her family for SO long. She grew up with her grandma, grampa, her uncle and aunt. Her uncle, the youngest of the kids, was always given preferential treatment. So she saw that type of coddling the youngest and dumping on the oldest and middle child (because Grampa was the oldest and he moved out, he's been borderline disowned by my great grandma for quite sometime. But she's got Alzheimers and forgets that from time to time.)

My mom's reasoning as to why my little brother gets to stay out later than I ever did? "Because he's a boy." Sure he's built like a brick shit house and I wouldn't dare fuck with him if I were a guy, but what difference does that make? I am almost ALWAYS in a group that never separates, and I have a knife and I always carry my carkeys interlaced between my fingers like Wolverine. I wouldn't fuck with me if I were a guy, because no matter what he did to me, he'd be leaving with no eyes or no balls.

My little brother just got accepted into college. I'm a "loser working a dead end job at a factory and going NOWHERE in life, WHY CAN'T YOU BE MORE LIKE YOUR BROTHER?" That pisses me off. My dead end job gives me insurance, vacation time, good pay for my age and experience, and on top of that, (bear in mind this is Wisconsin I'm talking about here, expense-wise) how many 20 year olds can afford a $600 per month apartment ON THEIR OWN with no help? Yes, I needed a loan because of my fucktrumpet ex roomate, but mom gave me one. She figured I wouldn't be able to pay her back. I DID. Boy was she pissed!

My mom is really fair weather with me. I never know if she is with me or against me. Some days she goes on and on about how proud she is of me and my independance and how well I do on my own. Other times she goes on and on with the "dead end factory job going nowhere in life" tirade.

She also brings up how smart my brother is (she's always said that my brother is Brains and I'm Beauty), and "It's a shame you think you're going to get everywhere in life just because of your looks". I've never even suggested that. If I truly thought that, why am I still working a "dead end factory job" in Fucknut, Wisconsin? Why am I not in Hollywood?

Thankfully, my brother and I stick together. I am very proud of him, and he is proud of me. My dad will take me down to his office after mom gives me an ass reaming and he'll say "Blas, you are very smart and you do very well for yourself. Your mother is just angry because she has a college degree and you still make more money than she does. Don't let her get you down!" My dad and brother have tried to tagteam stand up for me against my mom, but it pisses her off. My brother knows he can do no wrong in her eyes, so he always pushes her buttons by reinforcing me, saying "Good job, blas!" or "You're smart".

It sucks knowing I got a ticket for not stopping at a stop sign, and I get called dumb for it and got grounded (at age 18 no less) for several months, on top of that I had to pay my parents the extra when the insurance went up AND some bullshit extra $10 for "damages" to ruining my father's perfect record with insurance (my mom made that charge up, dad never wanted that!), and my brother CRASHED my dad's car and he got a bigger fine than I ever got for the moving violation, and he got coddled and he only had to pay 50% of the insurance deductible. My mom was all "Oh my poor baby, you could have died, I'm so glad you're ok!", with me it was "Are you stupid? Oh wait, yes you are. How can you not see a STOP sign?!"

I really don't think my mother is a bad person. She had a very, very awful upbringing, like Cinderella. This doesn't excuse her favoritism or her temper, but things have gotten much better since I have moved out. My dad told me that the day I moved out, she cried for hours because her "baby girl" was gone and she feared that she'd pissed me off so bad I'd never return. I do love my mother, no matter how much I rant about her. It's just the typical teenager vs mother stuff. Now that I'm a bit more grown up, she leaves me alone a bit more. As long as I don't talk about college or my brother, we're fine.

Sorry for dumping this on you!

[ThePhoneGoddess]

You know Blas, I've read some of the posts about your Mother, and I wondered. You and I have that in common.

My father was badly battered as a child. His Dad was a Navyman and a severe alcoholic. My Mother told me once my Dad's earliest memory was of being in the back seat of the car, and his parents getting into a fight, his Dad pulling over, dragging his Mom out of the car and beating her bloody.

When he got big enough he used to protect his Mom and his two sisters from his Dad's drunken rages. When he graduated from high school he wanted to go to college but his Dad dragged him down to the recruiting office and made him join the Navy. He shipped out to the Pacific, meanwhile his Dad started beating his Mother again. His Mother took the two girls (they were in high school) got in her VW bug and drove off while crying. She ran a red light and they got hit by a semi. Killed all 3 of them instantly.

My Dad was a very difficult person to be around, especially for me, because I am brilliant like he was, so he expected me to be perfect. He could not tolerate dissent of any kind and I was not allowed to show any sign of having negative emotions growing up because he couldn't deal with it. I still have issues with him, even though he's been dead for 10 years. But I loved him too, and I miss him dreadfully sometimes.

[CaroPhoenix]

The same thing happens with my sister & myself. I'm the oldest of 2.

I think my mom told me the reason once when she let it slipped that I "scare" her. It's not that I'm physically intimidating. I'm not. I look like a human version of the Pillsbury Doughboy. (I'm fat and soft and round and when you poke me, I giggle). Anyways, I scare my mom because I'm smart. Unlike my sister who is book-smart, I'm just smart-smart. Does that make any sense? I'm still trying to figure that one out.

My mom always showed favoritism. And I think that is one of the mitigating factors of why I befriend those that others make fun of. I know what it's like to be dumped on by others. I had to deal with that my entire life by my mother. I wasn't pretty enough. I wasn't popular enough. I didn't get good grades. (School actually bored me. After a while, I just gave up trying, you know?) But now, I'm the one who got married last, have a child, and am steady in my life. Took my sister 2 tries to figure this out.

[Jester]

My parents rock. They really, really do. I have a lot of friends with stories about their parents, and I read stuff like this, and I thank the gods for my mom and stepfather, and my father, who died in 1981. All three of them, while by no means perfect, are/were pretty freakin' cool.

My mom has pretty much let the three of us live our lives, though she does comment on various things, but not overly obnoxiously. (She is always going on with me about my drinking, for example. She herself doesn't drink at all.) She has NEVER been the typical Jewish mother, with the "When are you getting married?" and "When are you having kids?" nonsense. She has been happy for all three of us when we did well, and there for us when we didn't. My stepfather is an all around great guy, and one of the funniest people I have ever known....I often say he is the second funniest man I have ever met. He never once tried to "be my father," and in the process, he kind of became a second father to me. I refer to him and my mother as "my parents." My father was also a pretty damn cool guy, and the man I refer to as THE funniest man I have ever met. He had a temper, and could explode with the best of them (and sometimes more), and that is where I think I get my temper, with the difference that I need something major to set me off....he didn't.

The Witch, being the oldest, has just kind of lived her life, occasionally noticing that she had siblings. The tone for our relationship was pretty much set when they brought me home from the hospital as a baby. She came into the room, peered into the crib, looked at me, shrugged her shoulders, went "Eh" and wandered off to find something more interesting. Pretty much says it all, don't ya think? As children, she beat the living pulp out of me on a daily basis, despite my mom and dad's warnings that "you should be nice to your brother, because one day he will be bigger than you." She didn't listen. When nature took over, when she was 16 and I was 12, and I started to get bigger than her, the beatings reversed. :devil: We have gotten along at times, at other times not so much, and while she has been The Empress Bitch (she got promoted from Queen Bitch years ago) to me for years, since her divorce she has been a little more human. We can sometimes even have a civil discussion. But at one point, I was THIS close to disowning her permanently. Oh, as far as temper? She got my father's, without my high threshold, so she often just goes off.

Lil Sis is the baby of the family, and for the longest time had an issue with the 'rents, as she believed that they viewed her not as a "surprise," but an "mistake." The difference is huge, if you think about it. And I have definitely had my issues with her. At one point I refused to speak to her for two years because she pissed me off. Did I mention the temper thing? Yeah? Well, I am known for holding grudges. Badly. It's a good thing it takes so much to set me off, or it could get very very ugly. Anyway, being the "baby" had its ups and downs for Lil Sis. On the plus side, she was "daddy's little girl." On the down side, she often felt forgotten. The photo albums are a great example. In them, you'll find lots of pictures my dad took of The Witch, his first child. You'll find a decent amount of pictures of me, his only son. You kind of have to look for pics of Lil Sis...by that time, he had three kids, and you could tell the novelty of snapping photos had worn off. :lol: With the temper thing, I used to say this about Lil Sis: some people have a short fuse. She doesn't. She's instant combustion. You never know what will set her off, but when something does, she is just a tiny little ball of Anger. However, her marriage seems to have mellowed her out a lot. She has been, for the most part, a much more pleasant person since she found her hubby, and he is an all around good egg, if you ask me. (Of course, I thought the same thing about The Witch's ex-husband, and it seems I was wrong, from what I've been told.) Lil Sis has always been convinced that my mom showed favoritism to me, but she's kind of had a persecution complex most of her life, convinced that our parents thought about her as a "mistake."

Me, I was the middle child and the only boy. Which meant I got my own room while the girls had to share (yay!), but it also meant I got pummeled from both ends! Well, somewhat pummeled....Lil Sis was never big enough to do any serious damage to me, even when we were kids. I was, and still am, the quiet one of the three of us. (Think about the frightening ramifications of that previous statement.) I am also the mellowest, as very little bothers me. And I was without question the best behaved. Hell, at one point shortly before mom threw The Witch out of the house (after she turned 18), I was playing Peacemaker between the two of them. Sometimes physically. I was no saint, and did my share of bad things, most of which my mother since has learned about (I told her), but I was still the best of the three.

I don't really mention my stepbrother or stepsister because my mom and stepfather didn't get together till I was 16, stepbrother only lived with us for a couple years, and stepsister never did....she lived with her mom. They are both pretty cool, but having not really grown up with them, they don't really fit into this whole discussion.

As far as the rivalry thing goes....as I have mentioned, the three of us have had our moments. The two of them infuriated me at the rehearsal dinner of Lil Sis's wedding when they cornered The Brit (my then fiancee) in the bathroom and asked her, "What do you see in the guy, anyway?" Mind you, this was their only brother they were talking about! The Brit was not swayed, however, and looked down at them (from her lofty 5'5" in her boots, she towered over both of them!) and said, "Look, he's my bloke now, and the only person that's going to give him shit is ME." Lil Sis has apologized for that one....The Witch never has. She may not even realize she did anything wrong. It WAS the most offended I've ever been by anyone in my life. And she has no clue. *sigh* Maybe one day they'll find a cure for whatever it is that's in her, and she'll be human. I wouldn't bet on it. Hell, I even asked my mom about it recently. "Mom, you're a very nice person. Dad was a very nice person. I am a very nice person. Lil Sis, for the most part, is a very nice person. What the hell happened with The Witch?" "Jester, I really have no idea." She was at a loss. She tries to defend The Witch by saying things like "It's just The Witch being The Witch," but there are times even she can't do that with a straight face.

Being the only one of the three of us that's never been married sometimes bothers me, but mom has never given me grief about it. "It'll happen when it happens," she says. Have I mentioned how wonderful my parents are? :love: They are one of the many reasons I want to move back to Phoenix....they are getting older (seventies) and I worry about them a lot.

Sorry about the novel....but it felt good to get that all out. :D

[CaroPhoenix]

My mom has told me that I need to get together with my sister, her husband and her new baby more often, especially on the weekends. I told her that I'd think about it.

My sister and I just don't get a long. I'm passionate and she's ... a dead fish. I can talk just about anything, with an intelligence behind what I talk about (on certain subjects near and dear to my heart) but my sister either can't or won't.

She's this soft-spoken little nothing. (Well, not little, she's not tiny and petite in size/height), but she has that "I'm a helpless female" thing going quite well. Yet, she's the brilliant, put-together one. :confused: :rolleyes:

Am I bitter? Yes. Have I accepted my differences? To a point. I just don't understand how my family created a person like me.

[Misanthropical]

I'm an only child (thank GOD! long story) but with my own children, they swear the little guy gets away with a lot more than they do and how it's not fair!

However, when I do get on the little guy for something, they are the first to tell me how mean I am to him.

I just can't win!

[CaroPhoenix]

Of course not Mis! You're supposed to hold a family council and discuss what should be done to the little guy. Didn't you know that? :roll:

[Soulstealer]

You're supposed to hold a family council and discuss what should be done to the little guy. Didn't you know that?

I'm sure they'd vote for throwing him out of the family and dividing his stuff.

[Retail Associate]

You can pick your friends. You can pick your nose. But you can't pick your family.

Or something like that. :)

I'm the youngest of nine. By the time I came along, the last thing anyone in the family wanted was another mouth to feed. My siblings treated me like crap and I learned very early on that I was not a welcomed addition. I'm very close to one sister (the next-to-the-youngest) but to this day I have no real relationship with any of the others.

My mother never showed favoritism. She didn't give a damn about any of us. So there was no jealousy in regards to one being treated better than another. My biggest self esteem issues came from the treatment I received from my siblings. I hated myself throughout my childhood years because of the way my brothers and sisters treated me.

My brothers seemed to hate me with a passion and tormented me for kicks. My older sisters were forced to 'raise' me because my mother was too lazy to do it herself and they resent me (past & present tense) for ruining their childhood to early teen years.

My son is an only child and I tell him often how fortunate he is. He has had encounters with my family and agrees with me wholeheartedly. ;)



.

[protege]

Growing up in a dysfunctional family sucks ass. Trust me. In fact, the main reason I moved out was because of it. I got tired of being ignored, the constant fighting between my parents (30+ years of that is enough for anyone...), and just all the bullshit.

What sucked even more, as the oldest child, I was always expected to take care of my brothers when my parents weren't around. And yes, my younger brother would take advantage of that. He would throw himself down on the floor, against walls etc...simply so he could try to get me into trouble. He would lie to my mother about things...who would *always* take his word over everyone's, even if she was *not* present when the event happened, and others saw it. I should mention that he would do things to "bait" her...and then couldn't understand why she'd get pissed. Oh, and he's never had to work for anything--my parents never made him, and continue to allow him to mooch off of them. Just the other day, he was bitching about how they're charging him $200 per month of rent. I was like "$200?" You're bitching about $200? My *mortgage* payment is over 3 times that, plus I pay all of my own bills. Until you do that, shut the hell up" :lol:

Now, my youngest brother is another story. We're still not sure what he plans to do. He's still in school and works multiple part-time jobs. Since he's busting his ass, and can usually be found helping my mother out, I can't complain about him too much. He is, an annoying little shit most of the time though :p

[Mr. Rager!]

Don't really have a rivarly going on with my brother. I don't see how we could.

We're both two very different people:

My brother is a redneck, I'm a metrosexual.
My brother loves jobs that get him dirty, I love jobs where I can dress up.
My brother is the big heavy (he's not heavy), and I'm the intellectual.
My brother likes powerful trucks, I like fast cars.
My brother really only needs a phone to talk... I need a phone to text, send pictures, connect to the internet, look up sports scores, plan my life.

We're both total opposites in most categories. However we're both:
Animal lovers
Always willing to help anyone
Always trying to do the right thing by people
Hardworking
Smartasses
Always trying to stay healthy

As far as my relationship goes with my brother, we don't talk a lot when we're not around eachother. When we are around eachother, we get along great.

Currently, my brother is living in Tennessee... and he'll apparently be there until fulfills his contract with SWIFT (Sure Wish I had a Fast Truck).

That's another thing, he's great with direction and that's why he's doing great as a truck driver. Me on the other hand, I typically find myself calling my dad for directions. However, my new phone has google maps. ;)