30 People Share Stories About How Their Parents Treated Them Vs. Their Younger Siblings

Some of it is the difference between how parents treat male and female siblings - overprotecting the girls. Teaching sexism in the family home from the word go 🙄. Some of it is just losing the will to bother with subsequent childreen though that's a weak AF excuse really. As the third out of four children it is also 'the baby' of the family syndrome where they get spoiled rotten as they stay as the baby forever (let them grow up ffs). Though my parents also called me names, my father behaved very questionably on a number of occasions and both were more harsh with me than any of my siblings so sometimes parents just treat on child differently regardless. I don't know if parents are oblivious at times but as a child it was fecking obvious and yet 'we don't have favourites'. Sure you don't. Bad parenting as you say.

I don't know about falling for our tricks...Most people I know agree that parents are usually way stricter and overprotective of their first kid. The younger ones get away with a lot more, because the parents have learned to take it easy. For example I got told off so much when my grades were anything less than perfect, but my dad softened over time and consequently my brother never got any of that. As far as materialistic stuff goes though, we were treated pretty equally.

Absolutely, as a younger sibling I can't agree more. She got out of all the chores because "important school work" (true, I never bothered much); actively campaigned to have me restricted if any of the above "injustices" happened (so no benefit to her, just damage to me -- instead of campaigning for a concession); she bossed me around playing 'school' where I'm the only one (rest is dolls) she can punish and berate; etc. Then half in the list above is just boys being allowed more than girls, so bad parenting, plus time changing things (like a gay kiss on tv causing newspaper articles 10y ago). ALSO: same treatment to different children not always same effect, so I don't think equal treatment is sacrosanct just an ideal.

I am as well an older sibling. Of course some things are easier for the younger ones because the parents have more experience. Some of the posts are really funny. BUT what I would never do is compare what materialistic things I got or what my brother got. Even when he got something more expensive I was always happy for him, because that's what siblings do! Be happy for one another. Everything else is, like you said, just bad parenting.

I’m a younger sibling and I completely agree. I think that’s one of the main things younger siblings struggle with. Is being heard. It is often stereotyped that younger siblings are spoiled and babied, but I can’t name one adult younger sibling who actually liked not having independence. Not to mention it is common for the parents to compare, telling the younger sibling to be more like the oldest. A famous little sibling example is Janet Jackson.

I agree. As for the material stuff, I'd like to add that a lot of parents become better off as time passes. My parents treated me and my brother pretty equally, but they were less frugal with him simply because they had more to spend. And technology advances, too. There's only a few years between us, but it was enough for technological standards and my parents' spending ability to change noticeably between me being, say, 14, and him being 14. It was nowhere close to the stories posted here, though. A lot of these are just blatant favoritism.

It sounds like you know how it feels to have both the down fault of being the younger sibling and the down fault of being a older sibling. Something I feel a lot of ppl don’t talk about. Some may see it as a perk, but the majority of the time younger siblings often fight for independence. Either way parents need to treat their kids the same and siblings need to stop bullying each other.