'AITA for being my dad’s favorite child?'
I (32F) have a younger sister (31F) who is neurodivergent and an older brother (37M), a rainbow baby. Growing up, I often felt unwanted. My accomplishments were always overshadowed by my siblings. I was expected to cook, clean, get straight A’s, especially since my brother dropped out of high school. My mom was always afraid I’d “end up like him,” yet still clearly loved them more.
At 12-13, I really started noticing the favoritism. My brother could stay out until 2 a.m. with his stoner friends. My sister got shopping sprees with my mom’s credit card. I couldn’t even go to the library. My dad noticed this too, and we became close. He never said it, but it was obvious I was his favorite. I got a lot of crap for it like my siblings would make me clean their rooms or yell at me when he wasn’t around.
My sister tried so hard to earn my dad’s love and attention. I understood why, I just finally had one parent who asked about my day instead of just my grades and chores.
Now, fast-forward to today. My parents, siblings, and I were all catching up, rare, but nice. We were talking about the past, and the topic of favoritism came up. My sister said she felt my dad always loved me more. I waited until she finished and shared how I felt neglected by my mom.
My mom got mad and yelled at me for “accusing” her of favoritism. Then my sister straight-up asked my dad, “Do you love her more than me?” The room went silent. After a long pause, my dad said, “I wasn’t oblivious to how your mom treated her. She treated her like she didn’t exist. She needed extra love because you took it all from your mom.”
My sister completely broke down. She cried, screamed, threw things. I grabbed my purse and left. I went back to my apartment, turned off my phone, had some wine, and went to bed.
When I turned my phone on the next morning, I had hundreds of texts and 70+ calls from my sister. I didn’t open any of them, I just blocked her number and on all social media.
My dad tried to bring it up, but I shut it down. My mom said nothing. My brother only said, “What the hell was that last night?” in our group chat. No one replied.
So… AITA for walking out and blocking my sister?
Here's what people had to say to OP:
NTA. You're not the puppet-master of your parents' feelings. You needed love, too. It's not your duty to give that up for your siblings.
Both of your parents are profoundly emotionally immature and you and your siblings have fallen into the trap of competing for their attention. You're 32 and worrying about who the favorite child is to the point you've let your parents pit you against your siblings? Every single one of you needs therapy
NTA. You can't control who shows you love, just as you can't control who hurts you. It's not favoritism, it's emotional balance.
NTA for being the child your father tried to compensate for your mother's neglect/mistreatment.
The above said, it's not your sister's fault that this was the adult dynamics in your family. She did feel the sting of being less favored by your father just like you felt the sting of being less favored by your mother. It is, however, your sister's responsibility to not throw a tantrum over the past happenings when she chose to bring them up to discuss. That helped solve nothing here.
Your parents should have done better when you all were growing up. Hopefully you all can talk about this in a calmer and more constructive manner soon. Blocking your sister forever doesn't seem productive to me IF she is ready to have a calm, adult conversation about your family dynamics.
A lot of people seem incredibly critical that you blocked your sister. But, Jesus christ, 70+ phone calls? I understand why you would need to block them. Sister is out of control and needs to forcibly given time to cool off before you engage with her.
After reading the comments OP came back with this edit:
EDIT 1: First off, thank you guys so much for your response. Really, it means a lot that someone other than my dad finally agrees with me. Second off, I want to say that my sisters and I relationship has never been good.
I always envied her (I am trying to be as transparent as possible) because she was adored in my mothers eyes and I tried to please my mom as much as I could, but I could never make her as happy as my sister made her. And thanks to your guys’ insight, I understand that she could possibly also feel the same way with my dad.
Here is the thing tho, when I said that she tried to make my dad love her like he loved me, it didnt mean doing things to make him proud, it means putting me down. If I missed a spot on the vacuum? She’d wait until my dad got home to tell her and point it out to him. By then of course my dad didn’t really care, would just tell my sister that I tried my best, but my mom would absolutely get upset.
nd, my sister’s neurodivergence has given her a lot of room to excuse. She doesn’t take meds or see a therapist, and her “big tantrums” stopped when she was around 7. As of now, she is still blocked. I feel like she is old enough to not behave like how she acted.
Also, for those of y’all that were saying how I’m 32, shouldn’t be acting like this, well this is a glimpse of how my household was like growing up, and if you think you would be normal after growing up in a household like this, kudos to you 🤠. I will update y’all when I unblock her.