Son wants parity when folks give more to daughter
Can you help?
-- Ignored Older Brother
Dear Ignored: Yes, your parents have likely been enabling your sister with various financial gifts and bailouts. Enabling inhibits growth and maturity -- which leads to further bailouts.
Some of their responses to her may be "gendered," in that they believe that a woman is somehow less capable of supporting herself than a man is. Look to your parents' own backgrounds to try to understand their thinking.
The alternative theory is worse than old-fashioned sexism. If your folks truly believe that your sister is relatively dimwitted and helpless -- then what a shame. Now it's time to feel sorry for your sister, who has absorbed the idea that modern life is simply too taxing for her to handle on her own.
Parents almost never treat all of their children completely equally. Some children receive more emotional support, more attention or more financial help -- based on the parents' perceptions of what their needs are at any given time.
The idea is that in happy families, things generally even out in the end. You were right to tell the truth about how this imbalance affects you. You now need to absorb the idea that your folks have the right to spend -- or waste -- their money however they wish, and you don't have to like it.
Dear Amy: My friend recently had a birthday party. Her boyfriend of one month showed up.
When the party was coming to an end, I heard my friend and her boyfriend fighting. When she came back, he had left, and she accused me of kissing him.
I never did anything of the sort, but she doesn't believe me.
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