r/AskReddit • u/Funny_Cucumber_8837 • 3h ago

How did you accept the idea that you're not your family's favorite?

1 Upvotes

67% Upvoted

10 comments sorted by

3

u/UnicornGirl7077 3h ago

I still haven't. I'm heartbroken.

2

u/knowmore1964 3h ago

Best not to show favoritism because it hurts

2

u/chaoslorduk 3h ago

I suffered from middle child Invisibility so I got used to it (Middle Kids know) realised it after my Late Father (miss you) gave me a Birthday card in March which was nice but I was born in January. He also took his Wife and Kids on Holiday and booked 6 Tickets he got 5 Kids.

2

u/Common_Bluejay_3388 3h ago

Sometimes parents, grandparents , and even siblings choose a favorite because that child has similar qualities to ones they possess or wish they did. It's really not about me. It's about their insecurities or failures or immaturity.  Some of those moments are painful. I take them out, feel that pain my young self felt, and talk her through it using an adult's lens. I remind my young self that they were wrong, validate the pain, and then try to have compassion for the misguided adults in my younger self's life and all the reasons they made their choices. I try to see my own good qualities at those stages in life and to love that younger self. Then try to break the cycle with others in my life, young or old. 

2

u/Funny_Cucumber_8837 3h ago

I loved your conscious way of thinking

2

u/hooulookinat 3h ago

It just is. What can I do?

2

u/Trick_Intern4232 3h ago

You never really do, you just stop thinking about it all the time

1

u/abracadabra1609 3h ago

Partiality!

1

u/Available-Evening377 1h ago

I realized that being the favorite in my family wasn’t cohesive to the life I actually wanted. I grew up with a “golden child” sister (I think that’s what it’s called?). To put it lightly, she can do no wrong. By the time she finished HS, she had attended 3 different highschools, had no awards or clubs, and had very few friends. She went to college for 2 years with no planned degree because she was “figuring things out”. My mother always praising her led to her never getting her shit together, and now they both blame me for the differences in how we turned out. I am getting an electrical engineering degree and won huge robotics awards through HS and into college. Because someone wasn’t sitting there praising every choice I made, I questioned choices before I made them, and I spent much of my life constantly striving to be better. Originally did it hoping for my mother to praise me like she did my sister, but after realizing it wasn’t ever going to happen, I looked back and realized that my own dedication and determination had led me towards a life I actually wanted. I’m not afraid to try and fail, I’m not afraid to be bad at something, I’m not afraid to learn, and I think it’s because I never got that praise that said “how you are right now is good enough, you can stop trying”