Youngest and spoilt?

I've been guilty of doing this and being the eldest child myself, I should have known better. When I only had my daughter, i lavished time and attention on her like you wouldnt believe, she was, and is, my angel eyes. When my son was born though I changed without realising it. I started giving my son more attention because he was the youngest and he obviously needed more help and attention than my daughter (roll eyes here) and I found myself expecting her to be more grown up and set an example. I started giving her chores to do, like keep her room clean and help me with her brother or share her toys with him and what have you. I didnt realise what I was doing until my daughter started doing stupid things like telling people I beat her because she wanted my attention. It came to a head when I had to go through a police investigation as well as one by social services in response to her allegations. They took my daughter to a psychiatrist who pointed out that she was feeling unloved since my son came along and it was a shock to me. I honestly didnt realise that she was feeling neglected. I thought I had been treating her the same way I always had. The police and social services dropped their investigations and we started going to family counselling together. Since then I make more of an effort to include her in what im doing or I jump into what shes doing to see if i can help and shes become a lot better behaved since then. I don't know if anyone else has been the same but thats what happened with us.

Hello,joshua_w. What you say is prevalent all around the world maybe. It is no doubt that parents love their every child, but maybe then think the youngest is the weakest, so they care about them more. I am lucky. I have a brother 7 years younger than me. But my parents don't do as you say.If there are things both I and my brother want, they will tell us to share. So we are getting on well.

Hmm.. Let me answer point by point. I am unmarried. I was the oungest in my family. I must say I was little pampered than my elder brother who is 7 yrs older than me. But the case is that when the situation came of real caring and all, my brother always got the preference. I even remember this, when I was still in junior school, papa used to tell that he is making the house formy brother and all these stuff. I have also heard before I came my brother was very much spoilt and my mom sys first child is more spoilt.

I am the younger sibling, and I wasn't given any more privileges that my older sister. In fact my sister was given more slack than I was. This could be because she was always very outgoing, and they didn't have as many concerns about her, as they did me, because I was mostly quiet growing up.

I am 4.5 years older than my brother and we're both in our 30s (erm me not for much longer). I have always felt my mother favoured my brother more in the way that he is very spoilt and he was living at home till 2 years ago when he moved in with his girlfriend, whereas I moved out when I first got married at 25 and have lived away from them ever since. My brother was the one who mum always treated like a little kid so much so that he didn't even pick up his clothes from the floor or put them in the washing machine. She changed his bedclothes up until he moved out when he was 33, how sad is that? I have never resented him for any of this stuff although it was amusing watching his girlfriend get him trained into cleaning up after himself. What I have resented over the years though (only slightly) is how my parents treat him like a kid, to the extent that my dad used to open my brother's mail and discuss his bank balance (or lack of it with me). I kept telling my dad that mail addressed to someone was private and my dad would say "As long as he's living under MY roof..." bla bla bla! I thought this was really out of order and my brother would get mad about it but would never mention to dad directly that he had a problem with it. You might think that is a problem with my parents but it was because my brother was so spoilt by them that he had this poor attitude to money and even though he is an IT consultant and earns a fortune he still manages to have huge debts on his credit cards even to this day! When living with mum and dad he didn't pay rent, he didn't pay anything towards food or bills so when he moved out and was faced with a mortgage and bills, it was a huge shock to the system and he continued with the same level of social life as before except now he had much more outgoings. Parents have to try to teach their kids the value of money - spoiling them when they live at home only makes it worse for them later in life.

I'm the elder daughter of my parents,and I have a brother.When I was a student,I didn't feel anything of what you said.But from last year on,when I gratuated from university and had my first job,I began to realize the more love to my brother from my parents.They gave more pin money and allowed him not to do housework.Sometimes I ask myself not to think such more,and pay more attention to my brother just like my parents.I tell myself that he is my little brother whom I should take care of.With the conception,I feel better. I wonder what's your opinion?

This is such a common topic that would be valid in any household where there are more than one offspring. I have seen examples of both. And while on the topic, I am also reminded of what my mother has told me once. She is the second of ten children and apparently, there was a boy born after 4 girls. Now, all at home[ a huge joint family with uncles ,aunts, grandaother etc..,] were clearly partial to this child and if one banana was given to all children two would be kept for this darling son of theirs. Ironically, the story did not continue after he became an adult[obviously I am not referring to as mundane a thing as that perishable banana but regarding love and affection , it was the daughters who stole that. ] In many cases I have seen that the eldest is given undue respect and importance at the expense of other children and this person, while not qualifying to be termed a'spoilt brat' , becomes a bit high handed and domineering. I agree with the statement once made by a lawyer friend of mine-that parents, for reasons unexplained, identify themselves with a particular child . However, they would never accept this. That the children would have to accept this was his statement. I have alsways voiced my opinion very strongly on this even with parents of my students.They always used to complain of one child and praise another. They were forcing one child to be in the shadow of another and this will never work out once they are adults. Like the example you had quoted in that'emotional account' discussion of yours[incidentally, that was a lovely metaphor]the elder brother would have taken this to heart and would later get alienated by recurring similar incidents. But, is there justice in the realm of human beings? What everyone does becomes totally subjective and people give umpteen justifications for all the stands that they take.

I am the youngest in our family. In my younger years my parents definitely did try to spoil me. But I'm really not the type of person who likes that so I would always resist it. I hate being spoiled. I wanted to learn to be independent and take care of myself. I wanted to be able to deal with my own problems. I wanted to be able to fight my own battles. I wanted to grow up a responsible adult. So I think parents will always try to spoil the youngest. It's up to the child if he/she will take it or not.

I was the youngest one in the family. I feel that it is somewhat like this. Now I am a father of only one child because of one-child policy in China. I think that if I had another one child, I would be the same like my parents because the youngest need more more attention as he is more ignorant than the elder one. And the elder can also help the young one to help care for him and teach him more and so on.

Ifound taht also but, now that I have grown older I look at things a different way, I mean with teh first child you try and do everything right, the dicipline, always pushing them to the next level, be it walking, colege, uni ect, also I have watched my own mom when I was younger I used to see it as favouritism, but now I think that as parents get older on a whole they do get softer with their children and dont bother so much with teh dicipline, my brother gets loads more now tahn I did whe I was his age but then my parents are also older and much better off and in a better position to do so. Maybe with teh youngest parents think that it is their last chance if they have no intention of having more children to get it rigt this time so try their best to give the final child everything they were unable to give the eldest, plus with the case of me my younger sister and brother, now that my sister and I have left home, I can only imagine their is much more moneyto go around.