For context: I am the youngest of 3.

For those with siblings, how equally did your parents treat you alll? Overall my parents have been very equal in terms of what they have given us, and the general strategy/values they tried to instill. I don't think there is really a golden child or black sheep of our family. On the other hand, when it comes to tactics and ways they actually parented us on a day to day basis, I think we were treated fairly differently.

On the one hand, I think that makes total sense because we are not the same people and the same methods are never going to work on all three kids. On the other hand, there are some things they did that I feel are odd choices. I'm curious to hear other people's thoughts on them.

One of the things I am particularly interested in is encouraging a sense of respect, duty, and honoring the parents while balancing the idea that it's important to help the kids develop a good sense of self, self-assuredness in decision making, and freedom to express and explore ideas that may not 100% align with what the parent wants or believes.

This board is probably not the best place to discuss this but I am curious what the minds of the GB think.

The boy's an ******* so he's in trouble more than the girls. But the rules and punishments and rewards are the same.

There were 3 of us, I am the oldest and my sister, the youngest, was 6 years younger than me. For the most part, we were all treated pretty equally; however, my parents had a lot more disposable income when my sister was in HS and college than me, so there was a difference there. For example, my first vehicle was an old totaled/salvage car that we bought and rebuilt, while she got a brand-new, off the new car lot SUV for her first car.

Overall, other than my brother being the only boy in our generation on our dad's side of the family and, thus, being the golden boy, there wasn't really any disparity.

I am the middle of 3. I do not think we were/are treated equally. We are all grown adults now.

One example (there are many):
My mother bought both my sisters homes. She has never bought me a house. She bought my older sister a house during her divorce and my younger sister a house in college so she wouldn't have to live in an unsafe apartment.

GarlandAg2012 said:

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One of the things I am particularly interested in is encouraging a sense of respect, duty, and honoring the parents while balancing the idea that it's important to help the kids develop a good sense of self, self-assuredness in decision making, and freedom to express and explore ideas that may not 100% align with what the parent wants or believes.

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Isn't this the entirety of the Gen X experience?

Free to explore and do whatever you want without supervision

But you better respect mom and dad!

Growing up, after my parents divorced (younger brother took it harder than me) my parents never wanted to do anything to upset my brother. It continued like that through college and even some now. Oldest daughter here so I was just supposed to tough it out. Whatever "it" might be. I didn't want to go to my HS because it was terrible. Had to stick it out. Brother was jumped the first month of school he was there and suddenly it was unsafe and he got to go to the school I begged to go to. Just an example. As adults everything is fair if not a little more in my favor because I'm the daughter and around more and grandparents are all around my family more.

AGinHI said:

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GarlandAg2012 said:

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One of the things I am particularly interested in is encouraging a sense of respect, duty, and honoring the parents while balancing the idea that it's important to help the kids develop a good sense of self, self-assuredness in decision making, and freedom to express and explore ideas that may not 100% align with what the parent wants or believes.

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Isn't this the entirety of the Gen X experience?

Free to explore and do whatever you want without supervision

But you better respect mom and dad!

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Well we're all Millennials but I agree that it is a broadly shared experience.

I am the youngest of 2. My parents were harder on my sister than me because they didn't want her to become a teen mom. So they expected to know where she was at all times, who she was with, had to check in, had to answer the cell phone (mid 90') I was expected to work on our ranch, feed the cows clear fences, help my dad as much as possible, while she wasn't expected to do anything to help out. I never had a curfew and my parents never waited up for me. But, my dad did tell me. "You don't have a bedtime, but you do have a time you are expected to wake up and get to work." My parents also told me, "We don't care what you do, just don't get arrested or do drugs." Looking back, I guess they thought nobody was willing to have sex with me.

As for giving us stuff, we were treated equally for the most part. My sister got a car in '94 (88 Toyota Camry) at 16, because she had to drive us 20 miles to school one way. I got my dads crew cab 88 F-350 my sr year in '96. It had 200k miles on it and there was already a rust hole in the floor board and you could see the road under you. The ac didn't work, the tint was peeling and there was a huge dent in the passenger side bed where a cow had crushed it. But, I could take 8 people to off campus lunch in it.

As for inheritance, everything will be split even, but I will have to pay her for 2 of the 3 ranches I want so she will end up with more cash. The ranches are more sentimental to me since I put in all the work on them and they will have been in our family for 100 years in '46.

I have 3 kids (13, 11, 6) and we treat them the same so far, but the 6 year old is high functioning autistic and we are starting to have behavior problems with him at school. The other two are perfect students according to their teachers. They will split their inheritance 3 ways.

My wife and her sister were treated totally different. My SIL was a total hellion who almost didn't grad hs because she screwed around too much sr year. My wife on the other hand was perfect and never caused problems. Everything they inherit will be split in half. My SIL lives in England now so most of that will be pissed away to the British gov.

Youngest of three with a six year gap between my oldest brother and me. I wouldn't say our parents treated us equally, but they treated us fairly. They were probably stricter with my oldest brother than me or my other brother, but I think that's in part due to them learning and changing their approach as parents over the years. My folks also had more income when I was in high school than when my oldest brother did, so I probably "got" more than he did because of it.

In terms of inheritance, may that day be long in coming, I think the assets will be split pretty equally between the three of us, though I wouldn't be upset if one or both of my brothers received more than me, considering they both have kids with their own needs. It's my parents' money, and they should do what they want with it.

Me and my siblings were not treated equally and I see this a lot in other families. There's always one kid that can never do anything wrong.

The parents deny it but everyone sees it

Oldest of three with two sisters. I usually think I got the strictest treatment and the highest expectations growing up. My parents both grew up in strict Catholic families and pretty much raised us that way too. I was born with high functioning autism too, but didn't find out until I was 30 years old. My dad in particular had trouble understanding and accepting me as a different or unique child. My middle sister and I had a lot of issues growing up. The youngest was the "normal kid" and my parents doted on her the most.

my older sister hates me cause my parents showed favoritism, she really just struggled with the fact that males are just more interesting than females. at all ages. it was the best thing for her though as it pushed her to be more successfull career-wise than ill ever be.

too bad she'll always be a jealous ***** with a trophy husband that ****ed half my friends.

My sisters both have pretty solid husbands, but I think I'll find an incredible standout of a woman indeed.

My parents definitely were more strict with me than they were with my younger brother, but they were always fair in my opinion. I was already in college when my brother went through high school and my parents went through a rocky stage in their marriage so my brother got way more freedom than I did at that age.

Our inheritance will be split even I imagine. Most of it is land so it'll be up to us to determine what we do with it. Thankfully we have a great relationship so I don't worry about it. Hopefully those days are still many, many years away.

This is a great discussion. I love reading about everyone's perspectives and experiences. It's endlessly fascinating to me.

I'm the oldest of three. As children, I think we were treated equally in the material sense. Meaning that none of us was given more than the others. But as far as rules and expectations of us, they were wildly different between me and my siblings.

I was held to a standard of perfection in every area of my life. Academically, athletically, artistically, and morally. I wasn't allowed to express 'negative' emotions at all (and was expected to be very reserved in expressing positive ones), nor my preferences or beliefs unless they aligned with my parents perfectly. So I was a high-achieving kid and generally well-liked by adults because I knew how to act and what to say to make everyone happy.

Meanwhile, my siblings were loose cannons behaviorally and emotionally. They basically ran wild with few consequences from my parents. I don't know if my parents were burned out from parenting me so hard that they just gave up, or if they intuited that my siblings were too fragile for that style of parenting (they absolutely were/are). But if you met us and asked about our childhoods, you would never believe we were raised by the same people.

By the time became a mom, I realized that I had a ton of work to do in order to be the parent I wanted to be. At 35, I had gone to therapy every week for a year before I could even begin to identify how I actually felt about anything at all because I was just that disassociated from my feelings. Learning to express my feelings was a whole other project and it's something I have to actively work on still.

Now I'm super proud of how my daughter (11) can directly and articulately explain exactly what she thinks and how she feels. She knows she has to be respectful and that ultimately she has to accept the decisions of those in authority. But she has absolutely no fear of disagreeing with me (or any adult) and explaining why. She is the most emotionally intelligent person I have ever met and I know a lot of that is just who she is inherently, but I'm really proud that I didn't parent it out of her by following my parents' blueprint for raising a child. Ultimately she knows she's safe and will always be loved - it's not something she has to earn by doing or saying the perfect thing. This, I think, is really the key to raising a child to be a self-assured adult.

I was delivered by mail.

My mom experienced post parcelum blues