OP, a 17-year-old boy, has an 18-year-old (female to male) brother who is undergoing the process of having bottom surgery and various treatments.
The Background
OP’s parents and brother had to fly out to meet some doctors during OP’s 17th birthday, so they allowed him to stay home alone. OP hoped to spend his birthday with his family, but instead, he blew out candles alone on a lousy cookie and cried. He felt lonely and wanted to be with his family.
OP feels that he has been put on the back burner because of his brother’s needs. When his family returned two days later, his brother couldn’t stop talking about himself, which was frustrating for OP. Even during OP’s makeup birthday dinner, they talked about the trip. After dinner, OP asked if they could talk about something else and expressed that he was angry that they couldn’t celebrate his birthday. However, his parents accused him of being selfish, and his brother was hurt.
A Measured Response
This Redditor took a more measured approach to OP’s experience compared to many in the thread:
“The problem isn’t that both parents went to the appointment with the teenager. The problem is they didn’t try to find ways to support their other child, knowing he was in a difficult position. They could have taken him on the trip; they could have made a bigger celebration out of his belated birthday–something. Sometimes unavoidable and unpleasant conflicts crop up. So you try to compensate, and it doesn’t sound like they did.”
Rightfully, this writer gets to the crux of the matter. OP felt left behind and lonely on their birthday. They are young and reasonably innocent and have a right to be upset by their parent neglect.
Understandably, both parents would want to attend their child’s major surgery. However, it was the fact that they made no accommodations for OP was the primary issue. Perhaps one parent could have attended, or perhaps they could have celebrated the birthday early. In either case, all the attention was on the other sibling.
As an adult, we are more aware of the consequences of normal life that gets in the way of things was want to do. However, these parents are responsible for OP, which still requires a lot of support at their age.
The Parents are Very Much Wrong
There is a large cohort of Redditors that have noted that, ultimately, this situation involves three adults and a child:
“Everyone saying yta or nah doesn’t seem to understand that three adults left a teen (almost an adult) alone on his birthday. His brother could’ve gone alone or taken one parent but nope. To make it up to him, they have a make-up dinner and then proceed to discuss the trip that he was excluded from. And when he brings up his feelings, he’s being called selfish for wanting one day that’s for him.”
This writer feels very strongly that the OP has not been treated fairly. OP’s sibling is technically an adult. Therefore, all three adults of the household effectively left the 17 years old OP, who is technically a child, to fend for themselves. In this case, it is remarkably unfair and, in some sense, illegal to have left OP on their own.
The Redditor then points out that there doesn’t appear to be any accommodation for OP to have gone with them to the surgery. This could have worked into an impromptu birthday celebration as part of the trip for the surgery.
Moreover, and arguably worst of all, after they returned from the surgery, OP was challenged for wanting attention. This is exceptionally unreasonable for the parents not to consider OP’s feelings in this situation. In essence, is appears as if the parent has a favorite child, and OP is being left behind.
HIS MOTHER AND AUNT ARE BANNED FROM HIS WEDDING AFTER WHAT THEY DID TO HIS FIANCÉ
HER HONEYMOON IS GOING TO BE RUINED AS HER AGGRESSIVE MOTHER-IN-LAW DEMANDS TO ACCOMPANY THE NEWLYWEDS. WHAT IS GOING ON?
Source: Reddit