Do my parents hate me?

Question

I think my parents hate me. They love my younger brother who is three years younger than me ( I am 18 ). They appreciate whatever he does. They appreciate whatever he says. Even when I say something better than him they just say, "huh!" to me. It often seems as though they are ignoring me.

The incident happened 2 hours ago :

My father has a video of the house which he is building. I was sitting near him and my brother was far from him. He showed video to him first. Then he was about to lock the phone, then he said, "You too want to see, here look." It hurt me.

This happened just now :

They all were watching TV and eating soup. I was served mine (I was in Lobby). They did not call me to sit with them, but they always call younger brother. Even after I went into the room where they were, no one noticed me and the TV was off (they were talking about some stuff). I came in with a saddened face and depressed mind.

I want to point out that when we talk, my father looks into my brother's eyes. He does not turn his face towards me, not even once.

Even my mother, she serves food to younger child. In my case she tells me to take myself. She calls younger child a good one but she does not say a word for me.

These things have been happening for 3 years. But today, I cannot control myself so I am begging for help from you. These behaviours from my father dragged me into depression.

I am hurt. My exams are approaching, These thoughts are not letting me study.

I want the genuine conclusion which you can draw from my description. Please do not sympathise with me. Please tell the truth of their behaviour.

Answer 1

We have no way to know the truth of this situation so my advice is: Set a time and a place for a meeting with your parents so you can talk it out. Your sibling should not be there and TV and so on should be off. Go in knowing that it is more likely a misunderstanding than a declaration of lack of love or caring.

Do not accuse them of anything. Sit with your arms apart and hands up -- not crossed. Keep both feet on the ground. This body language tells them you are being open and not being defensive. (If you find yourself crossing your arms, ask why you are feeling defensive and try to stop. It makes it unlikely to get you any meaningful answers.)

Start with a positive and end with one. "I love you both very much." is a good start. Ask if you have done something that has hurt their feelings. Ask if they feel that you do enough to contribute to the family -- chores, being positive, being thoughtful -- looking for ways to be kind and giving. Listen to the answer and be honest with yourself. If you simply defend yourself, you are not listening. "Thank you." is a good way to end.

Now you can tell them how you are feeling, but be careful with your examples. Prepare one or two, but be extremely fair and rational. "You always" is a very bad way to state an opinion and usually is not true. You may find that they do not see things the way you do at all.

The soup example is one. They may have felt that you chose to be alone instead of simply joining them. I would not necessarily think I need to invite my kid to join us. Would I expect her to join us? Yes. So there is the building block for a misunderstanding.

As to your studies: This is your golden opportunity to live under a roof and have fewer responsibilities while you study. It won't last forever -- take full advantage of it!

Good luck with this.

Answer 2

It is difficult for us to guess:

• What is the reality of the situation, because everyone is biased, and you must be, too. And maybe there are a lot of situations where they think about you first, but you can't remind them.
• What is the point of view of your parents: maybe they behave like that on purpose, but the other (more likely) possibility is that they don't even realize what you feel (even if they may feel there is something wrong).
• What are the reasons of all that.

Anyway, my best advice would be for you to try to talk to them. Do it honestly, and ask them to take the time to listen to you. Your brother should probably not participate or even be around during the discussion.

Prepare yourself before that. Try to think about what you have to say, and about how the conversation might turn out. Above all, don't start by a list of reproaches. That will only make the conversation difficult. Try to concentrate on what you feel. During the whole conversation, focus on that and not on what you think they did wrong (this is not that easy). Be calm. Stay calm. If they get nervous, stay calmer. Don't ever shout, this will lead to nothing good and you won't be taken seriously. If the conversation turns bad and they shout, let them finish. Don't try to interrupt them. You'll have the opporunity to say what you feel after. But keep it to what you feel. And listen to them. It is as important as them listening to you.

Doing this at the right moment is key, too.

I think this is what has the best chances to make your relationship better.

On their side, they certainly feel there is something wrong too, and that can help both of you. They may actually be as desperate as you are. Talking to each other is important, and must be done as soon as possible, or the situation just rots.

Finally, to answer your initial question: no, I can't imagine your parents hate you. They may be uncomfortable with some things, but they certainly don't hate you. They most probably love you.

Answer 3

Thank you for asking this question. It reminds me to think about my own parenting. You are entering adulthood and obviously show a desire to explore perspectives beyond your own. This is a good sign for yourself. Keep it up that way!

In your situation, there is a younger brother. I'd like to offer some ideas for you to consider:

1. Behaviors & Habits

Behaviors are based on motives & intents albeit conscious or not. They are also formed and often conforms to cultural norms and cultural biases. Go to a traditional Chinese restaurant and you will notice how the waiters/waitresses would pour tea or water for males before females although this has nothing to do with who would pay them more tips. What I'd like to say here is at times, your parents may treat you in ways that they may not consciously realize to be unhelpful for you.

It would be natural for them to be more protective of a younger child among two children at first. In time, the protectiveness forms into habits they keep. Clothe,feed and care for this younger child may have become their automatic norm, and informs how they go about their daily lives for so long, they could not see it has affected your feelings. This may not mean they (may) love you any less. It may just mean they have become habitual in their ways of treating your younger in contrast to you.

Cultural norms as drawn from the restaurant example is also a force in itself. In many patriarchal or previously more patriarchal societies, men learned to ignore women as a matter of culture and a display of their own prestige. This doesn't mean your parents are so, but it might still inform their sense of a normal interaction, just like the order that the tea is poured.

2. The Parents Perspectives

As a parent, I have to self-remind often on being more conscious about my treatment of the siblings. I do not love any one child any less, but certainly a lot differently in how. Parenting is a lifelong endeavor. As with any endeavor, one of the key elements to success is the ability to re-assess, objectively check, make corrections, and re-chart the course. Such is life, never a straight line but we surely hold the ability to navigate its winding paths. Perhaps you can find a way to help your parents become more aware of how what they are doing is affecting you. Perhaps research some good writings on the subject and introduce them to your parents; so that it doesn't come from you and they can read it more objectively. We humans have been on earth for so long, this is certainly not a new topic. I'm sure you can find a few helpful ones. Here's a simple and easy one you can read: How to Deal with Parents Treating Other Siblings Better

3. Time

You noted an element of time, more pronounced in the past 3 years than previous, and also that your time pressure of exams, etc are weighing down on your situation even more.

There are ways to make sense of the reasons things are more pronounced that I may not understand enough to explain, but you can. For example, crucial dependency, independence differences in age, growing up, parents' perception of who can self-care and who not-yet-able and so on. These reasons may not mean they are correct nor justifiable, just possible explanations.

Too often things may fail from a misaligned sense of urgency. Be sure you hold a strong and correct sense of time for yourself, with perspective on how your life and relationship to your family will be, in 2 years, in 10 years. I would suggest you take a look at your life-long perspective, and at the moment present, or both, to help you get through. You will move on and one day become a parent yourself. The picture will be totally different but this question might still be in you. How will you have answered it back from that day in the future? How would you want to answer it, starting now?

Wish you strength, success, and happiness in building the answers.

Answer 4

Being a parent my-self, I doubt your parents actually hate you. I can't conceive how I could ever hate my child, and I'll give the benefit of the doubt to just about anyone.

You say this has been happening for 3 years... so it would have started when you were about 15. When I think of all the stupid things I did and told my parents when I was 15... I can imagine why they could have given me the cold shoulder. So I must ask... have you done anything in the past 3 years that could lead your parents into trying to teach you a lesson? Do you show you care when they talk to you? When they interact with you, are you a complete *** hole? Is there anything you haven't told us that could play a role in this situation? Are you in a situation where you are the one who needs to make up but, haven't realized it yet?

<edit> I suggest you start by taking matters into your own hands and "reverse" the dynamic. In the sense that, instead of waiting for them to interact with you on the things they care about, take the lead and interact with them with the things YOU care about. They will be more likely to share with you, if you show openness yourself. If your dad is avoiding eye contact... I'd say he feels like he failed you, or he feels like you failed him.

If you want people to call you for diner, try calling them yourself. One day, show up early in the dinning room, and help your mom call up people for diner. If you get involved, they'll keep you involved.</edit>

I am hurt. My exams are approaching, These thoughts are not letting me study. Please help.

Please stop! Don't let that be your excuse for failure!

Answer 5

It's unlikely that your parents hate you - if your parents are anywhere near normal, you would have to do something spectacularly bad to make them hate you. It does however sound like they are acting in a very thoughtless way. And being thoughtless means they might not even realise what they are doing.

If you feel ignored, make it hard to ignore you. For example, if they are sitting together and eating soup, you get your soup and sit with them. Then you ask loudly if they want to hear what you did at school yesterday. That's hard to ignore. Whether they say nothing, or they say "yes", or they say "no", you tell loudly what happened at your school. Make it impossible to ignore you.

If your dad doesn't look at you, ask "why are you not looking at me"? That's hard to ignore. "Am I so ugly that you don't want to look at me"? That's very hard to ignore. If you think they ignore you, don't blame them for ignoring you - that makes it possible for them to argue that they are not ignoring you at all. Say something that makes the ignoring a fact, like "why are you ignoring me"?