I really resent my parents for labelling us as children

It sounds like your parents watched the movie Divergent, and took it too literally..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divergent_(film)
Seriously, it sounds like they love you very much and want the absolute best for you.

Your own child will be complaining about your shortcomings in decades to come, and you'll discover our parents are flawed, fallible humans.

Your trauma isn't your fault, but moving on from it, is your responsibility. Tbh if this was the biggest trauma you took away from your childhood, then it was relatively good.

Respectfully, get over it.

Yes, it’s heartbreaking for me to think about what my mother was subjected to — extremely mentally ill father, who’d only married her mother because he’d been windowed with two sons and needed a new housekeeper, and a viciously twisted mother who used to make the children go hungry so she could afford one respectable outfit per child for church on Sundays. It’s hardly surprising she was a terrible parent.

I can see why there is resentment and it's a shame. I suspect as a teen being the smart one isn't much compensation for not being the pretty one, sounds shallow but i think most girls value looks or over academic ability. Then to have the pretty sporty social one be even better academically must have been really galling for you. I get it, my sister is a better version of everything than me, I have a lot going for me but she has a lot more. We are close in age but thankfully had a year apart in school and had different friends. We are close now but I had to work through some jealousy to get there.

Spend Christmas with your family. Then maybe arrange some time with just your sisters without your parents and try to talk to them about how they feel. They may have similar resentments and it might be really good for you to all air them. Sisters can be the best gift in the world so you need to try to overcome that resentment.

Exactly.

My father was evacuated at 3, sent away to school at 7 which practiced corporal punishment and was never visited. That was just the norm in the 40s.

The intention doesn’t necessarily make any difference to the damaging effects.

How many people actually inflict intentional pain, damage and distress - so much is from ignorance, insensitivity, obliviousness or mental health problems etc.

And who’s to say precisely what anyone’s motivation is.

I never said OP’s lived experience was wrong. Not quite sure how a lived experience could be wrong or right. I think OP should explore her past but it can throw up some unexpected things because your memory can play very weird tricks on you.

Yes. My parents were in no way malicious. They were doing their best. Unfortunately theur best was nowhere near adequate.

In fact their lack of ill intent is actually one of the difficult bits — they think their parenting was fine, because their own parenting was awful, even by the standards of extremely impoverished, dysfunctional backgrounds on the 1940s and 50s.

Sorry 'guilt by association'

I was always told that my sister had 'natural beauty' and would never need to wear makeup. It made me feel like shit from as young as I can remember

Not sure what bro price guilt by association means.

OP hasn’t mentioned malice. Why are “awful” painful comments and experiences only valid if intentionally malicious?

As kindly as I can say it, you clearly have nothing actually important to worry about! You're all late 20s, you're adults. Accept that parenting is bloody hard and probably your own kids will have issues later in life about something you think you're doing well with their best interests at heart.

Really is a first world problem. Minor. Focus your energies elsewhere.

My own parents were not particularly well educated, probably weren't parented that well themselves, were very dependent on what they were told was the 'right thing to do' by those with authority.

Within that background, they were loving parents, who tried hard, got a lot of stuff right and some stuff wrong - exactly as you'd expect.

Our parents are all just human at the end of the day.

Seems like you're attempting bro price guilt by association here. If there's abusive stories on the stately homes threads, I don't know why that's relevant here. The OP's parents seem to have been doing their best, in line with what was seen as good parenting practice at the time. The made mistakes, but don't we all?

I do. I would regard something my parents did with the best intentions but which had a bad effect on me very differently from something they did out of malice or even through lack of care or thought.

Presumably, parents on the state home threads acted with the best intentions. I don’t think that’s got any relevance to the discussion.

Your parents made mistakes. I expect their parents did too, in their upbringing. I'm sure I make mistakes as a parent and I expect you do too.

However mistaken they were, your parents presumably acted with the best intentions, wanting to treat three similar-aged girls as individuals and help them to develop what the parents perceived as their strengths. You allowing this issue to play such a dominant role in your life now, blaming it for poor family relationships, and perhaps refusing to meet up with your family at Christmas because of it, seems crazy to me. Yes, perhaps therapy would be a good idea.

That’s likely people protecting themselves because they know they haven’t been perfect and cannot conceive their dcs could resent them for it.

But who is perfect as a parent? I'm sure if our DC's really wanted to, every single one of them could find something to 'resent' us for.

But it's not healthy to approach relationships like that, least of all with people who seem to have tried their best to give the OP opportunities in line with their talents.

Genuine abuse is an awful thing, but that's not what the OP describes.

What you describe sounds like a fixed mindset. It was, unfortunately, very trendy to consider children in that way. I grew up with it too. All around me children were labeled and stereotyped and expected to perform along their per-destined paths. It worked for almost none of us and it felt awful if you were falling short of expectations. I remember I felt like a loser when I started to struggle academically in high-school, despite being considered as "bright" by my parents and teachers my whole life.

I am not sure you can blame parents and teachers for what was widely regarded as best practice at the time. I am sure there are now practices for educating and raising children that will horrify us in the decades to come.

I do think that therapy is a good idea, even if it can't make you closer with your parents and your siblings.

@Tigss please, go and have therapy.

NOT, as some PP hinted ‘to get over it because your parents have done their best’. That’s likely people protecting themselves because they know they haven’t been perfect and cannot conceive their dcs could resent them for it.

My parents did their best too. On paper they gave me a nice childhood too. Just like your parents chose schools according to your ‘talents’ that weren’t yours.
And when I started digging? Ha yes, I actually have cptsd from that perfect childhood.
Now I’m not saying you have cptsd. But the resentment is there. You’re at the point of not wanting to spend Christmas either them. I suspect theres a lot that has happened that feels ‘normal’ but actually isn’t. And a lot that is still happening, because I doubt your parents have dropped the labelling either. Even if if it’s more subtle now.

I find this really interesting OP. This kind of typecasting in families is fairly common, but your parents version of it seems quite extreme.

it’s a shame that it had an impact not only on your self-identity growing up and freedom to develop your interests and abilities, but also on your relationship with your sisters in the long term.

have you ever sat down with your sisters and had a frank conversation about how this affected you all? Do you know how they feel about it?.

Op, it is good that you've worked all of this out while still in your 20's.
I want to suggest rather than therapy, spending your cash and time on exploring the things you wish you could have, creativity, movement etc. There is likely a lot of healing to just stepping out of the box. Doing rather than talking can sometimes be the best therapy.

I think therapy can be very hit and miss so be careful to find a therapist who won't take you straight down the path of my parents were toxic and will help you explore the nuances of your childhood.

It is wonderful that you want to explore building a stronger relationship with your siblings, best of luck!

It’s completely normal to go through a stage in your 20s where you think your parents were a bit shit and you question their parenting. Then you have your own kids and you cut them WAY more slack.

I have siblings and we were all treated exactly the same and none of us really get on now purely because we have little in common and we’re different personality types. Be careful how much you try and blame your parents for.

It doesn’t matter how her parents see it.
What matters is how it has affected the OP. And it’s clearly running deep.

Her sisters migut not have had the same view. Which will be pretty normal. Again, it doesn’t mean they don’t wish to be closer or that the OP lived experience is wrong. Quite the opposite actually.
Eg - Going through the same childhood events, one child might develop cptsd but not another. A lot to do with temperaments and ways of dealing with said situations