Let's talk about the "golden child" syndrome

[Thesearepearls]

This thread has been prompted from the thread about narc mothers. Which was humbling to read.

I have two children. I truly believe that I love both children equally. In fact DD was our miracle child (after 3 miscarriages and 2 ectopic pregancies). I never believed that i would have a child nevermind two. I love being a parent and I hope that I have been the best parent that is possible given my own failings as a human being.

The thing is that DD had a few problems growing up (she is 20 now). She didnt work at school, despite being very clever, and there was a problem with money. She stole a vast amount of money. I don't want to say how much except it was thousands. She is now at a good university and has a lot of friends and a really nice boyfriend. She's back on the right track.

DS was diligent and hardworking and did his best at school and has done rather well. He's waiting for his exam results but he will go to a very good university.

I firmly believe that I have treated my children equally yet I hear the odd comment from DD that DS was the "golden child". I don't think he was, I think they are both golden children yet DD clearly feels there is some aspect of inequality. That in some way DS was treated better.

I have reviewed my actions carefully. Have i treated them unequally? Why would I have done that? More importantly how did this inequality manifest itself? DD has the larger bedroom which has an en-suite bathroom (this is a function of our house, only two of the bedrooms have en-suite bathrooms and DD being older sort of got the room with the bathroom). They have both been to the same schools. They have both been encouraged and supported I think or hope.

The difference between the two children who are equally bright and I firmly believe equally loved is that DS worked and DD didn't. So her results at school were fine kind of but DS's results were outstanding. We tried to help both children equally.

FWIW I think I am close to both children but possibly closer to DD who talks to me if she is upset about anything where DS will bottle things up.

I'm just feeling unsettled about this golden child thing. I don't want either of my children thinking they're not golden children. But DD certainly thinks about DS as though he's a golden child and she is not. Although she does love her brother and does celebrate his success.

I don't know what do you do when one child feels she's not the golden child?

I think my sister may have felt a bit "left out". Let me explain. We are six kids - me, her, then four boys. My parents' odd-numbered children have tended to be very smart and we get smarter as we go down the line. Their even-numbered children are intelligent, but not always gifted to the same degree. Bro2 decided to make up for that by working very hard. He's a musician and earns his living this way. My three oldest brothers are all musicians. Bro4 decided that he wasn't even going to try to compete with the rest and decided to develop completely different hobbies. But my sister seemed to deal with it by just giving up. I don't think my parents treated her any differently than they did the rest of us, but I think she probably spent so many years hearing about "Agnurse is doing so well, look at her grades!" and "Bro1 is such a talented musician!" that I think she felt she was being compared unfairly and just didn't know how to cope. Sadly she has chosen to break off contact with us and our parents.

My DD (13) has made similar comments about her younger brother Thesearepearls, but as a PP said, I think it's more to do with personality and behaviour, i.e. he acts more like the "golden child."

They're both bright, but he tends to work harder at school, so he always has high grades, whereas she's less consistent, depending on the effort she puts in; he does his chores fairly willingly and she usually moans (so we end up having to impose consequences, which we don't enjoy at all); she creates a lot of mess in the house, him less so, etc.

We love and admire them both- but her strong will and independence do make for conflict sometimes!

Interestingly, I've noticed that my ILs pay far more attention to the two of their four adult children whom they're most worried about.

DH and DSIL1 joke that they're not the "golden children," but it's really because their parents know they're both fine and coping well with life. Their siblings...not so much.

charlestonchaplin
This tells you a lot about many of the reports here about other siblings being the 'golden' child. People take these reports as incontrovertible fact, rather than a very biased opinion. I always wonder what other more objective family members would report.

The problem with that is that it often undermines the person that is saying.

I have no doubt that some of those saying "golden child" do so through a coloured lens, but for many people it is a truth that many others do not want to here or even admit that they may have a case.

My sister thinks I am the golden child. There is a big age gap between us, she is older. She thinks I got off lightly and 'got away' with more than she did. But I saw firsthand the comeuppance of being devious and lying to our parents so I was more honest, so I think I was trusted more. And I also firmly believe that it is 'easier' for the second child as you have more child experience so you are more aware of which battles to fight and which to let go so it sometimes appears that younger siblings get it easier than older ones. Now we're much older and both parents, you see it differently and realise your parents don't have favourites. Although I still take every opportunity to tell her 'that's because they like me better'!

The only thing strangers on the Internet can accept without question is that that is how a person feels. We really can know nothing of the reality of the situation.

That was in reply to Boney.

I'd ask her, if she is basing that on her perceived 'different' treatment of him & ask for examples: or, is she saying he's golden by virtue of being a model child, doing better at school? So not your favourite but just better behaved/tried harder?

Did DS really work harder or was he just lucky to be more academically able? Is it possible dd has a still unrecognised mild learning difficulty?

We'd need to know much more really.

I come from an extremely dysfunctional family. Sis is mum's gc I'm her sg, I was dads (with ulterior motives on his part) with sis as sg and bro was basically completely ignored!

My sister can do nothing right as far as my fathers concerned. She could become a top class neurosurgeon, devoting her spare time to charity and an excellent mum and he'd still find something to criticise. With mum though she can do no wrong - she's in her 40's a single parent, has never held down a relationship or a job for more than 5 years, constantly over spends, spoils her kids materially while also basically expecting them to fit round her life, betrays friendships, relationships and employers, lies constantly, and has a substance addiction issue. Mum bails her out every time she gets in serious debt inc repeatedly being evicted.

I can do no right in my mothers eyes. My ex-husband cheating was due to my not being a good enough wife apparently, my being unemployed due to ill health is laziness and setting a poor example for dd, dd wears too much make up and has too much freedom. I'm too critical and argumentative and should be more passive and quiet according to her.

This from a woman who has stayed in an abusive marriage almost 50 years "your father would never have cheated on me I'd never gave him cause to" more like nobody else would have him!!

Brother is a total adrenaline junky mainly as being a daredevil was the only time either parent even noticed him!

Being a golden child comes with its own baggage and pressure. In my case it was csa, in my sisters I wonder sometimes if she's trying to push it so far to see IF there's a point at which mum will go "hey! Enough!" Because if there isn't, is there any reality to mum's supposed love for her? Being a gc isn't always a blessing.

I also believe I'm mum's sg because as far as she's concerned I'm to blame for her marrying dad and ending up in the abusive marriage (shotgun wedding), whereas sister I believe was unplanned too, that my parents hadn't planned on any more after bro (definitely planned) was born. That dad resents her as an extra burden financially. Parents are Catholic so abortion wouldn't have been considered an option.

The kind of examples you're offering are almost exactly what my parents do of how they DON'T favour anyone -

All had similar size bedrooms
Equally supported academically (patently not true)
All equally treated in the wills
Same amount spent on each child (to the penny) at birthdays/Xmas

But -

sis was allowed more choice on bedroom decor, dad chooses poorly gift wise for sis, mum gets me gifts sis would like but are meaningless for me, bro's gifts are bought last min with little thought.

Mum bailing sis out to the tune of £10,000's will obviously affect whatever inheritance might be left over (I'm not interested in inheriting from them - that's caused arguments too, but I just find it a joke that they claim they'll be leaving us all an equal inheritance but sis has already had I believe close to £100k in bailouts)

Mum is much closer to and babysits/spends much more time with sis' children.

Important news is told to sis first, then me sometimes months later and bro is lucky if my parents tell him at all, it's usually me makes sure he knows. This inc serious illness/bereavement of relatives.

I've met/read people who claim a gc/sg setup and it's just the usual sibling rivalry but I've also met/read people who really are dealing with this dynamic and struggling.

Why not ask your daughter about what she means when she says ‘golden child’? She could mean that he was always the well behaved, compliant one and that she kind of regrets her behaviour now? Also I think kids can end up filling contrasting roles to establish an identity, and that she ended up being the rebel and he was the good one as such. My twin brother and I tended to do this - e.g. the sporty one and the musical one, the well behaved one and the mischevous one. Now we are older we can see that we are actually very very similar.

She may not mean the preferred child. I doubt you would have a good and close relationship if so. We had a golden child in our family, and things were a lot more blatant (Thomas gets more sweets/the best seat/special treats because he is the oldest) and got increasingly ridiculous as we got to be teenagers, as our parents who strongly preferred our eldest brother, ignored or belittled our achievements to praise the golden child and ignore his deficiencies. E.g. Gertrude gets better results because she works so hard, but Thomas is the clever and talented one. He doesn’t need to slog away like he would do if he was a bit dim like Gertrude.

Interestingly, I've noticed that my ILs pay far more attention to the two of their four adult children whom they're most worried about. DH and DSIL1 joke that they're not the "golden children," but it's really because their parents know they're both fine and coping well with life. Their siblings...not so much

Yes we have that dynamic in my family too. My DM is quite enmeshed with DBro because he needed constant nagging to keep him working at school. And uni. She still goes round to clean his house, she covered his mortgage when he split with DSiL, she reminds him to pay bills.

Whereas I’ve worked since I was 18, and have been completely independent since I graduated. I’ve never needed nagging, and have never been offered money.

From my point of view, DBro has had a shit tonne more help and support, both financial and otherwise, than I have had. From his point of view, I have been much more successful than him, DM is always nosing about in his business (usually at his request, but he forgets that when it suits him) and he is often unfavourably compared to me. I don’t think he’s the favourite but he has certainly never had to work as hard as I have.

I thought my sister was the golden child, she's 10 years older than me. My parents split up when I was 7 and it was a messy divorce. I strongly believe this is the reason for my feelings,

I think my sister just had the benefit of a stable family and is more of a well rounded person for it. I was jealous of the upbringing she had and I was an upset and angry child.

As a child/teenager I obviously didn't understand and I acted up. As I've grown up I started to realise a lot and hate that I was such a dickhead to my Mum. I still joke that my sisters the golden child but I truly know now she loves us both equally!

My point is something may have happened, whether it's come from you, her dad or her sibling. It maybe something small that's just been eating away at her. Eventually she'll come to her own realisation that she was offered the best of everything and that they're both equally loved.

I think the difference is that in dysfunctional families, one of the parents will have been deliberately setting one sibling against the other. Constantly comparing them, very deliberately withdrawing affection from one while lavishing it on the other. I think the classic sign is if the siblings hate each other and don't necessarily see that it has anything to do with the parent.

Also OP, I think you can tell you're not a narc parent/dysfunctional family by the fact that your DD can criticise your parenting and you don't go off into a massive huff or accidentally on purpose break her stuff or fake a heart attack as a response. My mother once stopped speaking to us all because when we'd been out at a cafe and she took the last sachet of tomato ketchup, DH asked for it back because it was for 3yo DD1. Stuff like that.

My db is the golden child. If I left a plate on the side and didn't put it in the dishwasher all hell would break loose with dm. If he did the same she would just put it in the dishwasher for him without a word.

He would commandeer the front room as his, hogging the t.v. for gaming so I had to stay in my room on the laptop. If he was out and I watched tv in the front room and he came back and wanted to game, I had to move and leave what I was watching.

My favourite example though. He came in from work and we'd already eaten (he works quite a late shift) and dm said 'oh ds your dinner is just there in the fridge (3 feet away, he's standing, I'm in another room). 'Sparkl!! Come here and heat up your dbs food!'

One thing that stood out to me:

we love both children equally (I think anyway)

DS being the golden child as though he is kind of preferred (which he isnt, I don't think)

Twice you have put after, I don't think/I think anyway as if you are truly doubting the honesty of your own words. I am doubting you just so you know because that hesitation shouldn't be there. There is no 'I think' about it, you either truly love them equally or you don't. I suspect there is much more to this than you are telling us op.

Did you give her a very hard time for making mistakes? Did you speak to her or about unfavourably to others? I am struggling to imagine why a grown woman of twenty would say those things unless she sincerely thought it was true.

Everyone said I was the GC, I never felt it/saw it. In our case it came to confidence, DB was paralyzed with fear over everything despite being brilliant (genius IQ, passed the bar without studying, etc) whereas I wasn't afraid of anything/any challenge and worked my ass off to achieve anything. Parents said they put much more focus, attention on DB as they "knew I was fine so they didn't worry about me". DSs and DB always said I was GC as I never got in trouble - difference was I worked my ass off so I didn't get caught!

My brother would say I was the golden child, and I´d say he was. When we were growing up, he got more attention, more help with school work, more running around after, while I was left to get on with things on my own to a much greater extent. I thought it was deeply unfair as a child. From an adult perspective, I can see that he was a very sensitive child who got into a flap easily and he needed the attention and help, which I didn't. My brother would see me as the golden child for the same reasons. He needed the help and I didn't, so therefore I was "better" than him. In reality, neither of us were neglected in any way at all.

My dear late husband always felt that his elder brother was the 'golden boy' as parents boasted, 'Fred went to a posh school, got a degree, is a teacher, his children have horse riding/guitar lessons, etc.'

But, 'Tom went to a comprehensive, is a lorry driver' - you aren't going to boast about that, are you?

Fred was a scheming, cunning little =-'/; but Tom felt his parents over-compensated for Fred not being very likeable, it's the squeaky wheel which gets the grease, as they say. I'm sure they loved them both equally but Tom felt that he never really came up to scratch. It was damn obvious who was the nicer person though.

You can tell you’re not a narcissist because your dd told you that her brother is the golden child and you didn’t tell her she’s being stupid.

I my mothers scapegoat. I have written about my situation a lot. I have had to go nc with my brother for my own physical protection yet my mother blames his violence toward me on me.

She also claims to have always treated my brother and me equally. Except I was the girl and only allowed to do girl stuff and own girl things. I was squashed into a box and told how to behave by both my parents - my brother was too of course - a boy box. Couple that with the fact that my father bought lots of extras for my brother and lived vicariously through him so that in many ways he had the most amazing childhood, which most children could only dream of. Think a childhood full of his own cars, motor bikes, a pony, his own dog and he wouldn’t allow me to touch his animals. I had to beg him to be allowed to drive his cars. That’s as a child. He was always in charge of me. As the elder child and as a male.

My mother is also a firm misogynist. My father must have been too but he died while I was too young to really know he much of one. I suppose that he didn’t even consider me to follow in his footsteps in his business speaks volumes - and that I never felt able to tell him that this was my dream even more so.

I think you need to talk to your dd. It isn’t about always spending the exact same amount on them or trying to be equal. It’s about how your children feel. She needs to hear and understand, I mean really get that you love her just the same as her brother and you love her because of her faults, not despite them. And that you are incredibly proud of her for turning her life around.

Maybe she needs to hear this and really get it. Maybe she needs some therapy for reassurance. Whatever she needs, you seem like a mother, who wants to help her find it, which is showing her the unconditional love she is craving.

I think all kids feel hard done by, for some reason or another. The older one feels that the younger one is spoilt and made a fuss of because they're younger. They feel supplanted. The younger one feels that the older one got there first and gets pecial treatment because they àre older. You can't win. And the other thing is when a baby is born it brings a guilt complex for the mother with it. My DS is 40 and I still feel guilty!

In my family, my sister and I both feel that my brother was the favoured child. My parents aren’t remotely narcissistic and gave all of us enormous love and support. But my brother was definitely given freedoms, privileges and exceptions that neither of us were. My sister and I were expected to do both emotional and physical labour that he was exempt from.

But also - he’s a ge uobely lovely person, incredibly clever, hard working, easy to get on with etc. It’s easy for everyone to think he has a charmed life, but he also deserves it as a reward for his efforts. So it’s very difficult to determine how much of his ‘golden’ status is is own hard work and determination, and how much is down to his having had an easier ride from our parents.

I wonder if that’s where your DD is coming from - that some of her brother’s successes seem to come from your treatment of him, rather than from his own efforts? It’s very difficult to challenge a perception like that but I wonder if that’s what’s going on.

Did DS really work harder or was he just lucky to be more academically able? Is it possible dd has a still unrecognised mild learning difficulty

It’s difficult to say which is more able. I think they’re about the same. Certainly no learning difficulties. DD is working properly now (she says for the first time in her life) but she spent a lot of her later school years partying. DS just worked tremendously hard all the way through secondary school. I used to think that if I blended them I’d have a child with a balanced approach to work.

They both seem happy, as far as I can tell. DD has a healthier lifestyle in that she exercises more. Both eat healthily. Both bring friends home (all friends welcome) both have very nice boyfriend/girlfriend. I’m just as delighted to see both of them. I tend to text more with DD because she texts more.

ha! DD gets very cross at me for not treating her like a Golden Child. Due to being a high achiever (our highest achiever). DD gets great academic results that we could brag about & she wants us to noticeably and very deliberately reward her for that. Equal treatment, no way she thinks that's fair! Pah. I know you want a serious thread about deep problems, but honestly... some people are just very competitive. I try to never talk about the other kids to DD, all sorts of attention to them seems to make her feel threatened.

In DH's family, all his siblings are v obviously loved but there is a clear favourite. The favourite is likely oblivious but it helps that she is naturally a v nice, calm and sensible person.

Both PILs clearly assigned roles to their children - the calm one, the clever one, the sensitive trouble maker and find it hard to see them as anything else even now they are fully grown adults with fully formed personalities. MIL also makes frequent attempts to play them off against each other - helpfully one is oblivious, DH sees it and ignores it but one falls for it every time.

I feel it would be unfair to call the favourite one 'the golden child' as some of what is perceived, quite bitterly by one sibling as favouritism is just that she was probably an incredibly easy child.

I wonderif some of this is what your DD is describing -her brother has been the golden child but partly through his own efforts and partly because he has been lucky enough to be endowed with a sunny personality and so had a much easier ride through adolescence than her.

From what she has said, it doesn’t sound like she is using ‘golden child’ the way you are, more than she sees herself as the black sheep and your DS as the good one.

She’s not directly said you treat her badly and him better, instead that he’s the good one- I don’t think this is an accusation of you treating them differently, I think she’s aware that she was difficult and he wasn’t. Doesn’t sound like a judgement on your parenting at all.

Next time she says it ask her what she means- I bet she will elaborate that he was ‘the good one’, which is your cue to reassure her.

My sister would tell you I am the golden child because she feels constantly criticised by my DM. In reality she has had more time and support from my DM then I ever had because of the terrible choices she has made all of her life. Any attempt to question these choices is seen as an attack and if you do 10 positive things for her and 1 negative thing she will only remember the negative one.
I do worry about her because her perception of the world is really screwed up and she keeps making the same mistakes and then getting angry with the family when we try to get her back on track.
Currently she’s 6 months out of a violent 3 year relationship but she’s with another man who treats her badly. She won’t listen to us and any attempt to make her see that she’s hurting herself again results in her feeling attacked.
Possibly not appropriate to your situation but you can’t always trust people’s perception of the injustices done to them. My sister feels judged but she isn’t she is loved and we want to help her.