I really resent my parents for labelling us as children

[Tigss]

I am one of 3 girls. I have a sister who is 16 months older than me and a non-identical twin. We are now all late 20s.
As children my parents had a really bad habit of labelling us and boxing us in with expectations. For example my older sister was the kind one, the musical one, the friendly one, the easy one. I was the smart one, the quiet one, the shy one, my twin was the pretty one, the sporty one, the social butterfly etc. This approach made my teen years somewhat hellish. We all went to different secondary schools, my older sister went to a school that had amazing performing arts alongside academics, I went to a very academic school and my twin went to a very sport focussed school. I think my parents believed this was them treating us like individuals and allowing our own talents to thrive but the reality was it meant my sisters and I had very little in common.
There was a lot of pressure put on us based on our presumed talents, such as my sister was expected to do very well in music, attend the Saturday lessons at the conservatoire, I was expected to get top grades, apply to oxbridge and my twin was meant to perform really well in her chosen sports. This all backfired when my twin sister actually outperformed both my older sister and I in her GCSEs and A-Levels and went to a better university.
In the same way we didn’t all follow the same rules. Such as I was allowed to be out much later than my twin sister, they said this was because she had training in the morning, was too likely to go off with a boy, where as it was expected I’d just study with friends. This built a lot of resentment between us. My parents also constantly pointed out how gorgeous my twin was and would say things like “you got all the smart genes, your sister got all the pretty ones”, obviously this made me feel awful, even more so when she did better in her GCSEs and I felt like I couldn’t even claim to be the smart one anymore.

Now we are all adults, all successful in our own rights but none of us in careers particularly related to our perceived strengths. We aren’t very close as I think a lot of the childhood resentment runs under the surface. We are also all in very different life stages, my older sister is happily single, moved somewhere rural and is very happy with her life, I’m married with a DS and live 10 minutes from where I grew up, my twin sister has lives abroad and is now living in central London with her fiancé.

We are meant to be spending Christmas with my family but the more I think about how awful many of their comments made me feel and how much I have grown to resent them and my sisters makes me want to back off, go to therapy and work on reconnecting with my sisters.

AIBU?

Therapy's a great idea. This stereotyping - and the adult issues flowing from it - is a really common experience, sadly. As you're already thinking about it, you could already be in the right frame of mind to begin exploring the topic with your sisters if you get together over Christmas. How do you feel about the thought of opening things up with them? They've probably had a few thoughts of their own, it's amazing how validating it can be to discuss the 'unsayable' with the people who went through it alongside you.

Tiny tale from my own, longer story: I was telling some family friends a 'funny' episode from my days as a fat schoolgirl. My brother gave me a look and quietly said "You weren't fat. You were an absolutely normal-sized kid." I was 58.

Definitely chat to a therapist about it all. Your parents sound manipulative at best. I doubt they will ever admit any wrongdoing or try to work through any of it, a professional and unbiased opinion would be a good idea.

Oh dear. It is very likely that all this pigeon-holing was, as you hint, intended to help you each develop your own personality. But of course it didn't, it just made things difficult that might have been easy. On the plus side, they obviously put lots of money and energy into making sure you had opportunities.
It is possible to absolutely groan at the damage done us by our parents without in turn labelling them as manipulative or controlling or mean. They would probably be horrified if they realised how hard some of their parenting made your lives. Could you forgive them and move on?

You need to read the book 'The Favourite'

Get over it OP, either consciously or with therapy. They did what they thought was investing in and encouraging your strengths, just as you’ll hope to do for your children. Parents are humans too and nobody gets everything right.

By stereotyping children adults have a great deal to answer for.

My younger sister was the favorite. She was also a very pretty child with a mop of curly white blonde hair. I was plain and gawky with mousy hair. I was also a lot more academic than her. That created problems at both at home and in school. In school I was the teacher's pet and top of the class. At home my father hated to see me with a book. When I was revising for GCE I was told to "put that away and help your mother in the kitchen." When I told my father I was revising for my exams I got a beating for answering back. He was not interested in my getting on. That would have been disrespectful to my parents to want anything better. Many working class parents had that attitude in the 1950s.

I alsolutely hated sport and was useless at it. My sister was very sporty and learned to swim at an early age. She was average in the academic sense. All through her school career she was compared unfavourably with me. At home I was compared unfavourably with her. The result was that we were never close even after both parents died. Even now there is a shadow between us.

I think therapy is a good idea.

But you know what? Parenting is really difficult. There's no training, no manual, there wasn't even Mumsnet when you were little. It sounds to me like your parents made mistakes, but were trying their best.

Think about how you'll feel in twenty years time when your DS thinks about you in the same way you think about your parents. Because you will make parenting mistakes too and he will hold them against you...and so the cycle will continue.

But yes, therapy. It'll help you get to grips with the mistakes they made and hopefully come to terms with them, work through them and move on.

It does sound like they really tried their best with them. It’s not like they were giving them unpleasant labels, if the op and her sisters were ‘the fat on, the lazy one and the thick one’ then I’d agree. They really tried to identify their strengths and did everything in their power to help them excel. I’d have loved my parents to have called me anything like clever or pretty or sporty.

Get therapy. You’re an adult now and you can’t change your childhood but you can learn to accept it, to acknowledge that your parents were not perfect but almost certainly did what they thought was the best thing for all of you, and reframe your thinking about yourself in light of the above. I’ve found it life-enhancing really.

This.

You sound like you were very loved and that counts for more. I'm sorry dome things were damaging but don't turn your back on your family. You will be getting more from than you realise.

I think if this is all you've got to worry about, you’re petty lucky. Lots of people don’t have close sibling relationships, lots of people don’t get on great with their parents. I expect they did their best. Look forward not back OP. What are you going to gain from going over minor stuff that makes you miserable, move on and find contentment where ever you can.

I think you have to ask yourself what you gain by holding onto the resentment.

It's possible to be aware that this was a mistake that caused problems but to choose to have a lovely family Christmas. It's possible to recognise they shouldn't have done this and also recognise all the things they did do for you, out of love and good intentions.

You could ask your sisters to come for a drink or a walk with you over Christmas, or stay up one night after parents have gone to bed, and approach the subject of labelling, that you have recently felt it was tricky and wonder how they felt.

My DSis and I had some real heart-to-hearts about our childhood in adulthood. It helped strengthen the bond between us.

My parents were tricky. My father was a very selfish bully and my mother pandered to him. We were materially neglected. I remember being bought a skirt once in my entire teens. I worked from age 12 after school to pay for basics like shoes and coats. I had excruciatingly low self-esteem and depression for decades. I felt deeply resentful when I started to look at my family. But lately I've calmed down and also remembered the good stuff - and there was a lot of that too.

I’ve not got any sisters but I can imagine they’d feel similar. Maybe it will bring you together, getting this stuff out in the open?

It sounds like your parents really tried hard to do all the right things but got some things wrong. I’d give them some grace for that.

You spend nearly twenty years raising kids and you’re still influencing /supporting/semi raising them after that. I’ve tried really hard with mine to love and support them, but yes, over two decades I’ve got it wrong sometimes. But I love them and I did my best. Maybe your parents are the same?

You’re all adults now and I’d go for Christmas. I’d try not to resent your sisters for how things worked out and work on improving your current relationships. Tell your parents to stop if they begin to do the same with your own children.

To those posters telling the OP that her parents 'did their best'. They did not.

They didn't do what was best for each child as an individual. They did their best to attempt to mould the children into fitting the images of who they wanted their children to be. Which is not the same thing at all.

Unless your parents have been deliberately cruel I think it is sad not to go because my parents are no longer here and I would give anything to have them back.

It sounds like your parents really tried to support your individual needs. They weren’t neglectful. I worry my dc will describe similar. One is a dancer, one into science and nature, one an army cadet. They also have different personalities that respond differently so I parent each differently. I hope they don’t see it as favouritism. One of my twins is often referred to by her sister as “the pretty one” - they are identical!

I think you need to move on and realise there’s no guide book to parenting.

Or did they respond to the dc individual interests? None of us can tell from here.

Your perception of your childhood may be very different to how your sisters see it and how your parents see it. I organised piano lessons for my children when they were young. One drifted away from it after a couple of years. The other now plays three instruments and still loves music. We encourage him with his music because that is what he is into. My daughter would think I was daft not to recognise that he is much more musical than she is. Children don’t have time to do everything so parents tend to encourage them in their areas of interest. The pretty/clever thing is really not good though.

Read running on empty. If I'm remembering correctly there's a whole section on what pigeon holing kids does to them and their sibling dynamic.
If not, I'll have to have a good think about which book it was but I think it was that one.

My brother was the mathematic science one and I was the artsy one. My mum was very clear to us on the (fully debunked and blatantly obviously not true anyway) idea that you were either one or the other. I didn’t think about trying in maths because I knew it wasn’t for me. I just couldn’t do it.

I actually am quite good, have a very logical and problem solving mind and while yes, artistic, science is one of my favourite points of study.

With my own children I don’t box them in as “this is the X one and the other is the Y one” for this reason. While they do have their strengths and differences, one of them being good at maths and overly openly kind doesn’t mean the other is not also these things. Open ended compliments is the way. You are such a kind boy. And my other boy will hear the same. There is no easy one, no “naughty” one. While they sometimes make these jokes themselves I do knock it back. They both are easy and difficult in their own ways.

I've got a friend with non identical girl twins and she did exactly what your parents did ... with awful consequences. She thought one was socially gifted and pretty and popular and the other was introverted and brainy. It was all in her head. Quite mad.
I think therapy would be a very good idea. It must have been crazy-making to be labelled like that.

She's doing the sensible thing instead of adhering to a silly pointless queue.