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?

My sister came to a similar realisation years ago, through having therapy following a nervous breakdown. My parents couldn't/wouldn't understand or accept what she was saying. She came up with numerous examples where they didn't respect her autonomy, they felt each time that they were acting in her best interests. Sadly after a couple of years of difficult conversations, she decided to completely cut them out of her life. I feel completely stuck in the middle. I can understand why some of the things they did and said had a detrimental effect on her, but I also know that they absolutely tried their best as parents. It's caused the whole family so much distress, so many people don't understand her perspective at all. I do, to an extent, but still wish she hadn't gone to the extreme of splitting from the family.
You're opening up a huge can of worms if you decide to speak to your family about it OP, maybe you already have a sense of whether they will be open to discussing and hearing things that may upset them. I'd definitely chat to a therapist about it first.

If the world had stayed the way it was when your parents were raising you and your siblings, you would probably not resent them at all as it would still be the norm. However, the world has changed immeasurably since your childhood with an ever-increasing focus on individuality with both good and bad outcomes for many children today. Transgender ideology is an extreme expression of individuality that is now dominant in the western world - hardly a good thing for the children who have been sterilized and maimed for the rest of their lives.

I think there is something else at play in your life which is making you unhappy.
Therapy may help you to unpick what this is if you can afford it and find a therapist who has already finished paying their mortgage - otherwise you will get fleeced.

It's interesting when you have children, parent and reflect on your own upbringing. Being better than my parents bought me joy.
It does get worse as your kids get older, your own childhood memories are more accurate and I feel really angry and sad on behalf of the child in me.
I know my parents didn't have my interests at heart it was ultimately all about them.
My parents also don't reflect on anything, weigh up alternatives or think strategically. Talking to them is pointless because you just get the platitudes that some previous posts trot out, including reflecting anger back at you.
I wish you well, keep thinking and use it to be a better parent.

This. 🙄

That seems strange as children have limited autonomy anyway. (Adults have limited autonomy as well, really. Sometimes I don't feel I have much at all!). Not liking parental decisions doesn't necessarily = not respecting autonomy. I suspect there are wider issues with your sister here.

Yes - the situation is far more complex than I could or would share on here. My response was more to offer a different perspective about how it can play out when such childhood issues are brought to the fore.

Ofc We are all somewhat limited in our choices. And ofc as children, we have little autonomy.
But the fact children have so little autonomy IS the reason why decisions taken by parents cannot just rely on ‘I thought it was best’. Because let’s be honest, what people think is best is often simply a repeat of the way they’ve been parented or what works best for them rather than what works best for the child.

eg in the OP’s case, each child has been pigeonholed. The younger sister told she was sporty and pretty so no effort put into her academic side. Why couldn’t she be BOTH sporty and academic? Why the pressure to be good at sports when it’s impossible to say if a child has actually the physical capabilities to be that good at sports?
It doesn’t sound that the qualities ‘attributed’ to them and for which they were suppose to PERFORM were reflection of their true potential. That’s where the issue. Not chosing a school that would have catered for those qualities. But the expectations and pressure to be good at it no matter what. And the lack of review if those labels were still actually a true representation of who the 3 of them were. Because let’s be honest, what you might appear good at or what you enjoy age 5yo, isn’t the same at 10yo or at 14yo. (That’s assuming this is how the parents decided of the labels. It might not even be)
instead they were asked to portrayed those qualities, even if they didn’t fit. That’s what is hurtful for a child. The fact they were not allowed to bloom in their own way but according to what their parents decided they were.

That’s a very simplistic analogy.

Harm that is entirely accidental (as in a road accident, dropping a child) is different from harm that resulted from well-intentioned but damaging choices. If something is wrong-headed it may not be intentionally malicious but nor does it come in the accidental category.

Hypothetical scenario - a mother spends her DD’s childhood warning her against becoming fat, restricts her diet and the result is anorexia. Perhaps the intention was good, perhaps her mother had been an unhappy overweight child or bullied at school and she wants her DD to avoid her distress. Perhaps she has some disordered eating herself she has not been able to conquer. There is some responsibility nonetheless in choosing behaviours without thinking through thoroughly what the complete picture of consequences.

The point here is less about the degree of responsibility - we cannot always be sure of the precise motivations of others - more that even well-intentioned acts can have very damaging consequences.