The family divide seems to be growing, even my parents declared a favourite

[Allosie]

I have 2 adult Dads, DD1 is 25 and DD is
23, same dad, their father and are still together.

My eldest DD is incredibly intelligent, it would
be unfair on her to not acknowledge this. She has a degree from a top European university, is trilingual, a masters from a top UK university, inhales books on the daily. She has chosen a career that pays relatively well but has a real human element to it which matters to her, she’s incredibly values driven and I’m very proud of her.

My youngest DD had a child at 19, at the end of her first year of uni, she has opted not to return to uni and is now training to become a hair stylist. She also recently told us she is pregnant again, same partner as her first child but they don’t live together. He stays here about once a week or so. Shes passionate about hairdressing, a fantastic mum and much more family oriented than her sister.

My 2 daughters haven’t spoken in over 2 years, they never really got on very well as teens and it seems adulthood has finalist the gulf between. There doesn’t appear to be any hard feelings, simply nothing in common. DD2 feels DD1 is too abstract, pretentious and intellectually snobby. DD1 feels DD2 is dull, unambitious and taking advantage of us.

They had a lot of issues as teenagers as DD2 was desperate for her big sister to like her and DD1 was mostly uninterested. This sparked jealously in DD2 as she felt her sister was more intelligent, more loved and more attractive.

We provide significantly more support to DD2, she still lives at home with our grandson, we help financially and with childcare. We would do the same for DD1 but she is much more independent and self-sufficient.

Today I went to see my parents alone for a change, my mum took this as an opportunity to tell me she feels we treat DD1 unfairly, she is ignored, her accomplishments are overshadowed by our new role as grandparents etc. My mum also feels we are making DD2s life too easy, she feels we have cushioned her from the consequences of having a child young and even rewarded her with our time and money. This quickly turned into my mum going on a ramble about how much better DD1 is, in intelligence, values and even getting down to looks and the type of men she is interested in.

I did defend DD2 as I felt my mum was being extremely unfair and harsh on DD2. I’ve never felt her choices were the smartest but I also believe that unless real harm is done my role as a parent is to be equitable in my support of my children. I give both of them exactly what they need and for now DD2 needs more. She also lives with us while DD1 lives far away.

My mum concluded saying she was fed up of our “pandering” to DD2 and for her birthday this year she is travelling to spend it with DD1 and we should perhaps give her some space until we realise our mistakes. Effectively she believes we have backed ourselves into a corner where we will inevitably have to support DD2 for a long time while DD1 who is doing everything “right” is ignored.

AIBU to feel my mum is being incredibly harsh and to wonder how we ever recover our family when it seems everyone is taking sides?

Yes but it’s all a projection of their own situation. The OP’s DD1 sounds very different to many of those descriptions. She sounds like she’s too busy to want too much interaction when the OP offers to come and see her. She’s only 25; many 25 year olds just want to get on with their own lives and not spend masses of time with their family, However I did suggest that the OP check it out with DD1 to make sure.

I’m not saying it’s the average situation with DD 2, of course it’s not. Equally it doesn’t mean she’s going to be 35, still living at home and bumming off her parents, as some people have suggested. She has plans and is organising her career, doesn’t sound like a no-hoper to me. I don’t like the implication that all young parents who start off needing parental support end up as useless dependents because it’s not true.

Yeah this, for sure. It’s one thing to get pregnant as a teenager and choose to go ahead with the pregnancy without having the means to provide for a child, but if you choose that option then your next step is to work your arse off to get into the position whereby you can support yourself and the child.

She sounds lazy and entitled. It’s someone else’s problem to make sure she and her children have a roof over the heads and cash to spend. I’d be furious if I were your DD1!

I’m an only child and weirdly yesterday when I visited my parents, my mum handed me £100. I was confused, and she said something about how “everyone else always says they give their kids money and I never give you anything” 😂

I mean, she and my dad have given me things of course, but I’ve never asked for money to assist me with my life, buying a house etc.

If your daughters don't get on then I can see why your dd1 would stay at her grandparents and why she wouldn't want to holiday with you. Plus with holidays she'd see proof of all the things she believes and has raised to you (dd2 taking the p with childcare/money/adventage).

Have you asked dd1 alone on holiday? That might seem like a better choice then together. If you do 2 holidays with dd2 then surely you can just split and do one with each?

My friends were like your daughters. They actually talk a little now as they've both moved out and away from their parents. The eldest felt forgotten, minimised and that the youngest was the gc. The youngest felt a failure, codependent and resentment.

It's hard and heartbreaking and shit at times being a parent. The one going you have to really take on board (and looks like you are looking at since you posted here) is where you may have fucked up. Your mum's told you a truth and dd1s actions as an adult match to her believing that. The best thing to do is speak to someone professionally and very honestly evaluate your parenting of both so that you can move forward either accepting dd1s beliefs and working on them, or not accepting them and continuing as you are ..

You know how you are defending your DD against what you see as iniquity, unfairness? Your own mum is doing the same thing for her daughter... and one of her granddaughters

She probably has a point. Maybe you could just take a small step back and be honest with yourself. Could DD2 be more self sufficient? Is her predicament detracting from your relationship with DD1?

Have you asked dd1 alone on holiday? That might seem like a better choice then together. If you do 2 holidays with dd2 then surely you can just split and do one with each?

yep, forgot to mention this. You invite DD2's baby daddy, but do you go on holiday (or even ask her to go on holiday) alone with DD1? Agree with pp that she has built up her own ersatz-family that she spends time with because you don't give her what she wants/needs.

Ok thanks.

Your making an assumption that the DD or the OP could afford or could find a private rental. Social housing might not be appropriate in this case, but it would be judged on the DDs income not her parents.

Yep. I know the responsibility for her will become mine, and I don't want it. But I won't be able to see her destitute either.

How soon after the suicide did DD2 fall pregnant? It was quite soon, wasn’t it? How soon did the support you were giving to DD1 then get transferred to DD2?

I’m wondering if DD2 didn’t like the attention being on DD1 at the time and fell pregnant on purpose. I really hope I’m wrong but it’s niggling. I’m also hoping your support for DD1 wasn’t lessened because of the pregnancy.

Similar dynamic in my family. I’m left to get on with it while my mum endlessly indulges my younger sister and her ridiculous decisions. She’s still more or less living off my parents and she’s nearly 50. That’s what you’re setting yourself up for, OP.

And yes as the high-achieving older sister in this scenario I’m pretty pissed off about having been sidelined my entire life. It has ruined my relationship with both my sister and mum (the toxic twosome, as I think of them).

I'm very busy. I have my own life. You wouldn't meet me in a normal, every day kind of situation and think I was at all unhappy with the underlying family dynamic.

My DH knows I am and some of my very close friends. You'd think my parents would know me well enough to know the fact I don't want to see my sister much is an indicator for how I feel about it, but they don't see it.

I'm giving my side as the independent capable sister with a coddled sister here, because it's relevant. Day to day, I accept my own situation and crack on with my life because I like a quiet, simple life and raising it with my family would (from experience) just cause a lot of upset and not actually resolve or change anything or make me feel any better about it.

So I visit, I spend the minimum amount of time I can with my sister without my parents getting miffed about it, I invite them to visit us to see DD, I bite my tongue when they tip up with my sister despite me not inviting her. And I get on with my life. But when I think about it, I feel shit.

Can’t believe you’re happy that your dd2 has decided to get pregnant not once that’s a mistake an accident but twice while living home with you unable to fully support her self. With a man who lives hours away living also with his own parents. What a lovely life aye.

You’re then paying for these babies and doing childcare. I’m sorry but you’re setting her up to fail hugely and I can see why dd1 would want to part in the clearly babying and favouriting of dd2.

Sure you say dd1 intelligent and pretty but that’s about the only good things you’ve said. Thank god for her she is because could you imagine her being the same as dd2? You wonder why granny knows and has these opinions when dd1 has to stay with granny because her old room is now the babies room and dd2 will avoid and bicker with her if she doesn’t give her bag boy enough attention eugh.

Least dd1 has granny and her friends.

I’ve been in a similar scenario and would encourage you to prioritise spending some one on one time with your DD1 to see if anything comes out. Unless your mum has form for being dramatic she’s probably best placed to see what is really going on with DD1 and choosing to spend her birthday with her as a way to make her feel valued speaks volumes. With kindness, I’ve been like DD1 and when you have been pigeonholed as ‘capable’ and ‘independent’ you feel like it would be a disappointment to be anything else. We don’t know the individuals and she may truly not be looking for more, but this sounds like an opportunity to salvage a relationship which I wouldn’t personally want to miss.

Sounds like something my sister would do 🤣

I genuinely don’t know anything about this - wouldn’t they take into consideration things like the kids being at private school to demonstrate that the DD didn’t need social housing? I think it would be appalling for someone like the OP’s DD to be provided with a council house when it’s clear that there are substantial funds available to her, even if they are not currently in her name. There will be others in far greater need of housing than the DD.

Why don't you ring DD1 and see if she's up for a girly city break with you and your Mum for her birthday. Your treat.
I can't believe you are paying school fees for your grandchild 😳 that's a pretty major expense. I quite honestly don't know how DD2 can let you do that, unless you are multimillionaires.
Wouldn't you be better off using some of that money to towards house deposits for both of your DDs. Enabling an I dependent future for DD2.

What would you do if DD1 really needed you? Got ill or pregnant herself or needed to come home? Or needed your help? Would you say you couldn't help because of DD2? As the capable older sister I asked my DM if she would look after my DD for a weekend (she had been saying she didn't have enough time with my DD) so DH and I could have a weekend away. She refused, on the ground that my younger DSis, who was then living abroad "might" need her and "might" be in the UK that weekend, with her children. No plans for my DSis to be in the UK - just the possibility. I never asked DM again. Endless help and childcare given to my DSis - I just asked for one weekend. That decision was part of a pattern but was the final straw for me and really damaged all our family relationships. And DM continues to complain she doesn't know my DD well!

OP did say she had deposits put aside, but not enough apparently for DD2 to buy in the local area. I agree it’s ridiculous that OP is paying school fees for a 4 year old rather than upping the deposits to enable DD2 to buy.

Your mom sees that you've enabled D2 so much so that she's a failure to launch. She and her kid have effectively pushed your D1 out of the nest to the point there's no room for D1 to even visit and you've enabled that. And now D2 is mid 20s, living at her parents, in an LDR, and pregnant again. There's no future plans other than possibly hairdressing.

Your mom is right. You've enabled D2 so much that she has no career, no way to support herself and her children except living off you. You've done neither of them any favours by showing so much favoritism. D1 is alienated from you. D2 isn't a fully functioning adult without you. You've been a poor role model as a mom modeling such a toxic dynamic that you've alienated one of your kids and let your favorite push her out of the home even for a visit.

D2 feels so safe about your favoritism that she feels free to slut shame her sister and call her misogynist names.

Your mom sounded your wakeup call. I doubt you'll do anything and it's likely too late to make things right but you obviously begrudge even saying nice things about D1. You put her down while building up her sister. There's a big imbalance there that your mom sees.

You need to be seen to be making more effort with your older daughter. Just because she needs less “mothering” doesn’t mean she doesn’t need to know she’s still as important.
Consider every little thing you do for your youngest to show you care and compare that to everything you do for your oldest to show you care.

Go and visit her regularly. Take her out to lunch and to do an activity she would enjoy. Show her she is important. Send her monetary gift to make her life easier just as you do with your younger daughter. If you can’t afford to do for both, don’t do it for either.

Your younger daughter needs a kid up the arse and you need to give her notice to move out. She is exploiting you with her decisions to rely completely on you to be the adult while foisting another dependent into the mix.

You can’t let the sum total of your relationship with your daughters rely on how little independence they have.

OP - your older daughter barely sees you, not because she’s ’so busy’ but because she doesn’t want to. I know this as I do the same with my mum for the same reasons. Your DD2 has pushed DD1 out of the nest and you’ve not just allowed this but actively encouraged this. You can’t expect them to be friends and frankly that’s on you. You don’t treat them equally and clearly never have. Supporting one doesn’t mean ignoring the other - or, I suspect, not praising her looks or intelligence for fear of making her sister feel ‘lesser.’ It’s probably too late as it doesn’t look like you want to hear the truth - parents who favour one child never think they do, no matter who tells them or how many times they’re told.

I don't think she sounds different at all. The OP's perception or excuse she tells herself is that she is 'busy'. Busy is often code for 'too busy for you' which is probably deliberate on DD1's part because she realises that her parents can't be bothered with her as they are constantly running around after the golden child.

DD2 doesn't appear to have any plans. It sounds as if she wasn't working for some time and is now training as a hairdresser. There have been no plans made in the last 5 years for her to live with her partner. Her only plan appears to be to get pregnant again and continue to sponge off her parents. Of course not all young parents are useless but the fact that the OP appear to have constantly coddled DD2 because she was bullied at school and was less academic and hard working than her sister has led to a young woman who takes no responsibility for herself because she knows that her parents will always step in to support an upper MC lifestyle for her.

I think you may be me. Except my sister never bothers to visit. Didn’t even bother coming to my wedding. She’s learned that I’m unimportant - and yes of course it stings when you think about it. I’m thinking about going back into therapy again as I feel
so angry about it all at the moment.

"Money, looks and a career isn't everything in life" - she's 25 years old and has done very well so far. Her achievements shouldn't be minimised to compensate for her sister's feelings of inadequacy.

But taking from DD1 DOES feel right? She isn't asking for anything because she probably knows there's no point as all your time and attention is on DD2, and as for having the same amount of money when she has children, there will be nothing left because it's all gone on golden girl's kids
You say it's money for the grandchildren rather than your DD, having children is expensive, and at the moment I imagine they're quite young so how long will you fund them for? Wait to they hit the teenage years and the costs ramp up with things like trainers, clothes and phone contracts, trust me the coffers will be empty by the time DD1 has kids and resentment and the gap between you and DD1 will be enormous, but you've got a chance of repairing it if you act now.