I hear you. i was the eldest and only girl. I had 3 brothers and my brothers had freedom where as i had all the rules. It made no sense as i was a good kid where as my brothers did things that I never would have done and my parents would have had heart failure over if they had known.

I must admit I am harder on my 9 year old than his younger siblings. I expect more from him…….. this comes from the way I was Brought up with a brother 8 years younger. We try to treat them all equally, but they are all different in themselves

I am youngest in my family. I got two brothers. But this never problem to me.

l am the youngest of 4 kids l grew up in the 70’s . We were all treated the same in our house . We all had to do chores at a certain age . Even my Brother who is the eldest he had to do the same as we did my mother ran the house we were all treated the same thank goodness

I was eldest of four girls and strict rules never allowed to sleep at friends I was unhappy and told by my mother you have to leave school and help the family (as in the sixties girls don’t need to do good)as your going to get married and have a family so you need to leave school when allowed I was fifteen and had to work and give over half my pay to my mother and what was left was for clothes fares hairdressers so it was hard. My youngest sister was spoilt and didn’t have to do the things I had to do hanging out washing setting the table wiping dishes. I hardly any clothes and what I had was second hand but my sisters seemed to get more and did less with the youngest doing nothing. Most men in the sixties the man was the wage earner and wife stayed home.

I’m very lucky in that I didn’t have that issue and I’m glad to say I never used that with my boys or my granddaughters.

I grew up in the 80s and was tired of being told “that’s not lady like” and “you can’t do that in a dress/skirt” so I stopped wearing dresses and skirts and stopped listening to what was lady like! I had way more fun. And I did whatever my brother did. I also got fed up of hearing “he’s a boy, he can do that” or “he’s a boy that’s what they do”

I did not have this issue in my house. I think each child is individual and their uniques talents need to be nurtured.

It wasn’t too bad in my household.

My brother was the fourth child with 3 sisters so Mum was always easier on him, he got away with more, didn’t have to pay board or help with anything. And my Mum continued to pay for his things until adulthood and he finally left home. He was a real Mama’s boy. It was frustrating, but it has impacted him in his married and family life too.

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  • • Ellen replied
    • 14 May 2021 , 12:38 pm

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  Yes I can imagine this had it’s impact, our experiences shape us

I try to make things more equal in our house- I assign my husband chores to do but I do find that men just aren’t as good at cleaning as women, he’s not as thorough and he slacks off.

It was quite equal in our house, i just behaved better ha ha. Mum and Dad would do anything for us, just my brother was better at asking for money and lifts to friends houses etc.

This is a issue that is unique to each family I think. Not all families with male and female children do/have done this. I only have sisters, but I know even between them more pressure was put on one over the other for looking after younger siblings etc as they were seen as more responsible and it created issues. We need to try and treat our children as equal and remember how we felt when it was done to us as children and make those changes

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  • • Ellen replied
    • 11 May 2021 , 4:44 am

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  Yes I get where you’re coming from, however our children may differ too. Whilst I’m all for treating our kids equally, we may have a different approach and different freedoms for our kids depending on their maturity and what they can handle. For example my 7yr old and 11 yr old both have special needs and I won’t let either of them go on the road without adult supervision, whilst my other 2 were allowed at that age. Or my 11yr old can not go over the school ground without adult supervision, cause of risk taking behaviours and stealing, whilst other kids of her class/age group can do this.

No I come from a family with 5 girls only. And my parents made always sure that we were treated equally. Despite that we still can have feelings of inadequacy as some of us are naturally more insecure and feelings of inferiority

I came from a family of boys and girls and I never felt this. Although my older sister had much more strict rules than I did..