Update: Entitled Parents Play Favorites Older Brother, Dejected Younger Finds Out Why

Brad Dickson • Managing Editor

Aug 28, 2022 12:00 PM EDT

This is one of those threads where all you can do is think to yourself, "Oof. That's rough, buddy." as you read. Some people had the absolute misfortune of being born into twisted families where the parents were either entirely selfish or just wanted nothing to do with their child.

This Redditor had initially posted about six months ago to Reddit's r/AITA (Am I the A-Hole) subreddit to see if he was wrong for having an issue with the fact that his parents had bought his older brother a car but not him. The problem arose unexpectedly, his parents had bought his brother a car for the brother's 18th birthday and so the original poster (OP) of this thread had expected the same. When his 18th birthday came and went, without the fanfare or car his brother's birthday had brought, the OP was hurt and confused and sparked a debate involving his extended family.

Normally this is the type of story where we would immediately be jumping into talking about how entitled the child is, but that is not the case in this unique scenario. These entitled parents really just favor the OP's brother and want his brother, their firstborn son, to be more successful. They're even willing to convince themselves that this is the truth when it's not true at all.

Fortunately, the OP has grandparents who genuinely care about him and are willing to support him in a fight for fairness from his terrible parents. As he explains in an update thread that was just posted, it turns out that his parents did not want him from birth. His parents had wished for both a son and a daughter and so had become delusional and convinced themselves before he was born that he was going to be a girl. When he turned out to be just another boy they were shocked and it planted the seeds of resentment.

The original thread and reactions are featured in items 1-11 of this list, with the updated thread being items 12-25 and items 26-29 from another subreddit where this story was reposted.