Sorry to point this out because I know you’re angry and frustrated, but your being here and bitching about your folks then putting up a front… isn’t that nearly the exact same thing your father does that makes you label him a hypocrite? It sounds like you need to swallow your pride and be fully honest and tell him just how pissed you are.
You need it more than they do, that’s for sure.
Ok, wait a minute- they even treat your KIDS like second-class grandchildren? All right, everybody out of the pool!
No fucking way. Not ever. I would move to Scotland and never come back. Like tomorrow.
Seldom have I felt more grateful for my awesome parents than I do right now.
Rachelle, I have to agree with JavaMaven on this point- either you agree with how your parents do business, or you don’t. If you don’t, then you have to act differently than your dad. I know it sucks, I’ve done similar things. But this asshole is taking up so much rent-free space in your head that you can hardly stand it, and that is bogus.
Bite the bullet, tell him how you feel, THEN move on. That anger and resentment will eat you up, and they are not worth it.
Right about now my mom would say, “You’re only hurting yourself” by not talking to your parents about this. Obviously, telling your parents that you and your kids really need this car won’t necessarily get them to give it up, but by keeping it all in, you’re not doing anything but hurting yourself. It isn’t doing anything to them.
If you let them know you’re pissed, you’ll at least (1) know that you tried, and they’re being jerks and (2) get it out of your system. There’s no reason to make yourself suffer–you didn’t do anything wrong.
gee whiz, folks! i sure am sorry!
in my family, my parents worked thier ass off thier whole lives (only my mom is still at the post!) to provide for thier kids, giving all 5 of us every possible advantage that love and money could buy, including but not limited to; home, clothes, cars, higher education, luxury items that we would ordinarly not be able to afford yada yada yada (the list is extensive!). i guess i should just keep on taking from them right up to the point i plant the last one in the ground!
i guess i’m really a dick-hole for thinking (whoevers parents) they might have rights to grannys ride (hey, aren’t they her kids?- never mind), when we all should realize that it is that it is our responsibility to just keep taking and taking from them.
why is it so damn selfish that they get it instead of you? why should they not get to take advantage of a good deal? oh, im sorry-- i didn’t realize you were at the axis of the universe! screw your parents and let them ride the fucking bus! ungratefull assholes, this is how they repay you for blessing them with your presence! dicks!
the next time my mom asks me to take her trash out when im over at her house to take more of dads tools (fuck, he’s dead-- he don’t need em anymore), i’m gonna tell her to fuck herself!
to the many who are about to light me up, i hope your kids treat you better…
I plan to call my dad when I get home this afternoon and talk to him about this. If I don’t I’m going to go insane. The more I think about it and the more I talk about it the angrier I get. I just know what’s going to happen though. I’ll ask him to let me buy the van from him, tell him I’ll buy it for an extra $1,000 (maybe making a little profit will persuede him) and tell him all the reasons my family would benefit from it and tell him how much money it would save me every month car payment wise. He’ll tell me that he’d really like to see my mom have a nice roomy vehicle and that I can buy her car from them if I really need something more reliable. Take it or leave it.
You just really have to know my family to know how differently they treat me… and my kids. My brother and SIL (Jeff and Becky) have a little boy and that’s the only grandkid my parents seem to talk about. I can’t tell them anything neat that my kids did without them telling me something that precious little Jared did. My other brother and SIL have two little girls… my parents are always babysitting for them so my brother and SIL can go to a basketball game or football game. My dad will even watch them during the day if they don’t have a babysitter for some reason. I’ve asked my dad once last year to watch my kids for 1/2 a day because I didn’t have a sitter and he wouldn’t do it. He said he had too much to do that day. I took the day off work (obviously) and took the kids into town and my dad’s truck was parked at a restaurant where he goes to drink coffee every morning. (My dad owns a lawn care/snow removal business and during the fall it’s his slow time) They just don’t go out of their way for me and my kids like they do for my brother’s and their families. They’re always over at J & B’s house but they never stop by my house and for the last 1 1/2 years I lived across the street from J & B!. It’s just little shit like that. My mom used to get upset because when my son was a baby he would cry when she held him because he didn’t see her very often and didn’t know her. She used to tell me that I needed to bring him over more so he’d get used to her and not cry like that. I told her that it was easier for her and dad to come over to my house instead of me having to pack up a 2 year old and a newborn and drive to their house. Think it did any good? NO. She still didn’t come over! There’s a million little things like this that I could tell you but it’s not going to make a difference. I’ve told them that I think they treat me and my kids different but they said that they don’t think they do. They’re not going to change.
I guess if it comes down to it (and they don’t want too much for it) I can buy my moms car and drive mine until it shits out and then drive hers until I can trade it in for something better. I guess my mom’s car, that runs better than my car, is better than the piece of shit I’ve got now… even though I’d still rather have the minivan. (I’m still trying to look at the positive side of things even though my SO thinks I’m crazy for doing so!)
gato, did you actually READ Rachelle’s posts?!?
She’s not trying to “take take take” from her parents. Get a grip. What is the difference between “taking from them until you die” and “having the right to it, since they’re the kids?” You can’t have it both ways. She is trying to look out for her kids as best she can, and feels like she is being taken advantage of. If her parents know she has need of the car, and they don’t, and they take it anyway, they are assholes.
Whatever.
Rachael, did you say that the siblings your parents treat better are brothers? I ask because I have seen parents the age of your mom and dad treat daughters differently from sons. Once I asked an uncle of mine why he helps out his sons but not his daughter and this is what he told me.
He said that sons have to support a family and be the provider while daughters were supposed to find a provider. If his daughter chose wrong then she has to live with it but he will help his sons be good providers.
I lost much respect for him after that. I wonder how many older parents feel this way? Hopefully few but could that be what’s going on with your parents and you?
**
I hope they’re not thinking this way but you never know. Growing up I was always the one who had to follow the rules and the only one who had a curfew. One of my brothers is 5 years older than me and the other one is 15 months older than me. When I was 16 and he was 17 I had to be home by 10:00 on the weekends and he had to be home by 1:00. The next year when I was 17 and he was 18 I had to be home by 11:00 and he had to be home by 2:00… unless he called to say he was staying out later!?! It was that way my whole life. I wasn’t allowed to go to a rock concert when I was 13 because my mom was afraid I’d be raped!?! My brothers both got to go to it because (to quote my mom) “They’re boys and I don’t have to worry about them.” It’s nothing more than favoritism. I know that when my mom got pregnant with me I was an accident… my brother was 6 months old at the time and there was 4 years difference between their 1st and 2nd child. You can’t tell me they wanted another one that soon. My mom just says I was a surprise but I know what she means. Maybe that’s why it’s so different with me. They didn’t really want me so why should they help me? Why should they want anything better for me… they have no reason to.
yeah, i read it. just to be sure, i went and read it again, and liked it less the second time! lets go back and take a look together…
R says “her parents told her” granny was selling van (this means parents knew it was available first!)
R says “$600 to fix her car” (thats a whopping $3400 less than the van! what a savings!)
R says "How fucking selfish of you to do this to me and how fucking dare you ask me if I want to buy your 10 year old, 100,000 mile granny mobile! Fuck you! " (this comment speaks for itself, in my opinion)
R says “you are almost 60” and “you don’t even need a mini-van!” (her last comment says moms car is already 10 years old, and at “almost 60” lets hope they have another 20-30 years to go. maybe the minivan is EXACTLY what they need and frankly, its not up to R to decide what they need)
i could go on, but i read the original post as a spoiled brat pouting cause she needs someone to blame for her problems and mom and dad are an easy target. grow up and deal with your shit! i don’t mean any offense to anyone, but that’s how i see it. there has to be 2 sides to this and i guess i am looking from the other side.
i wish you best of luck there, R.
Rachelle, how are they with your children? Do they treat your kids differently then your brothers’ children? Do they show preference to male grandchildren over female?
Gatopescado, I do not see a spoiled brat in Rachelle. In order to be a spoiled brat, a child has to have things given to her in excess and too much attention given her. Rachelle appears to not be given things and too have parental attention fixed mainly on her brothers. She feels this is unfair and is angry and frustrated. Wouldn’t you be if your parents did that?
Wow. Ok, let’s see…
Parents do sometimes worry about girls more than boys. There is a perception that boys can take care of themselves while girls are more vunerable. I guess girls are seen to be more at risk, and in the case of unplanned teenage pregnancy, the girl is more likely to suffer the consequences than the boy. I don’t know anything about you and your family, but what I do know is that the parents I knew who cared about their children set curfews. The parents that didn’t care let their kids do as they pleased. It may have seemed unjust to give your brother more freedom, but it comes back to the point about parents trying to protect their daughters.
My mother loves me, and she wouldn’t let me go to a concert at 15 in case I was raped, or attacked, or hurt. She didn’t do it to be mean, she did it because she loved me so much that she feared for me all the time. I wouldn’t let my 13 year old daughter attend a rock concert either.
Your last point, about being unplanned… I know two unplanned children, both born into broken homes and raised below the poverty line. One is 11 months and 28 days younger than his brother. His mother always tells him that he wasn’t an accident, he was a surprise, the best surprise she ever got in her life. She may not have planned to have him, but she loves that boy. The other is a girl, three years younger than her sister. Her “mother” hates her, and oftens screams at her “You were an accident! You should never have been born! I wish you’d never been born”. Coincidently, the boy always had curfews to stick to, but the girl was allowed to roam free. How’ve they turned out? The girl is a single mother living on welfare - she’s never had a job in her life and lives in government housing. The boy has a great job, he’s buying his own home, he’s engaged to be married to a lovely girl (daughter of a surgeon) and is an all-round success story.
Both had the same start to life, but the attitude of their mothers made all the difference in the world, and I find it significant that your mother and his both used the word “surprise”, while hers said emphatically “accident”.
I hope this turns out well for you. I’ve kind of been hoping to see a shamefaced post from you saying “Dad gave me the car”, but I can see you don’t expect that to happen. Your situation may be worse than you’ve painted it, but from what you’ve said I see your parents more as strict than unloving. Unloving is telling your daughter she should never have been born. Good luck with everything.
:eek: I certainly hope that is your anger and frustration speaking. As a father of three life-changing “suprises” myself I can’t imagine a parent feeling this way. I love my children but I also recognize that I treat them differently. Why should I not? They are different people. My older daughter is smart and creative and a natural leader with great learning skills. She’s also stubborn and rebellious. She needs to be shown new roads and creative ways to come up with her own solutions to things. Trying to coddle her just gets her mad.
My younger daughter is much more affectionate and is a follower in everything except bedtime(she would put us to bed if I weren’t a night-owl myself). She wears her heart on her sleeve and any attempt to reprimand her is met with the lower lip and a “you hurted my feeling!” She needs us to work beside her and teach her things by rote, she can’t make the jumps her sister can, yet.
My son(the youngest) is a real handful. He loves playing with his sisters, but he doesn’t understand many of the concepts that are integral to playing with others, namely sharing. He is a fairly independent child and will play happily for quite some time as long as he knows mom and dad aren’t far away. He checks back in fairly frequently, and as long as we’re still there, will giggle and head back.
I don’t believe any parent would knowingly harbor such favortism as you describe. I think you should speak to them about your feelings. Leave the van out of it, this is about you. You might be suprised at their reaction when they have to face the facts of what bitterness their behavior, and I’m sure they believed they had very good reasons for it, has earned them in their daughter’s eyes.
Steven