When mothers treat female children worse than male children

[JenniferSmith]

Thanks everyone for the interesting responses here.   

In my case, I never heard any overt comments about favoring male children, but the general atmosphere was that I was her primary target and my brothers, especially the youngest, could do no wrong.

As adults this has created a massive rift between us because they have no ability to grasp what I actually endured from her, with much of it happening before they were born, and even after they were born, babies and toddlers aren't going to remember what their older sister went through.  I don't hold it against them that they were favored, but they are angry at me for going NC with her, and have never shown any curiosity or empathy for what I went through. Its as if they teamed up against me in childhood and now they've done the same thing as adults.  The peace I gain from NC is worth it to me thought, they can have her.

One thing that probably helped a lot was my dad showed no favoritism whatsoever. All kids were treated the same. So I never got any negative messages about what girls could or couldn't do, I was treated equal to my brothers in all ways - sports, academics, activities - by my dad. My dad, although he was too weak to stand up to my mother, he was kind and loving and a safe person, so I grew up feeling very secure with him. In fact this shows in my baby albums - 90% of the photos are of him with me, holding me and smiling at me, rather than with my mother. The ones with her she looks very stiff and doesn't hold me or cuddle me the way most adults do when they hold babies. It matches my sense of her as a very cold and mean person throughout my childhood. Not someone I could form a loving bond with. 

[moglow]

JS, with ours, mother was less abusive to my brothers but it was still there - she had the one golden child and the rest of us didn't seem to exist for her. For quite a few years they joked basically that "you get her when she's old and needs help." Somewhere along the way I seem to have communicated that I'd served my time, no thank you very much.

In more recent years -as she's turned on them too- They've brought up various specific incidents and their memories of her, mainly that I was the target much more than I realized. I'd always somehow believed it was all of us somewhat equally but they remember things i don't, like absurd triggers to some of her more physical rages. I think I was simply the most vulnerable, but when you think about the jealousy angle it kind of makes sense too.

In my case thankfully, her efforts at divide and conquer weren't completely successful. Once they saw her for who she really is, what she's capable of and we started talking about the past in general, the brothers get it and wonder why I have anything to do with her at all. My older brother has said several times, I was like that battered wife who went back to what she knew, afraid and intimidated. They're stronger willed than I, definitely - she sees and talks to the GC fairly regularly. The others are down to birthday and holiday greetings, via text. Sometimes you really do get what you paid for in this life, as seems to be the case with her now.

[M0009803]

Family gatherings were a nightmare until they dwindled down to nothing and we were isolated from them. Even when we were older and family gathered for funerals, she was constantly interrupting our conversations with aunts/uncles and refocusing back to herself. There was inevitably some meltdown where everyone was supposed to appease her and make everything all better for her, no recognition that everyone there had lost that loved one. It was/is all about her, always.

I experienced the same thing growing up with our PD mother.

The intended effect is that it makes the extended family "the bad people" and her "the good person", which she then uses to gain sympathy (from her small children), and further isolate us from anybody in our extended family. 

I don't think they consciously plan this (its all driven by their emotional volatility), but thats kind of what they want to happen via those behaviors.

As you get older you begin to realise there is something wrong with your mother (who throws fits during family get togethers at the drop of a hat?  makes no logical sense once you are older) and you begin to realise the reality of what happened (extended family is not necessarily bad but your mother is dysfunctional).  Even so, many years have gone by so its very hard to have a relationship with the extended family (who thought they were being shunned).  It is yet another way PDs damage their children.

[sunshine702]

My mom favored my younger brother as Golden Child growing up.  All activities centered around his sports and my poor SG older brother was only praised if he was a help to my GC brother or father. 

Then in my 20's she lost a bunch of weight and started competing with me - with clothes and makeup and such.  It was so uncomfortable - as she would give me her unwanted clothes or make up she was done with.  I wanted a mom not a frenemy

Let me tell you a story about that.  During a painful break up and the stress of having to carry the household completely on my own now I broke out with a horrible rash across my chest.  It was not healing and I had been to several doctors and nothing seemed to work.  I was feeling very low and told her I was suicidal.  She sent me her cast off clothes in the mail.  It wa super sad to me.  YOU ARE DRESSING A BODY I thought.  I want you to come here and love me and be with me. and comfort me .  A dress instead - something that she had bought online that didn't fit right.   When your daughter is suicidal.  That was a real moment for me when I realized just how limited she was.

[RainbowGirl]

I wrote my first post earlier in this group and I read other posts and found this.   I am going through similar. 

All throughout my teens and early adulthood my mother was different to me and to all of my three brothers.  She favoured them while she had a different attitude and tone to me. My brothers could do ko wrong and she was full of hate towards me.  She was ok sometimes but others times she would trip into an explosion of anger so easily and I was always her trigger.  A lot of it was money related.  If I was late or delayed with rent to her but she never charged my brothers rent.

I thought about things in my 30s and I thought it was a reflection of the bad marriage she had with my father.  He was abusive to her.   So she relied on two of my older brothers for security and DIY work and my younger brother was still a child.  She never worked but she relied on me to earn a pay and give it to her.

She babied all of my brothers well into their 30s.   They never had to pay a bill or buy groceries or do their laundry or do anything really.  If they did a chore around the home like cut the grass or change a bulb, they were paid money. 

She grew up in a time and in a country where men were cared for like that and women were looked down on and she carried it forward. 
I think also it was the only thing that made her feel significant in her life.  Instead of carving out a life for herself she lived her life caring for my brothers even when they were adults while having a filthy and angry attitude towards me no matter how much I helped at home.

My youngest brother took advantage of living at home.  He went down a path of drugs. At least with my older brothers they did DIY on the home.  My brother was a rollercoaster.  In bed from one end of the week to the next and only coming to life when it was time to see his mates (and likely get a new hit of drugs).  He wasn't sleeping well.   Then it hit me that drugs altered hormones.  My mother never said anything to him.  Any other person or parent would march them into rehab or out them out of the home and see how much money he has for rent and responsibilities instead of drugs. He ruined three Christmases in a row due to drugs. She never said boo to him.  Instead she misdirected her anger to me.  As if I was responsible for his state.

When he finally made an attempt to turn his life around, she became down and depressed and cried saying she wants him home.

All of this from my youth has been hammered home to me this weekend.  I went to bed sore and not well last night.  This morning I got up and I was greeted with silence. Not the first time from her and she couldn't even ask me how I was instead she asked me - did I hear from anyone as in did I hear from any of my brothers.

[RainbowGirl]

Another aspect and another view to this as well.

My mother was born and raised in a country and at a time where society looked down on women.  I suppose everyone looked up to me.  I don't know what the situation was with her FOO.

I think she views men as powerful and women to be weaker and so women/her daughter (me) was a target for her bad moods whereas she would never step out of line like that towards any of my brothers because they would fire up and also in fear of losing one of her favourites. 

Even now she has a disgusting attitude toward all of my brothers and it's an attitude of pure hard solid pity because they are male but if I was to experience any hardship, it would wash over her without a care in the world.

[RainbowGirl]

I was called for jury duty a few years ago.  At the time I was sitting in the kitchen with my mother and a brother.  My mother was giving me a lecture to make sure to take it easy on him, whoever he is. 

First of all she presumed the person up in court was a man.

I didn't know anything about the case.  You can't go into jury duty like that, writing off evidence and giving someone a free pass based on the fact that they are male without even ever knowing the case.  Thankfully my employer got me out from jury duty, thank goodness but I was utterly shocked my mother's comments.  I didn't know the case and she didn't either but she's willing to give males a free pass.  What if he was a rapist or worse? 'take it easy' on him.

No, if I did it, I will listen to what's there if front of me in the case and draw my own conclusions based on any evidence presented.  Not automatically give a man a free pass. 
Thankfully my mother was never called for jury duty. I think it's based on people who turn up to vote and she doesn't vote.

[Lalitha]

This thread strikes a chord with me. I was usually the scapegoat although one of my brothers sometimes got that role. I had to do housework for pocket money, brothers were given handouts. Brothers had some bodily autonomy, I was afforded no privacy and boundaries constantly violated. Food was withheld from me but not from brothers. One of the things that finally gave me the strength to go NC was when she started the same games on my daughter. Comments on what she was eating etc. Now she tries to get gifts to our kids to maintain a relationship with them. Thankfully so far I've been the first one to see the gifts on the doorstep and they go straight in the bin before the kids lay eyes on them. Having recently faced up to the serious nature of the abuse when I was a kid, there is no way that woman will have a role in my kids lives. I'm breaking the cycle of generations of sexism and bringing my kids up differently.