Posted:
@lovesunshine,
first big hug to you 🤗
I don't have full answers to your questions because I don't know what your parents are really like. It is hard to assess them from just one post on the forum.
But a couple of things --
When I said I respect my daughters more and not my son, I didn't really mean it in terms of academic success, or not taking help from me etc... it was just that the girls had a great conscience, a great sense of right and wrong... and that really presented them with a good foundation for taking care of their own lives... and left me with nothing much to do.
One of my daughters was really brilliant in her studies, my second daughter was average but very, very hardworking ... and they both became doctors. But its not because I love them for being doctors. I respect them because they had a conscience and their values.
My son kind of wandered off into bad company, drugs, alcohol etc. etc. and really had no conscience. He didn't care about hurting himself, hurting others etc. Even today, he is reformed but has no job, no goals etc. I don't care about him even working for the sake of earning. If he wants, he can eat off me for the rest of my life. I do however want him to work to keep his mind occupied and just have a healthy sense of self-esteem in terms of achieving goals and projects no matter how small. He is not academically inclined at all, but is very gifted with his hands.
I feel he would be great as a video editor or a mechanic even. He doesn't necessarily need to become a dentist for me because he is gifted with his hands.
So, I would respect my son if he would just get off his butt and do something. 😆 And when I meant "extra work" -- I didn't mean in settling him, but we did a lot of running around for his rehabilitation, his prison time, getting him out of jail etc. Exhausting. All because of his lack of values and his lack of conscience.
If I had a daughter like you, I would have been very proud of you even with your commerce education and your call center job and respected you AS LONG AS YOU DID YOUR BEST.
And when I say your best, I mean your best. Your best does not mean the best of your sister or the best of someone else.
My son needs to do HIS best according to his understanding and capabilities. I don't care about him performing up to the mark of my first daughter's best or my second daughter's best or Bill Gates' best. Unfortunately, he doesn't do that, and keeps wasting his life on the couch watching tv. I have come to the conclusion now that maybe this is perfect for him in the current moment on his own spiritual journey, and that when the time is right, he will have inspiration from within to do the next best thing.
That being said, it is not important any more for you to focus on why your parents feel the way they do, it is irrelevant.
I think you are falling into a certain trap that we all do, of requiring validation, before you can feel good about yourself.
i.e. you want your parents to feel good about your choices, so that you can observe them feeling good about you, and ONLY THEN conclude for yourself that your choices were good.
What this means is that you set yourself up for a trap of being at the mercy of others to feel good about yourself and your choices. You see what I mean?
And this will show up in other areas of your life.
e.g.
You will need to get admission to a prestigious college, so that you can observe the college feeling good about you, and ONLY THEN conclude for yourself that you are smart and brilliant.
or
You will need to have a very fancy car, so that you can observe the neighbours feeling jealous of you, and ONLY THEN conclude that you are rich and uppity.
or
You will need to have your husband buy you a diamond necklace, so that you can observe the necklace, and ONLY THEN conclude that you are a desirable woman.
You are setting yourself up for failure and giving away your power by always being dependent on a second party's certificate of approval before you can feel good about yourself.
So STOP IT.
CUT. IT. OUT.
Just decide you are x y z without someone else's certificate of approval (regardless of the form it comes in).
Stop telling the story of your second-rate college, and your second-rate job at the call centre ... because all that is, is just a reflection of your parents' disapproval.
Just decide you are smart/hard-working/desirable/loving/rich/abundant ON YOUR OWN without requiring validation from others.
I suspect this is what your sister does. This is her aura. She has decided that she is something on her own, and your parents just act in accordance with her aura and support that aura. She is independent in her spirit.
You on the other hand give off an aura of neediness, of requiring your parents approval. They sense that and then don't respect you, because they can see that they are the ones in control.
I bet you as soon as you stop caring what they think, they will give you the respect you crave.
My girls never cared what I thought 😆 that is why I respect them I guess. They weren't disobedient but they weren't super obedient either.
My son always needed some validation or other, and I just wished he would get on with his life without constantly turning to me for approval. It becomes exhausting on a parent sometimes to deal with this all the time. 😆😆.
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