The Golden Child

Families should be safe places in which everyone might not be friendly all the time but there is definite love and that they have your back. A place of secure attachment.

"Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city."~ George Burns

Perhaps my family and millions of others didn't get the memo. I've always looked at loving TV families with skepticism, does that even exist? Not in my reality.  

Very often you have parents raising their children as they themselves were raised. The old, 'it did me no harm' crap. As they live their abusive, emotionally stunted life thinking they are normal because from their experience it was their norm. 

Parents should not pick favorites among their children but they do. 'Why can't you be more like your brother/sister?' 

The Golden Child Syndrome has a child that is held above the others, to their parents/parent they can do no wrong.  Perhaps they were the first born or a son to carry on their cherished family name, there are plenty of reasons.

The golden child gets a free pass, even if they bully their siblings. These kids will grow up with the thought that they are special, even if there is nothing to back that up. 

    

I can think of three entitled, spoiled children that grew up to accomplish ... not much. The real world didn't give them a free pass and I don't know if they ever figured this out or did they just continue to live in denial. I suspect the latter.

My own brother who was 12 years older than me was the Golden Child for my mother. I never figured out why he was always so mean to me. He made derogatory remarks about my appearance, (I had acne and a broken nose from a skateboard fall) and with him being 12 years older, an adult, I accepted it. My mother laughing at his idiot remarks did hurt. She never once stood up for me.

I was the youngest so what they did was teach me to be like them but I wasn't the type to be mean for no reason and mostly just insulted back in self-defense. 

When I was nearly 18 he made one insulting remark too many. I don't even know what it was. My fist connected with his jaw and he fell back. My mum was in between us even though her precious Golden Child didn't want to retaliate. ' It is often a man's mouth that will break his nose.' Years later my mum did mention that I had anger issues. I wonder if this was the reason why. No mum, I have asshole brother issues. 

Yeah I was the Scapegoat. It was one rule for my other siblings and another for me. My brother could drink drive, total a car, crash into a lamp post breaking the light, set his kitchen on fire and all he got was the nickname 'unfortunate.'   I could change the way I brushed my hair as a 9 year-old and have that repeated for years as a joke, I was nicknamed odd and strange. 

If there was quiet in the living room I could feel my brother's eyes looking me up and down with half a smirk on his face as he came up with an insult or tried to remember an old favorite that always got a laugh. I only brought girlfriends home when he wasn't there. 

I had depression as well as rock bottom self-esteem. I was very self conscious and shy. My family had done a number on me. There is good reason why I no longer speak to them. They are just mean strangers that share my DNA. 

Seeing my mum race around to make him tea, soup or stew and how she'd iron his clothes well into his 40's (he moved out of the family home aged 35) was a bit disgusting to me. I think my brother appearing to be a man/baby helped to make me more independent so I wouldn't be like him. I didn't need my mammy to cook or clean for me, I did it for her. 

I never hated my brother, I was more confused as to why me never liked me. I was just a child! I figured out it was because he was the only boy out of my siblings for 12 years. When another boy came along (me) he didn't want to share the spotlight. This revelation just made me pity him. It also helped to see how my family's idea of who I am was just wrong. They didn't know me. If being odd and strange means I am not like them, then I embrace it. 

Other male Golden Children very often have carrying on the family name as an honor/burden. It's really funny if they never marry (like my brother, who would want him?) or if they have only

girl children. If a child is healthy and happy then who cares what gender they are? 

Of course you can easily get a female Golden Child. It is always the issues of the parents that do this. 

Too selfish or they lack empathy to see the harm they are not only doing to the Golden Child but to the Scapegoat or Black Sheep who earned that title for merely standing up for themselves and going their own way. 

Children need to be raised with unconditional love, not the unresolved issues of their parents.