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A woman has been criticized online after announcing her engagement to the entire family during her younger sister's birthday celebrations.
The 16-year-old sister was left upset by the ordeal and took to Reddit to share what happened and gain insight into the situation. In three days, the post gained over 12,000 votes.
BACP-registered therapist Simone Bose, who offers family counseling, told Newsweek that sibling rivalry and jealousy have evolutionary roots, from a time when food resources were scarce and siblings would be forced to compete for food, security, and attention.
"In modern times, we still have that jealousy, but it applies a lot more to love and attention," she said.
In this case, the sister shared that for her 16th birthday celebration, she visited a restaurant with all her extended family, including cousins, nieces and nephews.
"After we ate dinner and it was time to blow out my candles, my mom insisted I open some of my presents so I don't have to carry them home. My aunties, uncles and grandparents gave me my presents. Afterwards, my older sister and her boyfriend gave me their presents. Inside their box that they gave me was a 'Will you be my maid of honor?' card on top of the present," wrote the teen.
"My sister squealed with excitement and told us all about her proposal and how they're already wedding planning. She said it was the perfect time to announce their engagement since all our family was here."
The birthday girl, however, disagreed and excused herself to the bathroom, instead leaving the restaurant and going to a nearby park. After a couple of hours, her dad found her and, rather than get angry, took her for ice cream.
"When I got home I saw my cake on the counter and my mum got up and started yelling at me about how I wasted money, wasted my family's time, my sister and her boyfriend came out and told me how mean I am for doing that to them," she continued in the post.
"My sister ended up saying that my birthday wasn't as important as her wedding and my mother agreed. My dad told my sister and her bf to get out and ended up talking to my mom about how they could have checked with me beforehand instead of announcing it."
Bose explained to Newsweek that sibling relationships are often impacted by their parents and the different treatment they may receive.
"Sometimes [the sibling relationship] can become negative and can impact on self esteem and self-worth. Parenting has a lot to do with this. If you parents illustrate that a certain way to eg: treat and behave with each sibling is acceptable, the sibling may emulate the parent to gain approval. Parents may without knowing it be developing an unhealthy favoring of one child over another," she said.
That favoring can have various possible effects on both children. For the left-out child, it can make them feel they are not "enough" and feel pushed away, while the favored child can also suffer negative consequences, including "pressure to be perfect."
As a consequence, this can often lead the siblings to each feel their own sense of jealousy toward the other, feeling like they each had it better.
"Parents do need to be more aware of the sibling rivalry they may be creating in their children and how that can impact on mental health in later years and also the repercussions to sibling relationships. This situation, with the sisters, is an example of rivalry. The daughter who announces the wedding, perhaps has a lack of boundaries in terms of giving space to her sister, perhaps this example was also set by the parenting," Bose said.
"The daughter getting engaged, may have developed an entitlement to attention, without a reflection on whether that was appropriate. This would have been learnt from upbringing, and it does seem that the mother is encouraging and enabling this behavior. The pain that one can feel from feeling they are less worthy than their sibling can create very deep seated pain, hypervigilant to rejection or not feeling enough as this may be what they had experienced during their childhood in relation to their sibling. So it is understandable that there were strong emotions at the birthday party."
Reddit users shared almost identical thoughts to Bose, supporting the younger sister in her right to be upset.
"They hijacked your celebration and made it about them. If they wanted to announce it with everyone present, they should've done the right thing and asked you first. Absolutely classless," noted one user, gaining over 19,000 votes.
"I suspect golden child syndrome. Walking out on your birthday party might sound drastic but I bet this is an accumulation of many events where your sister hijacks your spotlight," agreed another user.
Newsweek reached out to u/Notb4lls444 for comment. We could not verify the details of the case.
