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Dysfunctional families come in many forms. But Annie Wright, a licensed marriage and family therapist specializing in relational trauma, said one issue that comes up a lot with her clients is feeling pitted against by their parents.
The reality is usually more subtle than, say, what you see in HBO's "Succession," Wright said.
"Very often, there is not necessarily a conscious awareness that parents are doing this to the children or the siblings," she said. Usually, an emotionally immature parent will "demonstrate love towards the child who is more pleasing, easy or reminds the parent of themselves," in turn negatively affecting all the children involved.
Wright shared some of the common signs of parents favoring one child over their siblings, even if they meant well.
Wright said that if a parent or both parents have unexplored psychological problems, they may be overly critical and have a very strict idea of what success looks like.
This can manifest in an enmeshed family structure, where everyone has to be a valedictorian, athletic, thin, popular, or any other measurement of achievement the parents have.
The "golden child" is then the one who fits the ideal the best, while the other might become the scapegoat of the family.
Often, families with a golden child will use them as a standard of success to measure the other siblings against, Wright said.
"In family dynamics where there are one or multiple siblings who ascribe to that parent's version of success and another sibling who doesn't, the parents may view that as a threat," Wright said.
As a result, the parents may use the golden child as a goalpost for the other child's success. If they get straight As, their siblings need to get As, too.
One of the subtler ways Wright has seen this dynamic come up in therapy is in the parents' inconsistencies in showing up for their children.
For example, they might attend every single basketball game of one child, but miss most of the other's theater productions. Or they might do college tours with their child who got into multiple Ivies, but not bother with the one who was interested in state schools. It leaves one child feeling like one or both parents are emotionally absent from their lives.
"The actions by the parents can demonstrate favoritism in terms of overindexing the activities of one sibling over the other," Wright said, even if the parents don't realize it or do it intentionally.
With more narcissistic parents, preferential treatment can be much more overt, Wright said. That's because they actively use their children to make themselves look good to other people.
An example is a father with two young daughters, one of whom is more conventionally thin and pretty. He may only choose to bring her to the golf course at his country club because "he views her as a reflection of his success in the world," Wright said. "Whereas the other one would cause his own anxiety about not being good enough to come up."
Wright said that sibling relationships are negatively impacted when they feel that one child is inherently the favorite.
"They develop a spirit of jealousy, competition, and lack of safety between each other and miss out on the chance of what can be an incredibly supportive, closely connected relationship," she said.
Parents who root for the golden child can overlook the importance of a collaborative, trusting sibling relationship. Ultimately, Wright said, this impacts all the children involved.
The golden child can find it "much harder to identify what their true needs and wants are because they have been so conditioned to do what other people want," she said, resorting to people-pleasing.
Meanwhile, the child who generally felt less favored "may struggle with feelings of low self-worth having received really early messages that somehow they're not good enough," Wright said.
