Sharing Isn’t Caring
Okay, so, this happened a few years ago but I remember it like it was yesterday and to be honest, still can’t understand what my sister was thinking. A little backstory: My sister and I had to share EVERYTHING as kids. Not to mention I was forced to be her and our younger brother’s “second mother”, but that’s a story for another time. For some of my childhood, I was happy to share things with my sister.
Sweets, snacks, toys—the normal kid things. There are four years between us, I’m the oldest and as you can probably guess, when I reached my teen years I wanted my own things and to spend time alone. Nope. She wanted me to do everything with her. I could barely spend ten minutes in the bathroom before she would start banging on the door.
Unfortunately, when I was around 15, my siblings and I were taken into foster care. We were separated from our brother which was difficult for both of us and for a while I didn’t mind my sister wanting to spend all her time with me. Shortly after my 16th birthday I wanted to have my own space and things that are, well, mine.
She would argue with me over not sharing MY stuff and of course, typical sibling fights and yelling happened almost every other day. We sort of grew out of our sibling squabbles over the years but she kinda developed a “the-world-owes-me” attitude which drove me crazy. I did my best to hold in my frustrations but I’m human and sometimes…I kinda snapped.
A couple of years after my daughter was born, my sister and I weren’t really talking much because of her selfish attitude towards me spending most of my time and income on my daughter. During one of the times we were on good terms, she was over for the weekend and everything was okay. Until a conversation lead to her telling me she was going to take my daughter for a week because she wanted to spend time with her because it was “her turn”.
I said, “Not gonna happen. She is MY daughter, not a doll or pet we share”. She gets mad and starts yelling. I told her to leave and she argues how “she had parental rights” and “social services will force me to allow her to take my daughter whenever she wants”. I laughed, told her to get out and don’t come back. Honestly, I don’t know if she seriously thought that it was her right to have my daughter.