The family dynamic seems like such a balance beam act of death defying odds.

And favoritism is a situation you never want to occur, lest it lead to resentment and spite.

But it must be hard when the differences between kids can be so stark that it becomes increasingly difficult not to favorite one over the other.

This is a story of a mother battling those death defying odds.

And she turns to Reddit to see if she needs to check herself.

AITA for not telling my daughter I’m proud of her, but being proud of my son?

My (f48) children Leah (f26) and Kevin (m21) are complete opposites. Kevin is a great student, and a great athlete, has goals and works hard for them. Leah is the kind to have big goals too but gives up very easily.

Both of our children have had the same opportunities growing up and neither has had to help or work more than the other did.

She explains Leah’s M.O.

It’s not very inspiring, to be honest.

Leah had tried many activities during her life, the problem is that if she’s not excellent at it right away then she gets frustrated and gives up. This is a pattern in her life.

Kevin, on the other hand, has always been into sports, he played football through school, and he also plays baseball, basketball, and soccer. He’s also better at school than she is, I think part of that is because he had to keep up his grades if he wanted to continue in the school team.

Leah didn’t have a reason to have great grades so although she never failed a class either, her grades had always been lower than Kevin’s. After graduating Leah wasn’t interested in pursuing further education, still as it would make my husband and I happy that she would at least try it, she did.

So this pattern continued for Leah.

Next up was motherhood. But wow, did not see this turn of events coming.

She wasn’t able to finish her second semester because she didn’t like it. She got into a job after that which is fine if she liked that. She and her boyfriend (they had been together since high school) got engaged that same year too and Leah told us she wanted to be a mom, she felt like that was her call.

She was very young, but I was too when I had her so it’s fine. She got pregnant, but she and the guy broke off, she couldn’t take care of her baby so my husband and I are raising our grandson.

Now she’s 26 and the truth is she hasn’t fulfilled any of her wishes or goals. She doesn’t have a career, is not married, and is not a mother (she does nothing of the care and doesn’t live with us)

Kevin won a scholarship because he’s an athlete. Now he’s studying at a prestigious university and is part of his college’s football team too. He’s fulfilling his dreams because he’s working on them.

At a party for Kevin is where everything went down.

With Leah.

But hey, at least it’s now out on the table.

Last week was Kevin’s birthday, our baby turned 21 so my husband and I planned a small party for him. We were all having a good time, Kevin was telling us about how good his grades were this last semester. I told him we were very proud of him for working so hard.

Leah told me I had never told her that I was proud of her, I told her this was not the moment to talk about that because this party was for her brother and she dropped it.

Seems like it stuck with Leah.

Rightly so.

However, she brought it up again the next day at my house. She asked me why I never told her I’m proud of her, so I told her that I don’t feel like she has done something to be proud of.

Like I’m proud that she’s a nice girl and very respectful, but she still hasn’t done something to fulfill her dreams and make us proud.

Yikes. That’s pretty harsh.

Now OP is in a bind.

She went off on me and accused me of telling her she’s a failure although I did not do that. She was very angry and left.

My husband agrees with me but she’s angry, AITA?

Boy did folks let her have it on this one.

One person got right to it. Leah needed ONE encouraging word.

Another person was straight-up baffled by this ice-cold treatment of her first-born.

One person just dropped that YTA like a hot mic.

And another commenter got PTSD from the whole story.

Lil rough there, Mom.

If you enjoyed that story, read this one about a mom who was forced to bring her three kids with her to apply for government benefits, but ended up getting the job of her dreams.