She Was Offered A Training Opportunity After Graduation, But Her Parents Told Her To Refuse It For The Sake Of Her Disabled Older Sibling

Heide Lazaro

12 mins ago

Source: Reddit/AITA/Canva

We understand how it can be challenging to live with and care for a family member who has a disability.

We need to make certain sacrifices and considerations to not make everything feel worse for them.

But… if you were in this woman’s shoes and your family didn’t support your ambitions, saying you should settle for less for the sake of your disabled sibling, would you obey them?

Crazy, right?

See what happens in the story below.

AITA for refusing to give up opportunities that come my way for my sister’s sake?

My older sister, Rita (20f), is disabled.

My sister’s disability comes with a lot of health issues, and while mentally she’s capable, physically, she cannot do much, and struggled and struggled even with regular school.

She never graduated high school because she got so sick in senior year that it set her way back, and she didn’t get the grades to graduate.

Rita feels like she’s a failure

She was offered the chance to repeat, but she said no because she was still really bad afterward.

It’s something that causes her a lot of distress, and she still cries because she feels like she failed in the worst way.

Nobody can convince her differently.

She doesn’t work, and she doesn’t go to school or anything.

She’s at home and gets taken care of by our parents.

Meanwhile, this young woman was presented with an apprenticeship opportunity.

I (17f) am still in school, and I’m going into my senior year.

There have been a lot of discussions about college or what other avenue I could go down.

I was given information on this apprenticeship that could be perfect for me, and my guidance counselor wanted me to give it consideration over the summer, because they take high school graduates.

It’s exciting.

Their parents advised her to consider Rita before making a decision.

Rita was super upset to hear I had so many options.

And not for the first time, my parents expected me to think of her before making decisions.

They suggested I focus on looking at community colleges only, or not going to college at all, and going into retail or a service industry job.

They told me I could afford my own place if I were to do that.

She missed and passed on a lot of opportunities before because of her sister.

I didn’t get to go to camp because Rita couldn’t, and they didn’t want me to have experiences she couldn’t.

I wasn’t allowed to participate in school plays because Rita couldn’t participate in hers (my parents would actually stop my teachers from including me).

They refused to sign a permission slip that would have allowed me to enter a competition on behalf of my school, because Rita would never get to have an experience like that herself, and they didn’t feel it was right for me to have it then.

The permission slip came in because some travel might be involved if I were to go anywhere.

Rita would always get upset and feel bad.

They pulled me out of art classes when I was young, because I was doing super well and getting a lot of praises.

My parents actually pressured me to ask if I could leave the classes. But they pulled me regardless.

Rita would always get upset when I achieved something or got presented with a great opportunity.

She’d cry, ask me why I got everything, and she got nothing.

I felt bad for her, but also resentful of the fact she was glad when our parents held me back.

Now, they’re calling her selfish for only thinking about her future.

This became a fight when the college stuff came up again, and my parents saw me looking up the apprenticeship, and my parents asked me how I could even think about going, and how selfish I would be.

They said I should aim for something lower for Rita’s sake.

Rita heard us argue about it, and she said she knows I’m too selfish to give it up for her.

I told them I hated them for expecting me to.

Rita and my parents said I had no sense of family loyalty at all.

AITA?

Wow! That’s an intense family drama right there.

Let’s see how other Reddit users react to this story.

This user says OP should live her own life.