People often joke about being the “favorite” or “least favorite” sibling in a family. Usually, it’s all in good fun!

Unfortunately, for this man, it doesn’t seem to be a fun joke anymore. He’s having some issues with his parents favoring his brother.

Now, with his new baby born, they still aren’t showing up for him and he’s worried he’s been too hard on them.

Let’s find out…

AITAH for being upset that my parents canceled a trip to see my newborn because of my sibling?

I want to know if I am the AH for being upset that my parents canceled a planned trip to visit my newborn and my family because my brother was upset.

Some background. My parents live across the country from me, so we rarely see each other.

My relationship with them has often been contentious, but over the past year we have been getting along very well and it felt like we had truly turned a corner.

That seems like a good sign.

My wife and I are both 35 and recently had our first child. This has been a very happy time for us and for my parents. My brother also lives in the same city as me and had a child two years ago.

My brother and I have never gotten along and are currently estranged. He has violent tendencies and lashes out when he does not get his way.

This has been an issue since childhood, and eventually escalated into him being violent towards me… because of that I have chosen to live my life without him in it.

One long standing issue I have had with my parents is what I feel is favoritism toward my brother.

There are many examples, like their dismissal of the seriousness of his violence towards me and another is how quickly they forgive him for serious behavior, while much smaller issues on my end have led to months of them not speaking to me.

I am not perfect, but I have worked hard over the years to grow and improve myself. I have tried to let go of that resentment and focus on my own family.

He seems like a good guy.

When my brother had his child, my parents were overjoyed. They posted constantly on social media, made many trips to visit, and showed a lot of public love and excitement.

While I do not like my brother, I was genuinely happy that their grandchild received so much love. However, this often meant that time with me was minimized.

There have been multiple occasions where my parents traveled out specifically to visit my brother and his child and did not set aside any time to see me or my family at all, and at times even completely kept the trips as a secret from me.

I was not always happy about that, but I tried to be understanding and assumed things would be similar when I had a child.

Fast forward a couple of years. My wife and I announced we were expecting our first child, and my parents were very happy and excited. Around the same time, my brother began going through a divorce.

Due to his actions, he lost the ability to have unsupervised visits with his child. His anger and instability increased.

While I was not involved, my parents would occasionally mention how unstable he had become and warn me in case he decided to lash out at me.

When my child was born, my parents were thrilled and we video chatted often. However they did not post anything publicly or celebrate the birth the way they did with my brother’s child.

They’re showing their true colors…

They told me this was because they did not want to upset my brother or trigger him due to potential jealousy. This hurt, but I tried to ignore it and focus on enjoying my new family and looking forward to their visit.

I work for a small company and had to use ALL of my paid family leave, sick time, and vacation time to be home with my newborn.

Once my paid family leave ends, I will not have any meaningful time off again for quite a while. Also the nature of my job makes my work schedule pretty unpredictable week to week.

My parents had planned to visit and stay with us during my paid leave for several days to meet the baby and help and guide us in the brand new world of parenthood.

One week before the visit, my father called and told me they were canceling the entire trip because my brother was having a tantrum over a visitation issue with his child that was scheduled during the time they were visiting.

They said they did not want to upset him so they are just going to cancel the whole thing.

I was extremely upset. Knowing that he was being very aggressive and threatening, I asked if they could just block him, ignore him, or simply not tell him they were coming.

He does not know where I live and we are not connected on social media. I reminded them that they have on multiple occasions came out and visited my brother without seeing me or telling me.

I begged and told them how much this meant to me and that I felt like I wasn’t given the same consideration and care that they gave for my brother over the years.

I explained my feelings but they refused and said that was not an option.

That clearly hurt him deeply…

What made this worse is that my parents were completely unremorseful about canceling. They openly said that canceling the trip last minute was not a big deal and that they did nothing wrong.

They wouldn’t acknowledge that this paid family leave window is the only time I will have off for quite a while or how difficult it will be to arrange another visit.

My father told me I was taking paid family leave regardless if they came or not so it isn’t an issue or big deal. It really bothers me that my family and my child seem so easy to brush off and are not treated as a priority.

Now that my paid leave is over, any future visit will be extremely difficult or possibly not doable at all as I won’t be able to easily get time off.

Due to this argument, they have stopped talking to me and I feel like I am being gaslit into feeling like I am the bad guy here, like I am in the wrong for being upset.

I feel like my family is being punished for things my brother has done. AITAH for being upset that my parents canceled their trip to see my newborn because my brother was upset?

Let’s get into the comments.

This commenter thinks he should seek professional help.

While others were more blunt, but gave their sympathies.

Going no-contact seemed to be the general consensus, though.

In the end, the commenters felt bad for him.

Sometimes, we have to step away from family when they keep hurting us.

If you liked that story, read this one about grandparents who set up a college fund for their grandkid because his parents won’t, but then his parents want to use the money to cover sibling’s medical expenses.