When you’re growing up, the summer vacation is an exciting time for a lot of reasons. Lie-ins. More time watching TV or playing video games. The freedom to indulge in hobbies and hang out with friends. Good weather for being outside. And, if you’re lucky, a family vacation somewhere exciting too.

Whether your family are camping by the beach folk, adventurous theme park types, or exotic explorers, going someplace else with all the quality time with your loved ones can be the best feeling – especially if the weather is good and there are lots of fun things to do. Pool? Check. Activities? Check. Junk food and sugary treats? Check.

However, these feelings can start waning in your teenage years, when naturally you start being more inclined to do your own thing. This is just a part of growing up and getting ready to fly the nest, and not something to feel bad about. Certainly, the teenage girl in this story is beginning to feel a little frustrated about family vacations interrupting her own plans – but she keeps the peace regardless. That is, until her parents’ preferential treatment toward her brother becomes even clearer.

Read on to find out what happened.

AITA for not wanting to travel with my parents?

I’m a teenager, the youngest daughter, and for the summer, my parents want to go to Japan as we live in Asia and it’s cheap to go there.

We have been to Japan twice before – and I didn’t want to go because I wanted to hang out with friends or go outside for sports like my parents always told me do. I also wanted to save money and avoid shopping much.

I had plans with this one friend to go to a mall and some other plans with other friends to go play soccer. I told my parents months in advance and kept reminding them.

But when they booked the flight, they had “coincidentally” booked the same week as when I had plans.

Let’s see how she is feeling about this.

I initially thought that it was quite rude, but then I was fine and just moved the plans around.

My parents haven’t made a whole plan on where to go in Japan, just that we’ll stay in Tokyo. I found a bunch of videos on where to go in Tokyo that included sightseeing and shopping and theme parks, similar to where we used to go when we visited before, and matched all of our hobbies.

I showed them to my parents, but they dismissed them, legit disrespecting my ideas. I was mad at first, how could they dismiss my ideas when they actually asked me in the first place on where to go?

But I tried my best to let go of the problem.

But factors in the family are making it hard for her to just move on.

Fast forward a few days, my brother who graduated secondary school and has a part time job, is going to Japan these few days with my cousin and his parents.

Their schedule was similar to the one that my parents planned (with none of my ideas of course) and my parents paid for everything: his flight, his hotel, and importantly they gave him more than enough money to buy stuff – even more than my cousin’s family are using to buy stuff for themselves and souvenirs.

It’s a bit unfair, since he has a job and has money to pay for his own stuff, so why does he get to travel for free whenever he wants to?

My parents said they wanted to save money too, yet they can afford to pay for my brother’s travelling and all his hobbies while I get hand me downs and my hobbies have to be free.

So she decided to speak up about her feelings.

I told my parents how unfair I thought it was that he gets to go to Japan twice, and that he gets everything for free whenever he has a job. My parents didn’t care, even telling me I was selfish and spoiled for not wanting to go at first, and for trying to force my travel ideas on them.

I didn’t want to go, and told them many times before, and they still forced me to go. When I suggested ideas they dismissed them – I told them once or twice about everything, caring about their interests, yet they acted like I was trying to control every single thing.

When is it my turn to get attention? When is it my turn to get noticed? When is it my turn to get cared for?

Or am I the ******* for everything? For thinking I should get even a drop of attention? For thinking I was thrown away even if they were actually acting to care for me?

AITA?

For many people, going on vacation to Japan would be a privilege, but it’s understandable that this teenage girl isn’t feeling quite so lucky.

Because it’s not really about the vacation – it’s about the fact that her parents aren’t listening to her, and all the while she’s putting in all the effort and trying to help, moving her life around to fit with their plans, and all the time feeling ignored or under-appreciated.

And at the same time, her brother is getting all the attention. It’s no wonder she’s upset.

Let’s see how folks on Reddit responded to this.

This person empathised with her situation.

However others encouraged her to see the situation from a different angle.

Meanwhile, this Redditor thought that she was more upset about the inequality than about the vacation.

Let’s be real, it can be tough to be a parent, and treat all your children equally sometimes. We all make mistakes, and parents aren’t the exception to that – nor should they attempt to appear to be. But if you find yourself being accused of such, the only good thing to do is to listen, to hear your child out, and try to make amends. Because if your child is feeling unseen or unappreciated, then there’s a reason for that – perhaps you have been a little busy and haven’t been paying them all the attention they need, or maybe you have been more focused on a different child.

If you actually listen and show that you care, things are likely to clear up quite easily. This girl just wants to feel like her parents hear her, like they actually care about what she has to say or all the effort she put into planning. Some quality time and thoughtful consideration of her ideas would go a long way here, alongside making sure she gets equal treatment to her brother, of course. Otherwise, her resentment will just continue to grow.