A
female
age
41-50,
anonymous
writes:How can two kids who are about 1 year apart, who came from the same parents, shared the same household, yet they grow up with two completely different perspectives about their lives? They are both in their 20's now; the older child is respectful, somewhat well adjusted for a struggling young adult. The younger kid is very insecure, very negative; is always the 'victim' in every situation and consequently everything he remembers about his childhood is exaggerated to appear as though he was given nothing, mistreated, less favored and unappreciated - which was completely untrue. They were both treated equally, they were both loved and supported throughout their childhood. Things did not come easy for the younger one, he had to work at whatever he wanted, but he succeeded well in sports and got good grades even though he had to work at it; The older son rarely cracked a text book and got straght A's. Both parents always attended their games and supported whatever they were involved in. Why does the younger son treat everyone in the family like they are against him, when in fact he is loved equally and treated the same as his brother. Everyone in the family works very hard to make sure one is not given something the other one is not. But no matter what we do for him, it's never enough. He never sees the glass half full and people in our community tend to believe whatever he tells them about his childhood or the homelife he had when he was growing up and it is completely untrue. We don't know how to deal with his negativity and he will not get help because he doesn't see the problem. Now that he's grown we see him getting further and further away from his family because of his paranoid, negative mindset and we hate to see that happen when it's all in his head. What would other parents do, has anyone ever experienced this, and how did you handle it? Thanks so much for your time.
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female
reader, Sweet-thing  +, writes (25 December 2009):
 Well I can understand that they would not grow up being exactly the same, but it is perplexing that one seems happy and one seems terribly unhappy. Happiness comes from inside. The younger one has issues that come from his own ability to be happy, or the lack therein. All kids grow up to be unique, but the fact that he sees his childhood as horrible is not a healthy sign because you know he was given the same tools, the same love, the same amount of attention. It is all in his head, but until he gets help there is not much you can do to fix his head. He will probably go through alot of relationshiips, sabatoging each one with his negative spirit and then perhaps he'll realize he is the problem.
A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (25 December 2009): The younger one was always a year younger, which explains ONE difference you should not underestimate. Second: people are not identical, and there really is no guarantee that these two siblings grew up exactly the same, was treated exactly the same and so on. Such precise experimentation can only be done in a science lab, not while bringing up children. Also if you add in that its pretty common to believe these days that people are born with souls and a unique personality, why would growing up the same equal that they turn out the same?
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