A woman was left miffed and feeling disregarded after her mum wasn’t making any effort with her to mark her birthday – instead, she was choosing to get her nails done
Having a birthday over the dates of another celebration can be really annoying as you’ll have always felt the shine has been taken off you – and one woman felt her family wasn’t making enough effort to make her feel special.
She explained that she has two older brothers and a younger sister, and she’s always felt inequity between how they get treated on their birthdays. Her brothers simply get “happy birthday texts”, her younger sister gets “pampered”, and her mum treats her differently every year as her birthday is around Easter.
She said there was definitely “some favouritism” shown towards her sister as “she gets her nails done, a birthday dinner, and expensive gifts” – but she didn’t feel as though the same kindness was shown towards her.
Taking to Reddit’s ‘Am I The A**hole’ forum, she explained that she was so annoyed about the situation that she was refusing to go to an Easter dinner with her family – but she wanted to know whether she was being unreasonable about it.
She penned: “Background: I am the third child of 4 and I’m in my mid-30s. I have 2 older brothers, and a younger sister. Every year for my brothers’ birthdays, she sends them a ‘happy birthday’ text. My sister on the other hand gets pampered. This last year, my mum took her to get her nails done, took her and her family (husband and 2 kids) out to dinner and got a new air fryer.
“Now for the events that led up to me not wanting to attend Easter dinner. We always celebrate Easter the day before because my mum works on Sundays, and this year my birthday is the Friday before. For my birthday, my mum is very hit-and-miss. I never know if she is going to take me to dinner, or if I just get a box of Peeps as my birthday present and I get it on my niece’s birthday. This year my mum said she was going to take me to breakfast, but my sister is going too.”
She then described the favouritism towards her sister, saying: “She gets her nails done, a birthday dinner, and expensive gifts, and none of us other kids were invited to her birthday dinner, but now she gets to go to mine? Whatever, that’s not a big deal, I actually like my sister. It’s not her fault that mum favours her.
“Anyway, the problem really started when my mum called me the other day. We can’t do breakfast on my birthday because my stepdad (who wasn’t even planning on being at my birthday breakfast) needed to get the oil changed in his truck. Instead, we are having lunch on Saturday. My mum and sister are going to go get their nails done, and then they will pick me up for lunch before we go back to my mum’s house for the Easter festivities.
“What the hell? I don’t even get an invite to go with them? What if I want to get my nails done? My mum’s reason is there are only two people that work at the salon they go to, so I asked if I could go to just hang out while they get their nails done, and she said ‘I would just feel bad if we were getting our nails done in front of you on your birthday and you’re not able to get yours done’.”
Understandably, she was annoyed and felt like her family was not making any proper time to see her, and she was being “squeezed in” rather than prioritised. As a result, she wanted to refuse to go to her birthday lunch and Easter dinner as she’d had enough of feeling like an afterthought.
People reassured her that she wasn’t being unreasonable in the comments, with one writing: “This was really mean of your family. Why would your sister get a special gift (getting her nails done) for YOUR birthday while you get nothing? I hope you have other people to celebrate your birthday with who make you feel loved and appreciated, or at least that you can have a nice birthday by yourself!!”
Another commented: “What the hell? It’s your birthday and your mum is taking your sister to get her nails done?”, with someone else adding: “Damn, that’s messed up. Not the a**hole. Have you told your mum how you feel? Although it seems it should be obvious to even her the way she treats you. Can she really be that oblivious?”
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