I am the oldest of two kids. I am a 20 year old female and my brother is 14. I grew up babysitting him a lot due to the 7 year age gap. A lot of the times this would annoy me during my teen years during summer when I wanted to hang with friends but was stuck watching my brother because my parents were working. But still, my brother was pretty young so even I was kind of nervous to leave him on his own.
However, my brother is 14 now, a reasonable age to be taking care of himself, but my mother refuses to teach him how, I’m guessing because he’s the youngest and still her baby, but I’m afraid it will affect him later.
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My brother barely knows how to feed himself. He can really only microwave because my mom is afraid to let him use the stove. But he has taken cooking classes at school before so he knows what he’s doing. I’m not expecting him to be a master chef, but there are meals like mac and cheese and ramen that he enjoys but cannot cook for himself. To this day my mom still asks me to stay home to cook these things for him.
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He doesn’t know how to wash dishes and do other things with his hands (ha ha not that). My mom doesn’t let my brother do dishes, pick up pots (another reason he can’t use the stove), and other things because my mom is afraid he is too weak and will drop things. She says he has bad motor skills, which he does a bit, but he can definitely develop them (he’s great at video games), but he’s just not being taught. Today I literally had to teach him how to tie a rubber band around a chip bag and he was really struggling.
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He doesn’t know how to protect himself in the house. A bit ago I asked him if he knew our address and what to do in case of emergencies and he said no. I understand with technology these days, he might not need to know our address, but as a kid I had safety procedures drilled into my head. I think my mom is relying on me to protect him which is why I still have o babysit him.
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Shaving...now this one I don’t know if it’s really an issue. But my brother has been rocking that gross teen stache for a while now. He told me he wanted to shave it because it made him feel ugly. There were a lot of things regarding puberty that I wasn’t taught that made me feel awkward so I didn’t want my brother to feel the same. But whenever I bring up shaving to my mom she gets very angry and says he’s not ready or she’ll teach him eventually. The conversation is short and abrupt. I’ve thought of teaching him myself, but my mom would be furious.
Those are just a few things. There are other things he learned very late as a result of my overprotective mom. I’ve been trying to teach him these things myself, but he only does them when I tell him. If I bring it up to my mom, she gets angry, but it would be nice if she encouraged him to grow up a bit too so he could make these things a habit.
Yes, some of it is still me wishing I didn’t have to babysit him. But at this age, I knew how to take after myself if left alone. I have friends with siblings his age or younger who also know. Hell, I was his age when I had to take care of myself and him. However, I know it’s not my place to tell my mom how to parent.
Is this really a problem or is he at an okay pace for his age? Should I stop worrying?
TL;DR: My mom won’t teach my brother how to take care of himself (cook, chores, shave) and I’m afraid he’s gonna be a giant man-child when he grows up.
Edit: I should say my dad is kinda in the same position as me. I think he wants my brother to learn these things, but knows how attached my mom is to her baby boy so he kinda stays out of it.
Submitted July 31, 2018 at 02:40PM by throwaway44101919 https://ift.tt/2NZ6RqU
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