My (35 f) sister (33 f) and brother in law (33 m) are overprotective to a weird degree with their daughters (my nieces, 14 and 8).

I live in LA but am from a tiny town in Kentucky. I married my husband 2 years ago and we are childless by choice. My younger sister has taken a very different route; she married the same week she graduated high school and decided to immediately start a family. They still live in the same small town. I absolutely love my nieces and have a good relationship with my family generally.

However, I am growing increasingly concerned by how my sister and her husband are raising their girls. I have always been someone who just says "I'm not a parent and I wont judge someone's parenting." I dont believe there is anything going on that can be defined as abuse, at least not in a physical, sexual, verbal way. But my sister is increasingly showing favoritism to her older child and is obsessed with being her best friend. The younger child is infantilized and acts much younger than her age - only around her parents.

The 14yo is a great kid. Whenever she gets really into something....a musical group, an actor crush, art... her parents both get REALLY into it. Like...learn every lyric to every song, know words to movies, etc. Their whole identity seems formed around it, they cant talk about anything else. My sister and the 14yo text all day long like best friends, giggling. They are very into the same dolls and their dolls are best friends. For a short while the 14yo had a boyfriend but when they broke up she told me her mom (my sister) took it way harder than her and cried for days.

The younger girl is almost 8 and seems to be neglected. She is rarely in photos online, and they talk to her like she is 3 or 4. She is passive to a alarming point and only ever really acts her age when her parents arent around.

My sister and her husband also are constantly pushing us away because we could never understand what it is like to be a close family with kids. We offered to fly the girls come see us; my sister said that was a completely unreasonable ask. They also took the doors off their kids rooms so that they can be together all the time. To be clear, I vehemently do not believe anything sexual is going on. They just dont realize that is inappropriate for a tween. More infantalization than anything.

In the past my sister has basically just become withholding of her kids when she thinks i am in any way criticizing her, even when I have been careful with my wording and trying to be supportive. I dont want to shame them, and maybe I am overreacting. But I want to know what I can do to help those girls. I'm afraid if I say anything to my sister, my access to the girls will be shut off, and we live across the country. Any ideas, reddit?

TL;DR should I be worried that my sister is treating her older daughter like a best friend and ignoring her younger daughter? What can i do to be a good aunt to the girls?

Submitted April 05, 2021 at 05:40PM by Pretty_Care4438 https://ift.tt/3cUvGUm