Auntie SparkNotes: My Parents Aren’t Parenting Right

Dear Auntie,

I write to you from a corner of my room, sobbing slightly. I have a boy problem, however not in the conventional sense.

You see, I am the oldest of three. The other two are boys and we with live our parents. We are, in most respects, a pretty normal family. There has been a lot of tension lately, and it’s coming to a point where I can’t stand it.

Me and my brother A are fine. We are the oldest two, and we are past that really hormonal stage of our lives, rocking it pretty chill at the mo. It’s our youngest, B, that I’m worried about. He gets incredibly angry very easily. For instance, on the morning of writing, he couldn’t do something, and kicked in a window on one of our doors.

I could chalk it up to “lol just puberty.” That it probably is. Both me and A went through a similar phase where we quite angry, and I assume a lot of people do too. But it wasn’t as bad for us, as it is with B. If I were to end it there, you’d likely say he has anger issues, however I think it stems further than that. I don’t think our parents understand, or want to help.

Our dad is fine. He is lovely, and I’m sure he’d want to help wherever he can, but our mother does nothing but fan the flames. She offers B no help, no solace. She has flat out said to me that she doesn’t listen to him, and just zones out when he speaks. I know how she can be when it comes to matters of irrational emotion like this, as I got very little support when I went through my phase, and she’d even take the mickey out of me.

B has problems writing, and he is slower to do homework than both me and A were and are. Whenever she’d sit with him to try to help him with his homework, it would end in a shouting match over his handwriting. It means he is very unresponsive when it comes to trying to improve it, and has made progress difficult. I also believe it has given him a short fuse, and has lead to this explosive behavior.

Sometimes I view the way they are parenting, and I just think that if someone were to sit with him and talk, it would sort a lot out. However I can’t, as I am coming up on my GCSE exams and need to concentrate on them. (GCSEs are like finals, but I’ve been working towards them for 2 years. They decide if I get to take what I want for my next two years. V important.) The fighting means I cannot concentrate, as I’m fairly sensitive to conflict around me, and I begin to cry.

I just feel like no one has taught him how to deal with his feelings in a mature way, and I’m not sure if I was ever taught that either. What do I do? Can I talk to my parents about it?

Well, I guess that depends. If by “it,” you mean your observation that your little brother might benefit from having someone to talk to about his anger, then sure, you could bring that up.

On the other hand, if what you have in mind is a sit-down lecture with your folks about their subpar child-rearing skills, I’m gonna have to strongly urge you to reconsider that plan. Because even if you, in your infinite 17-year-old wisdom, have somehow accumulated more and better parenting perspective than two actual parents (more on that in a minute, by the way), there’s just no way that conversation is going to end well. For any of you, really, but especially not for the one person who could end up grounded for about a million years as a result.

And before we go any further, Sparkler, we do need to talk about the angle from which you’re judging this situation. Because look, of course parents make mistakes. And with three kids, your parents have probably made their share of ’em. But the fact that you felt misunderstood by your mom during your most hormone-addled years of pubertal hell—and that your little brother, currently in that stage himself, feels the same way—just isn’t evidence of anything, except that being a teenager always involves this particular and universal form of misery. Everyone goes through a period where they’re convinced that their parents a) don’t get it, and b) can’t do anything right. And every parent, for their part, has to perform a balancing act between offering help (which the kid will frequently see as bothersome meddling) and stepping back to let them figure things out (which the kid might just interpret as abandonment, and p.s., this is why living with a teenager is widely agreed to be only slightly less agonizing than being one yourself.)

So when your bro is flailing around the house like a giant squid of anger, and your mom doesn’t step in, you might want to consider what kind of a tightrope she’s walking before jumping to the conclusion that she’s a Bad Parent. I’m not entirely convinced that she’s even fanning the flames of his temper so much as letting them burn themselves out—and perhaps sending your brother a worthwhile message in the bargain about what kind of behavior doesn’t get rewarded with parental attention. (Which is, in fact, one way that kids learn to handle their feelings appropriately.)

Also, on that note: We see a lot of letters around here from older sibs who are watching a little sister or brother enter the “ball of angst” stage of puberty, and just like you, they always believe that the sibling’s angst is clearly abnormal and dangerous in a way that their own was not. And as always, I must respond by pointing out that everybody slogs through the hormonal mire in their own way, and that there’s no reason to think that your brother’s way requires special intervention just because it looks different than yours.

… And so concludes our PSA from the Department of Things Really Probably Aren’t As Bad As You Think.

With that said, here is what you can do: Offer your perspective on the off chance that you see something your parents don’t (“[Brother] seems really angry all the time. I’m worried about him. Maybe he needs someone to talk to?”) but stop well short of criticizing “the way they are parenting” (which, by the way, is something parents get prickly about even when it’s coming from other parents.) You can also talk to your brother yourself in a casual, supportive way (because let’s be real, you have five minutes to take a break from test prepping to interact with your family. Yes, you do.)

And if your brother’s journey through puberty sometimes gets loud enough to intrude on your studying—as pubertal drama is wont to do—then a closed door and a pair of noise-canceling headphones should work perfectly well to give you some peace.

Most importantly, though, let yourself be optimistic about the overall meaninglessness of these conflicts, and about your brother coming through this difficult phase without any permanent damage. After all, you’ve got a hundred thousand years’ worth of human history that says he’ll be fine — and two fully-functional, emotionally stable human beings’ worth of evidence that your parents are doing something right.

Got something to say? Tell us in the comments! And to get advice from Auntie, email her at advice@sparknotes.com.
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