‘My daughter won’t let me see the grandkids because of her sister’

Parents aren’t suppose to have a favourite child, but one mother has found herself stuck in the middle of sibling rivalry. The mother wrote anonymously to The Sun’s advice columnist Dear Deidre, explaining how her two grown-up daughters don’t speak to each other.

“I’m 66 and the mother of two grown-up daughters who now don’t talk to each other. It’s breaking my heart,” she wrote.

“The girls went through a difficult time when I split from their dad. It was a bitter and messy divorce and they were only eight and 12 at the time.”

Since then she’s rebuilt her life, adding her youngest now gets on well with her dad. However, her eldest wants nothing to do with him.

“She was old enough at the time of the split to understand he had been cheating on me, and she can’t forgive him,” the mother added.

Her eldest is now stopping the woman from seeing her grandkids because she won’t cut out her youngest daughter.

“She won’t speak to her sister because she is seeing her dad and she won’t let me see her two children because I won’t cut her younger sister out of my life,” she explained.

Agony Aunty Deirdre Sanders advised the woman to suggest counselling help for her eldest daughter, adding: “Not for your sake but her own.”

“This is so sad for you all. Your older daughter is still full of a 12-year-old’s rage – and feelings of powerlessness adding to the emotional damage her dad caused.”

Read more: The youngest wins when it comes to a parent’s favourite child

While most mothers and fathers would say that they love all their children equally, there’s sometimes a special place in their heart for one child over the other.

Whether it’s forming a special bond with a kid or another child driving them absolutely bonkers, you’d imagine there’s a logical reason why parents lean towards a particular individual, but a new study conducted by parenting and grandparenting forums Mumsnet and Gransnet found that it’s actually all in the birth order.

Parents typically favour their youngest child over their eldest, with 56 per cent of the 1,185 parents surveyed saying that their youngest child was their favourite. In contrast, just 26 per cent said that their eldest was their favourite. There were no questions asked about the middle child – which would no doubt confirm the suspicions of middle children everywhere that they are overlooked in the family pecking order!

What are your thoughts on this?