Born into a family where hope for another child eclipsed all else, he grew up feeling invisible in a home consumed by a relentless pursuit of fertility. While his parents poured their hearts and fortunes into treatments that never bore fruit, he was left to navigate a childhood marked by sacrifice and neglect, his needs overshadowed by a dream that wasn’t his own.
Denied the simple joys of childhood—no extracurriculars, no proper school supplies, sometimes even no lunch—he endured the quiet sting of being overlooked. In a world where every resource was rationed for a family that never grew, he stood alone, carrying the weight of his parents’ unfulfilled desires and the loneliness of a childhood spent in the shadows.
AITA for saying my parents will never be able to make up for making me feel like I wasn’t good enough when they neglected me throughout my childhood in an effort to have more kids?
As renowned family therapist Dr. Terrence Real explains, “When you put your needs on the shelf to please others, you teach others that you don’t matter.” In this situation, the OP’s childhood needs were systematically placed on the shelf so that the parents could pursue a specific vision of family structure, leading to profound emotional neglect.
The parents’ singular focus on achieving another child created a severe imbalance in emotional labor and resource allocation. The OP was financially deprived (school supplies, food, clothes) and emotionally abandoned (missed events, ignored school contacts). This behavior signals to the child that their inherent worth is secondary to the parents’ fertility goals. When the OP expresses that the damage is permanent and costly (therapy bills), this is a realistic assessment of the long-term impact of relational trauma. The extended family’s insistence on immediate forgiveness minimizes the OP’s legitimate pain and pressures them into a premature reconciliation that serves the parents, not the child.
The OP’s decision to move out and establish independence was a necessary act of self-preservation. While the extended family argues for parental understanding, true reconciliation requires genuine accountability from the parents, not just a request for patience from the child. The OP’s current stance is appropriate for someone processing deep relational injury. Moving forward, the OP should maintain firm boundaries regarding contact and focus on their therapeutic process, only allowing parental repair attempts that actively address the specifics of the neglect they caused, rather than generalized appeals for sympathy.
REDDIT USERS WERE STUNNED – YOU WON’T BELIEVE SOME OF THESE REACTIONS.
The original poster (OP) feels deeply neglected and invalidated, as their parents prioritized years of fertility treatments over their basic needs and emotional support. The central conflict lies between the OP’s justifiable need for acknowledgment and healing for past abandonment and the extended family’s expectation that the OP should offer immediate compassion and forgiveness based on the parents’ age and stated suffering.
Should the OP be expected to set aside their significant emotional trauma and financial burden to accommodate their parents’ desire for reconciliation now, or is their stance—that past neglect cannot be undone or excused—the necessary boundary for protecting their own well-being?
