Of all the milestones in a teenager’s life, high school graduation is among the biggest ones. It signifies the beginning of a new chapter, filled with more independence, opportunities, and challenges.

However, as Reddit user Big_Swan_5867 was preparing for his, the teenager learned that his father was not going to attend the ceremony. Instead, the man said he would be going to his stepdaughter’s event.

Hurt and angry, the high schooler made a post on the subreddit ‘Am I the [Jerk]?‘ to explain the situation and his plan to cut ties with his parent.

This teenager was excited for his high school graduation, but his dad told him he was not going

Image credits: Pavel Danilyuk / pexels (not the actual photo)

And the reason the parent provided only made the situation worse

Image credits: Derick Makwasi / pexels (not the actual photo)

Image credits: voronaman111 /envatoelements (not the actual photo)

Image credits: Big_Swan_5867

The teenager’s account illustrates just how vulnerable children can be to their parents picking favorites

Image credits: Elina Fairytale / pexels (not the actual photo)

The numbers imply that parental favoritism is surprisingly common and can actually be very harmful. It manifests in up to 65% of families and has been identified and studied across many different cultures.

As widespread as it is, the practice can take a toll on children’s well-being across their lifespan, from childhood to middle age and beyond. It is considered such a strong factor in a range of emotional problems that psychologists even have a name (and acronym) for it: “parental differential treatment,” or PDT.

According to experts, parents who succumb to it not only devote more time, attention, praise, or affection to their preferred child but also assert less control, so that they may enjoy fewer restrictions, and be subject to less discipline or even punishment.

Dr. Ilan Shrira, who is a social psychologist at Pennsylvania State University, told Bored Panda, “This teenager’s situation is unusual because generally the biological children are favored over stepchildren.”

“Although the ‘biological vs. step’ factor is perhaps one of the strongest predictors of parental favoritism, some ‘weaker’ factors are that younger siblings tend to receive more attention and care than older siblings. And there’s a small tendency in our culture for girls to be slightly favored over boys, in general.”

Research suggests that from an early age, children are aware of differential treatment, such as parents showing more warmth to their siblings than them. This has been associated with low self-esteem as well as childhood anxiety, depression, and risky behavior. There may also be a knock-on effect on emotional well-being that causes other, more indirect issues to follow. For example, Chinese researchers discovered that parental favoritism is a predictor of mobile phone addiction in adolescents.

Dr. Shrira highlighted that, “Not surprisingly, the disfavored siblings also tend to resent both the favored siblings and the parents.”

Research on adolescents and their parents also shows that families tend not to talk about it, which makes things even worse.

While there might not be decisive evidence specifically on the effects of extended family being able to mitigate parental favoritism, Dr. Shrira thinks that if the child has a strong bond with other relatives, then greater attention from those relatives might reduce the damage.

“But unless those other relatives also live with the child (or spend time with the child very frequently), then the mitigating effect will not be enormous,” the psychologist added. “The parental bonds are just very central to a child and overshadow the effects of other bonds.”

Dr. Shrira said that judging from the post, it sounds like the father is being strongly influenced by the girl’s mother, who is strongly favoring her own daughter over the stepson.

If this is true, “This influence is so strong that it’s causing the father to neglect the son. Maybe if the father didn’t favor the daughter, he would experience the wrath of his wife, and he’s afraid it would cause problems in their marriage (and ultimately, even end it).”

“I don’t mean to say that the father isn’t at fault here – he is clearly making a choice to disfavor his son. But it definitely sounds like the father cares more about his relationship with his wife than he cares about the relationship with his son,” Dr. Shrira said.

As his story went viral, the teenager joined the discussion in the comments

People unanimously said he’s completely entitled to the course he’s planning to take

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