Yes, I am the Golden Child
My mum, it has to be said, dotes on me. She'd do pretty much anything to help me out, which is why I in turn try to be as little of a burden on her as possible. I left home at 18 to go to university and although she would help me out occasionally, I still took three part-time jobs during the holidays (Pharmacy retail 8am-12pm, Plumbers' warehouse carrying radiators 1pm-6pm, Barman 7pm-11pm, lather, rinse, repeat) *and* sold weed during term time to cover my rent. After university I moved back home and got my first job, so I paid half of my wages back to my mom for board. After a year, I moved to London and I've pretty much stood on my own two feet for the past ten years, and though my mom still offers to give me money if I'm in a bit of a hole, I've no need of it. I'd rather she enjoy her impending retirement and not have to worry about me.

My younger sibling, by contrast, dropped out of university after a year and a bit (but apparently my mom had to pay her rent and fees for the rest of the year) and moved back into the family house rent-free. She then started a four-year course at a local university, during which she, yep, lived at home. When my mom would make noises about selling the house (as house prices were up, and she would have got a tidy sum) she would throw a tantrum - "You want to take away my childhood home!"

Eventually my mom got engaged and moved in with her new fella. Sibling remains in the three-bedroom house, still paying no rent. Sibling invites friends to move into the house - the sort of friends who eat all her food (that mom used to bring round), borrow her car (that mom gave her, of course) without asking and never pay any rent. After a couple of years of this, sibling kicks out these friends (amongst much recrimination) and brings in a fiance of her own who, in the two years I've known him, has not held down a job for more than three weeks, and hasn't been paid once. (He also told her that his dad had died and he'd inherited a £500,000 house...18 months later, his dad is apparently alive, but I suspect that's a story for another time.) Anyway, apart from the aborted attempt at university, sibling has never lived outside the old family home, never paid rent in her life (she's now in her late 20s) and mom is still paying for the mortgage and the majority of the bills.

Yet every time I visit, all I hear is "EMVEE'S THE GOLDEN CHILD! HE GETS ANYTHING HE WANTS! YOU SPOIL HIM!" after my mom, say, cooks me a meal when she hasn't seen me for a month. (The sort of meal, I am reliably informed, that sibling gets cooked for her twice a week.) Yep, according to sibling, I had everything handed to me on a plate (er, when?) and she got nothing. She can say this while actually standing in the house and keep a straight face.

I'm spoilt all right. Spoilt rotten.
( emvee cruor deo cruoris, Fri 10 Oct 2008, 10:48, 4 replies)

....and relax.
Feel better now?

Seriously though, she sounds like a right old pain in the arse.

Do her in, it's the only solution.
(Reverend Fister "a disciplined fuckwit", Fri 10 Oct 2008, 11:06, closed)

I think
you should sit her down, in the house she is living rent-free in, and point out to her that she is:

spoilt
selfish
old enough to stand on her own two feet
probably causing your mother quite a lot of stress and inconvenience

Lock her in the room with you if you need, but it sounds like she needs a good hard shock of reality.
(The Empress it seems you CAN polish a turd!, Fri 10 Oct 2008, 13:04, closed)

i suggest
A birthday cake for your sibling.

made with ground glass.
(Halfy By light alone, Fri 10 Oct 2008, 13:46, closed)

she
sounds horribly like my little sister.
( ascorbate, Fri 10 Oct 2008, 14:38, closed)