I (42M) have two children: my son, Alex (10M), and my daughter, Emily (7F). My sister’s son, Noah (7M), is Emily’s exact age, and they’ve always been incredibly close, almost like twins. Alex, however, has always been a bit more reserved and has struggled to connect with Emily on the same level, despite my constant encouragement.
Emily and Noah adore each other. They spend hours playing together, whispering secrets, and just generally being joyful whenever they’re in the same room. Alex, on the other hand, often retreats to his room with his video games when Noah visits, or he just seems generally disinterested in what Emily and Noah are doing. He’ll occasionally participate if prompted, but it’s never with the same enthusiasm.
This past weekend, my sister brought Noah over for a playdate. The moment Emily saw Noah, her face lit up like a Christmas tree. She shrieked with delight, ran to hug him, and they immediately disappeared into a whirlwind of giggles and games. It was pure joy to witness.
Alex, however, just stood there, watching. He didn’t greet Noah with any real enthusiasm, and he definitely didn’t get the same reaction from Emily. A few minutes later, he came up to me, looking dejected.
“Dad,” he mumbled, kicking at the floor, “why is Emily always so much happier to see Noah than she is to see me?”
I looked at him, feeling a mix of frustration and sadness. I’ve tried for years to get him to engage more with his sister, to be more present. Seeing Emily’s unrestrained joy with Noah just highlighted the gap. Without thinking, I blurted out, “Well, Alex, it’s because you don’t put in the effort. You’re always off in your own world, playing video games. Noah actually plays with her, he listens to her, he makes her feel important. You want her to be excited to see you? Then maybe you should be more excited to see her and actually engage with her. It’s your fault, son.”
Alex’s face crumpled. He just stared at me for a moment, his eyes wide with hurt, then he turned and ran to his room. The rest of the day was quiet from his end. My wife overheard me and later told me I was way too harsh, that I “crushed his spirit,” and that it’s not fair to compare siblings. Now I’m second-guessing everything. Am I the asshole for telling my son it’s his fault his sister is happier to see her cousin?
The silence from Alex’s room was a heavy blanket, far more oppressive than any argument. My wife’s condemnation of my “harshness” and “crushing his spirit” echoed in my ears, making me question the righteousness of my frustrated outburst. I had intended to spur him to action, to make him see the consequences of his disengagement with his sister. Yet, his crumpled face and silent retreat haunted me. Was I the asshole for delivering such a brutal truth, for comparing my children in a moment of weakness?
A few days later, while Alex was at school, my wife came to me, her face pale and drawn. She held a small, crumpled drawing in her hand.
“I found this in Alex’s backpack,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. “It’s… it’s what he’s been drawing in his therapy sessions.”
My stomach clenched. Alex had been seeing a child psychologist for the past year, ostensibly for mild anxiety related to school. We hadn’t really pressed for details, trusting the therapist.
The drawing was simple, childlike, but profoundly unsettling. It depicted a family – me, my wife, and Emily – in bright colors, laughing and holding hands. But Alex was drawn in faint, almost transparent lines, standing outside a thick, dark wall. On his side of the wall, there were scribbled, angry lines. On the other side, with our family, there was a tiny, faded picture of a baby.
“I called Dr. Evans, Alex’s therapist,” my wife continued, her voice trembling. “She said… she said it’s related to survivor’s guilt and unacknowledged grief.”
My mind reeled. Survivor’s guilt?
“You know we had a miscarriage before Emily was born, right?” my wife asked, her eyes searching mine. “It was quite late-term. We lost a little boy. We named him Liam. We were devastated. And Alex, he was just three at the time. He was so excited to be a big brother. We tried to shield him, but he knew. He knew we were sad, he knew a baby was gone.”
She paused, taking a shaky breath. “Dr. Evans explained that because Alex was so young, he didn’t have the cognitive tools to process that grief normally. Instead, his little brain tried to make sense of the immense sadness he felt from us, and the absence of his baby brother. And in his developing mind, he somehow connected Liam’s death to his own existence. He developed a profound, unconscious belief that if he had been ‘more’ of something – more engaging, more exciting, more of what we seemed to want – then maybe Liam wouldn’t have… left. He started to feel like his own presence, his own way of being, somehow contributed to the loss, or that he was ‘lucky’ to be alive when Liam wasn’t.”
“His ‘disinterest,’ his ‘retreating to his room,’ his struggle to connect with Emily’s joy, especially with Noah,” my wife explained, her voice thick with tears, “it’s not about being selfish or lazy. It’s a deeply ingrained trauma response. Noah, being Emily’s exact age, represents the brother Alex lost, the ‘replacement’ that he subconsciously believes Emily connects with more profoundly. He can’t engage with Emily’s joy in that way because it highlights his own unaddressed grief and guilt over Liam’s absence. He believes that if he were ‘better,’ if he were ‘more like Noah,’ then Emily would be happy with him, and maybe, just maybe, Liam would still be here. And when you told him it was his ‘fault’ Emily was happier with Noah… you didn’t just hurt him. You confirmed his deepest, most terrifying, unconscious belief: that his mere existence, his way of being, is fundamentally flawed, and responsible for the absence of someone he desperately wished was still here.”
I crumpled the drawing in my hand, my vision blurring. The “disinterested” son, the “lazy” gaming, the “fault” – it wasn’t about selfishness or a lack of effort. It was the devastating legacy of unprocessed childhood grief and survivor’s guilt, a burden he had carried in silent solitude for years. Alex wasn’t avoiding his sister; he was a little boy trapped in a profoundly damaging narrative, believing that his own being somehow contributed to the loss of his baby brother, and that his sister’s joy with another child highlighted his own unbearable burden. My harsh words hadn’t just been unfair; they had, unknowingly, reinforced his deepest, most painful, hidden fear. The AITA question, once a clear binary of right and wrong, dissolved into a profound, aching understanding of the unseen burdens people carry, and how the echoes of deeply entrenched, unacknowledged childhood trauma can tragically dictate adult actions, even at the cost of profound, yet ultimately illuminating, conflict.