SINGAPORE: A woman took to NUSWhispers to vent about her 30-year-old brother, who still acts like a spoiled child while their ageing parents continue to support him.
In her post, the woman explained that despite being a full-grown working adult, her brother doesn’t help around the house and expects their elderly mother to serve him “like a king.”
“[My mom] needs to prepare rice and dishes and serve him; only then will he eat. After eating, he will just leave it there and not bother keeping or washing it,” she explained. “He has had a bad temper since he was young, so everyone had to give in.”
The woman also said that her brother doesn’t pay a cent toward household expenses, even though he’s the only one still living at home. “4/5 of us are not living in the house anymore, but we are the ones paying the house bills and giving my parents allowance,” she said.
Adding to her frustration, her brother recently got his Vietnamese girlfriend pregnant, and she has since moved into the family home.
Because his girlfriend is not a local, their elderly father has had to take responsibility for helping her with visa renewals marriage registration documents and even accompanying her to prenatal checkups.
“The baby is like from my dad?? My brother doesn’t help with anything for the reason that he needs to work. I pity his wife, who needs to endure his bad temper, and they always argue, which really upsets my parents a lot,” she wrote.
“I think the wife left the house a few times because of the argument—a lot of drama in between. And the poor baby…”
Despite all this, their parents continue to defend and coddle him, which has been a long-standing source of frustration for the woman. She was the only one in the family who saw this disaster coming and objected to the pregnancy, but nobody listened.
“All my family members are happy with this baby. So if they have any money issues or problems, my parents won’t come to me, but they will go to my other siblings. I have already objected in the first place and can see they wouldn’t last long. Some of my siblings have kids as well. He really doesn’t think of others and only about himself.”
The woman added that after his girlfriend gave birth, their elderly mother became the primary caregiver for the baby, while their father covered most of the expenses.
“I have seen too many broken families and voiced out in the beginning. But no one listens to me. They always say this is fate. What kind of fate is this? This is your own mistake; be a grown-up and a man to fix your own mistakes and not have the whole family help you,” she stressed.
At the end of the post, she urged everyone not to be like his brother, saying, “Please don’t give birth if you don’t have the basic: money. Don’t let a child struggle with you. You can struggle yourself.”
“Just focus on what you need to do for yourself…”
In the comments section, some netizens pointed out that her brother’s behaviour was likely a result of how his parents raised him. One netizen bluntly stated, “It’s your parents’ fault; LOVE and spoiled are two different things.”
Another wrote, “Well, to be exact, your parents enabled his behaviour, so they have to bear the consequences, la.”
A few other netizens suggested that the woman focus on her own life and let her parents and brother deal with their own problems. One said, “Just focus on what you must do for yourself and parents and ignore the rest. There are things you can’t change.”
In other news, a Singaporean worker felt completely betrayed after discovering that her ex-manager had lied to their CEO just to get her fired.
Taking to Reddit’s ‘Ask Singapore’ forum, the worker shared she had only been in her previous company—an SME—for less than a year when she got dismissed “without any proper reason.”
Read more: My manager lied to get me fired—Is this office slander?
Featured image by freepik (for illustration purposes only)