At 21 years old, most people are thinking about building their own lives: choosing a career, finding a place to live, strengthening relationships, and figuring out what kind of future they actually want. But for this 21-year-old woman, those ordinary decisions come with an enormous expectation attached to them. Her mother has already decided that, when she and her husband are gone, her daughter will become the primary caregiver for her two older brothers, who both have disabilities and require significant support.
The problem is that this decision was apparently made years ago, when the daughter was only 11 years old and innocently told her mother that she would take care of her brothers. Now, more than a decade later, her mother treats that childhood promise as a permanent commitment. Whenever the young woman discusses her career, future home, living arrangements, or relationship, her mother reminds her that everything must somehow accommodate her brothers. What makes the situation even more complicated is that she has three other neurotypical siblings, yet her mother believes the responsibility naturally belongs to her because she is a woman and therefore supposedly more nurturing.
At Just 21 Years Old, I Am Already Being Expected To Build My Entire Future Around Caring For My Two Brothers With Disabilities
More Than A Decade Later, That Childhood Promise Has Become An Expectation That My Mum Refuses To Let Go Of
Because I Am A Girl, My Mum Believes I Am Naturally More Nurturing And Therefore The Obvious Choice To Become My Brothers’ Full-Time Caregiver
Whenever I Try To Explain How Difficult His Behaviour Makes Our Relationship, My Mum Brushes It Off By Saying I Am The One Who Never Left
I Am Not Saying My Brothers Do Not Deserve Care, Support, Or A Safe Place To Live, But I Do Not Believe That Responsibility Should Automatically Fall On Me
What does Reddit have to say about all this? Let’s find out.
What makes this situation so emotionally complicated is that there are several different issues tangled together. There is the very real concern of what will happen to two adults who may need substantial support after their parents are no longer able to provide it. There is also a mother who appears to be desperately trying to secure her sons’ future before she is gone. But on the other side is a 21-year-old woman who never knowingly agreed to spend her adulthood as a full-time caregiver. The promise she made at 11 was made with a child’s understanding of responsibility, not with the knowledge of what adulthood, careers, relationships, independence, and caregiving would actually involve.
Her concerns are made even more serious by the fact that one of her brothers frequently screams at her and has sometimes threatened to punch her. Instead of feeling prepared to welcome him into her future home, she feels frightened, resentful, and pressured. Now her mother has even begun teaching her 22-year-old partner how to care for her brothers, despite neither of them agreeing to this future. The question is no longer simply about helping family; it is about whether one person can be expected to surrender control over her entire adult life because of a promise she made as a child.
