One thing I’ve never been able to stomach is someone who thinks they’re better than everyone else, especially when they brag about what they have. Unfortunately, the person who taught me that lesson is my own father.
Growing up, we didn’t have much. Some weeks, we didn’t even have enough food on the table. Life was tight, stressful, and survival‑based. Then my grandparents passed away, and suddenly my father had money. And with that money came a version of him I barely recognize.
He once asked my brother and me what we would do if he split the inheritance — as if he was actually considering it. I should’ve known better. He kept every bit of it for himself. I don’t know why I let myself believe, even for a moment, that he would treat us equally.
The man I knew growing up didn’t brag about cars or material things. He didn’t act brand new because he had a little money in his pocket. But now? He flaunts every purchase. He quit a stable job with benefits to work on a farm, and now he’s trying to get his old job back because reality hit. Meanwhile, the yard is full of cars — seven of them — some broken, some borrowed, some gifted, some just sitting there. My mother’s old car is suddenly his daily driver. My brother is getting her current one when it comes out of the shop. And me? My vehicle needs work too, but that doesn’t matter. I’m on my own.
That’s the theme of my life, really. I walk around like none of this bothers me because of my babies. I don’t want them to feel the hurt I grew up carrying. I pretend my childhood was great, even though it barely existed. I’m still healing my inner child through the things I do with my kids — beach trips, new places, memories I never got to have.
Because the truth is, the favoritism has always been there.
When my brother graduated high school, my father put him on his credit so he could get loans for college. He didn’t have a job, couldn’t pay it back, and I’m pretty sure my dad ended up covering it. But when I needed help finishing my degree? Suddenly no one was going on his credit because he “didn’t want it ruined.” I couldn’t even get $8,000 to finish school.
My mother once got fussed at for secretly helping her sister, yet when I needed help paying off the house I bought, I had to get on a payment plan — with interest in guilt, not money. Everyone else gets grace. I get invoices.
Growing up, my brother got to go places — beach trips, mountain trips, sleepovers. I wasn’t allowed to go anywhere. The only place I ever went was the zoo with a friend. That was it. My childhood was a rotation of whoopings, tension, and silence. It never felt like love. It felt like walking on eggshells.
Even now, going to my parents’ house feels heavy. Something is always off. Maybe my mother is finally starting to see the way my father treats people. Maybe she’s tired too. I don’t know.
What I do know is this: it’s always me who has to go see them. They never come to my house. They never call, never text, never check in. They never ask to take the kids for a day. The effort is always one‑sided, and I’m tired of pretending it doesn’t hurt.
And to add to the list, my father refuses to go around my aunt because she owes him money. He’s held onto that grudge for years. Another feud. Another relationship ruined over dollars. Another example of how he treats people like transactions instead of family.
I’m learning to accept that I can’t change who he is.
But I can change what my kids experience.
I can give them the childhood I never had.
I can give them memories, joy, softness, and safety.
I can break the cycle that broke me.
And maybe that’s the real inheritance — the one I’m creating, not the one I was denied.
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