"Don't judge me but...I secretly hate how my sister parents her kids."

I was never close to my sister and now we have kids it’s even worse.

Growing up my sister and I were never super close.

There are nine years between us and smack bang in the middle of us is our brother.

I never felt particularly close to either of them but gradually we became better friends as we got older.

That was until we all had kids.

My brother lives far away, so it’s a different situation but when I fell pregnant before my sister she was incredibly jealous.

I was the baby having a baby. Except I wasn’t actually a baby. I was 25. But I was the first in our family to have a child.

And she hated it.

But she didn’t have to hate me for too long because she announced her own pregnancy just months after.

Of course, she did.

Her son and my daughter are four months apart. Two years later we again shared our pregnancies, this time our daughters were born just a week apart.

And fast forward to today, we each have a two-year-old and a four-year-old.

You would think sharing this time with my sister would be awesome but it’s not. I hate it.

We have completely different parenting styles and I secretly hate the way she parents her children.

Her son still has a bottle and a dummy. HE’S FOUR. He doesn’t need a bottle OR a dummy and most definitely not at four.

And he’s not toilet trained. He’ll be five soon! What is she doing? Get him out of nappies already!

She gives her two-year-old daughter cordial in a bottle. My kids don’t even know what cordial is!

Basically everything we do as parents, we do differently.

I breastfeed, she bottle fed.

I co-slept, she lets them cry it out.

I put my kids in Kindy, hers stay home and run amok.

She screams at her children constantly and I use calm parenting techniques.

Family get togethers are horrible. She sits with her husband and they both just scream at the kids to behave. Maybe if she got of her bum once in a while and actually disciplined them properly they wouldn’t go crazy.

My children dislike her children so much they have asked not to go over there.

Miss Four got a brand new Barbie car and house set up for her birthday that Master Four ruined one hour into her party.

That cost us $100. And his Dad just turned a blind eye and ignored it.

Months later she still gets upset about it.

The other day my sister told me she was looking at putting Master Four at the same Kindy Miss Four goes to.

I told her in no uncertain terms they ONLY take toilet trained kids and I was pretty sure they were full. I even rang the Kindy to warn them she’d ring.

Last time I babysit her kids, her son kicked and punched me and her daughter cried for three hours non-stop because I talk a toy off her that wasn’t age appropriate.

She spoils her kids non stop and they are absolutely feral because of it.

I’ve applied for my daughter to go the local Christian school and I’m not telling my sister, instead I just let her believe the kids will go to the local public school together.

There is no way in the world I want our kids to be going to school together, she’ll find out soon enough.

Should I tell my sister that she is bringing her children up wrong?

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