Dysfunctional family

[Vero]

16 year old boy/High school Junior

 

I currently have 2 younger sisters, a brother, a dad and stepmother in the house; a very dysfunctional family. Over the years, we've struggled with keeping the house consistently clean, so i'll use cleaning up the house as a ways of conveying the dysfunctional familial relationships between my siblings and parents.

 

Baby sister:

My 5 year old younger sister is being manipulated by the obnoxious behaviors of children on TV. This wouldn't be a problem if my parents correct her when she displays this behavior. Most of the time, my step mom shoos her away, or gives her candy when she requests it. She then thinks that this behavior is allowed and continues to use it to get what she wants. She also trashes our Game room horribly. I can't even go into there anymore because of food dirt and food stuck on and in between the couch cushions. The Game room has turned into a place where my mom can shoo my baby sister into to be brainwashed by television while simultaneously trashing the house. I try to tell my baby sister to clean it up, but most of the time she just cries to my step mom who is working from home. My stepmother then tells me to leave her alone. She does clean it up when my stepmother isn't home though.

 

Younger sister:

My younger sister has been neglected ever since my older sister was still living at home. She was kind of left out of the grouping of my brother, older sister and I. Over the past years, she's resulted to the internet, her phone, and idiots at school for entertainment, behavior, etc. Now she's extremely lazy, stubborn, and occasionally spoiled by my dad. It is a struggle to get her to even do the dishes, let alone anything else in the house. Her and my stepmother absolutely DESPISE each other, and my stepmother is very childish in the way she screams and talks to my younger sister. I've tried to resolve conflicts between these two, but the anger and force is just too great.

 

Older brother:

My brother is aware of everything that I am talking about in this thread, and has decided to take the escape route of just agreeing with everything that is going wrong with the family, and just "going with the flow". I don't think I could ever do this because I don't want to give up on the family. He has a job and works a lot of hours (he just graduated HS and is living at home), so he's doing other stuff most of the time. Him and I have come to the conclusion that saving the family has grown hopeless, and refuse to clean a house that is just going get trashed right afterwards. He WILL help out if he see's that there is hope, but there has been no such thing.

 

Dad:

He spoils my baby sister like crazy ("hand-me-down" iPad mini and $60 doll for birthday) and doesn't punish her at the right times for the right reasons. He is unaware of my younger sister's ignorant and rebellious nature, which causes for very bad disconnections between the two of them. My dad thinks that my older brother is an "angel" because he obeys everything that he says. My brother only does this because he knows how unreasonable and demanding my dad is, and has decided to live with it by agreeing all the time. Since I have been the only child to speak up to my parents, my dad thinks that I am a disobedient and untrustworthy child. We've gotten into many a multitude of fights in the past year. He is really lazy also and ignores any sanitation rules that are trying to be enforced around the house. He's somewhat of a workaholic, like my stepmother, and doesn't have a hobby other than mowing the lawn and telling me and my brother to do a lot of useless work. We never do anything on the weekends because the house has to be cleaned or my brother and I have to help my dad do some stupid work at his business that never ends or serves a purpose.

 

Stepmother:

As stated before, she absolutely DESPISES my younger sister, and vise versa. My step mom is super immature a lot of the time, tattling on my siblings and I when we do something wrong. a few years back, she has even called my biological mom a bitch right in front of us. She always acts like she has no money its seems. I asked her once "We should go on vacation." because we haven't been on vacation for many years. she replied "Yeah we should. You should ask your dad". This made me so angry for some reason. Why is she my mom when I can rarely even go to her for anything? I almost never ask her for anything anymore because I know that she is just going to come up with another bull**** excuse. She said she's paying for her biological son's insurance and car also, and there's barely any good food in the house a lot of the times.

 

 

The house is brutally infested with cockroaches. We've basically grown indifferent to their presence and its sickening to me. I can't even walk through the kitchen without shoes in fear of popping one open with my bare feet. I always end up single-handedly cleaning the WHOLE house top to bottom, and I'm growing tired of it. I created a cleaning schedule for everyone in hopes of forming some kind of regiment, but no one seems to follow. They are too lazy and don't care; they've grown comfortable in their filth.

My mind and energy are both depleting. I can't keep living with these conditions.

 

I'm sick of always cleaning up every weekend when I should be outside enjoying life.

I'm sick of stupid arguments.

I'm sick of living in a filthy house.

I'm sick of trying to fix everything myself.

I'm sick of having to hold the weight and responsibilities of the whole family on my back most of the times.

 

Ugh, this is more like complaining, but I just want a normal family. Is that too much to ask for?

Any advice?

[Tayla]

Sounds like you are the grown up.

 

Lived the life you are speaking of. Have various siblings that chose to leave home early due to the conditions and the dysfunction.

 

Seek counseling thru school. Your advisor should be able to guide you. My Guidance counselor made the world of difference in enduring the home life.

Social Services got involved. Deplorable living conditions can be fixed, family dynamics can be fixed. It takes a third party most times to mediate it though.

 

You are enabling your family by doing chores. Do your part but not theirs.