Those who grew up being told daughters are “less valuable” than sons, how did that shape you now?
Those who grew up being told daughters are “less valuable” than sons, how did that shape you now?
r/AskWomen
Those who grew up being told daughters are “less valuable” than sons, how did that shape you now?
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The experience in my community clearly demonstrated to me how important it was for me to take action to adjust my surroundings and the people that I chose to include in my life. I don’t have to include people in my life who believe I’m lesser based on my gender, so I don’t. My life is far better for it.
Made me financially independent and not rely on anyone. Don’t want anyone’s validation and ik no one would care about any accomplishment of mine. So yeah I learned to live by myself and enjoy my life.
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Slightly different, but I was often told I “can’t help not being as good at [random skill] as a boy.”
My attitude now is, you wanna fucking bet? Challenge accepted!
My mother is a calm, sweet woman who would say “oh, if you say so” then proceed to do [random skill] quietly and efficiently. I’ve obviously taken the louder, more obnoxious approach because it irritates me that, even with her as an incredible female role model, people would dare assume that sitting to pee would in any way hold me back…
It took me years to stop looking for any person to fill a parental role that I desperately wanted love from. I became independent, reserved, weary of others intentions and learned from my many mistakes of those who I sought parent role from.
I know my parents, especially my mother, love my brothers more. They love me because I am their flesh and blood, but they do not like me as an individual. I guess I am more reserved; I don’t want to interact with people much, as I fear they already dislike me.
I have learnt to be by myself, and gained my own independence. I have minimal contact with them, but emotionally I’m very damaged from the years of neglect. I can’t form bonds well with other human deeply as others can.
I grew up in a household where my father was the man of the house. No one questioned his decisions. Whatever he wanted he got. This was in every aspect of my life.
He would have loved a son but he got me (yay).
He never directly said I was “less valuable” but he did say my worth as a woman is very different to a son – if he had one. He said my value is to serve one man, create a home and produce children. He never discouraged intellect or suppressed my curiosity about life because this would apparently provide more value to the guy I end up with but my focus should be being a traditional wife and carer to my husband but not pursue a career as a priority as there is no value in this.
How has this shaped me? Well a lot of my friends describe me as a female hater, a door mat to men, an anti-feminist, no self love and carry zero backbone when it comes to being with a man.
Could this be different if he valued me the way he would if he had a son? Maybe!
Regardless, I’m happy with what I am.
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They didn’t tell me I was less valuable but they did tell me once that girls are supposed to help their moms clean. My mom said that in Mexico moms get really happy when they have a daughter because it means they’ll have someone to help them with the cooking and cleaning. That’s when my aversion to cleaning really got worse. I’m not going to be cleaning and cooking while men sit on their asses. Not that my dad sat on his, he was always working but still. Anything that was considered a woman’s job I just did not want to do. It wasn’t until a few years ago that I got over my aversion. And mostly because my husband does not share those views and will do any and every task if I don’t get to it. My parents only told me that one time, I think they were trying to convince me to clean something, I was super freaking lazy (still am). But it stuck with me forever.
I grew up in a culture where men are more valued but the women in my family and social group were SO MUCH better in every way imaginable that it was a nonissue. We were better in school, sports, social and emotional intelligence, creative pursuits, beauty and general appearance…
I could see the disappointment in the eyes of the older generation when they looked at their sons and compared them to their daughters (maybe it’s easier to do if you send them to gender-segregated schools but there was just too much evidence to the contrary for anyone to even pretend they were actually better.)
To this day, I would be really hard pressed to show you an example of a man I admire given how incredible the women I grew up with are. Even if a man is really good at one thing, they usually are terrible at other aspects of their life and the women are much more well-rounded.
My grandmom used to say that, my parents did their best shutting it down.
It pushed me to be hyper independent and run after love and acceptance. It made me believe I need to do good to be loved.
I’m now my grandmoms caretaker, I haven’t forgiven her, but I do understand and love her. She was a product of her times and societal conditioning and patriarchy. Not an excuse, but an explanation. She says I’m worth 10 men, makes me feel bittersweet because why is my value still tied to imaginary men
I grew up in the Christian evangelical land and while no one out right said, sons are better. The Bible did a bunch of times. Oh and the whole patriarchy thing and abuse of women in that world. So it affected me by making me want to be a man. … Because I wanted the power over my own life.
Somehow became everyone’s caregiver.
It was never outright said, but it was always implied with the difference in Behaviour. In my current age, I refuse to marry someone who has the same mindset, and if I choose to have kids, I will make sure to raise them to respect both genders. You don’t get better treatment for having different anatomy.
Never told outright but culturally you knew and could see how the boys were treated differently. Shoot, there are whole religious days where the women fast for men or sisters pray for their brothers…but it’s never the other way around. Maybe because my parents only had girls or because we grew up so far away from our family, I didn’t first hand experience it from my parents. But I knew, if they had had a boy or we lived closer to family, it would have been very different for me.
I realized that my father was an idiot and went NC at 16 and proceeded to live the life of my dreams, while my brother went on to be a worthless chode
I become the most successful one in my family hahaha
I am the daughter, who today took my 90 yr grandmother to her cardiology appointment on my day off from work. The older women in the family don’t ask anything of the younger men in the family. They barely speak to them. It’s wives and girlfriends.
Suddenly we’re really fucking valuable again….
I became hyperindependent. Never felt safe relying on anyone for anything, so I learned to take care of myself. I’ve learned to embrace the invisibility that comes with it.
Trust me, I hear you. It bugged me when I was younger. Now I just say “It might, but it will mess me up less than the opposite. Anyway, I can afford a therapist, and it’s their job to tend to my emotional/mental wellness, thank you very much.”
No matter what I do where I go how much success I get i am still made to feel like I got there coz only a woman could get as far
Im surrounded by men! I have an important job. But even i dont feel satisfied coz of the same reason
I work in construction, I drive a huge lifted truck, I’m hyper independent, I have the whole “I am a rich man” mentality Cher (the singer) has. The only man that’s ever made me feel safe and let me be in my feminine energy/ vulnerable w him is my husband. Other than that I have BDE and it’s bigger than most of the actual men I meet. So in short I’m a wild animal that can’t be tamed.
I actually come from a patriarchal family. Dad just prefers my brother and I have accepted it.
I love my dad and I appreciate everything has done for me but I have come to terms that he loves my brother more.
My brother is a total dbag and I don’t talk to him at all.
I would have to spend a lifetime of feeling hurt and unloved and it’s just not worth it so I focus on my beautiful family – hubby, my son and my lovely dog instead.
I was never ever taught this personally but my grandma was taught this by her father when he exclaimed “not another girl!” after her 3rd sister was born if I remember correctly and she’s outlived my grandfather and is living independently in her own home at nearly 90 so I think she’s just fine.
She still talks about what her dad said in a sad demeanor like it hurt her feelings but she said she was propelled by it to make her own money and be independent. Pretty amazing now that I reread what I wrote.
It didn’t bother me as much in my younger years because that’s just how my family has always been. It bothers me immensely now that my brother and I both have grown children. I have girls, he had a boy. Guess who the favorite grandchild is? Doted on, stays at their house every weekend, they drive across states to go to all his sporting events, shower him with gifts and money. His college is paid for. My kids could not afford to go. My family hasn’t seen or spoken to my kids in 2 years, and I bet, gun to their head, they couldn’t name a single activity either of them did.
I was okay with it for me, but seeing my kids treated this way makes me rage. Its so stupidly unfair.
I wasn’t specifically told this but there were a lot of things my two older brothers got to do and I couldn’t. I thought girls weren’t allowed to do those things, like hunting. They took many, many trips to Canada with dad. I was 32 before dad asked if I wanted to deer hunt that coming fall. It wasn’t until I was an adult and left home that I realized just how much they were favored. I had to do chores all thru high school. They stopped doing any as soon as they were in middle school. I had to wash dishes the night of my high school graduation or no one was going. I tried to talk to my dad about this before he passed but it was hard to bring up. I think he realized in his last few years just how out of whack his thinking was and in his way he tried to apologize but it still stings that I wasn’t considered worth while as a child and it didn’t help that mom went along with it.
Put myself through school, successful professional career + raised my children, took care of both parents until they passed on, have little or nothing to do with my remaining family of origin. Love my retired life, love my own family that spouse & I created. I value myself, yet did my duties and was a better daughter than they (family of origin) was to me. Now I have no time for remaining entitled parasitic misogynists.
I have a cousin who’s 4 days older then me. We grew up together. Once when we were like 8, fighting like kids do, he banged my head on the radiator, so I banged his head on the radiator.
Our grandparents started screaming at me that I could have killed him, I was confused because he JUST did that to me, and they go “yeah, his life is worth more than yours, he carries on the name!!” like I’m stupid for not even knowing that. I told my parents (my mother is their daughter), no reaction.
I haven’t spoken to my relatives for 2 years, my only regret is that I didn’t go no contact sooner
My father valued boys over girls. As a result I have had life long struggles with low self esteem and depression
62f
It wasn’t said out loud in my home, but my family certainly sees and values women and men differently. Turned me into a feminist but also made me very aware of why women are treated the way they are. I am rarely surprised by henious acts commited against women, since I am familiar with how the mechanisms of underlying thought patterns and beliefs work.
Honestly made me too scared to come out as trans to my parents, so I put my entire life on hold for 10 years. Deeply regret it now, and even though j think my relationship with my Dad has gone down hill since, my relationship with my sister has improved massively.
I grew up under the shadow of “boys can do no wrong and girls can do no right” and “the only reason to have a daughter is for her to grow up, make you a grandmother then wait on grandma hand and foot until the day you die (include complete financial care too)”. I “did no right” and happily failed at my expected “duties” of providing a grandchild and waiting hand and foot on my mother. Mom presented a very detailed bill for every $ they provided toward my college (medical insurance and the cost of a car they ended up selling for more than what it cost -no credit for the profit) as my graduation gift (they didn’t attend graduation – no engraved invitation). I moved across country two weeks later, went LC for 15 yrs.
Well I now assume everyone hates me and thinks I’m stupid so there’s that.
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I was always told my chores had to be household ones, and that my brother was the only one allowed to help dad on the farm because he was a boy.
I ended up working on farms for 13+ years as an adult while he’s a metrosexual city boy now lol.
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I never got why daughters were called worth less. As a trans woman, I was pressured to be the “son” who would carry on the family, when all I wanted was the life my sister had. That taught me how wrong those ideas are and how determined I had to be to live my truth.
Growing up with that kind of messaging can shape you in ways you don’t even realize at first. For some, it built this constant pressure to “prove” their worth — excelling in school, career, or relationships just to counteract the idea that daughters weren’t enough. Others describe feeling invisible or second-class in their own families, which sometimes carries over into adulthood as struggles with confidence, boundaries, or choosing partners.
On the flip side, some people say it made them fiercely independent and determined to create their own value system. They reject those old beliefs and make it a point to uplift women (themselves, sisters, friends, daughters) because they know firsthand how damaging that mindset is.
It’s a mix of scars and strength: the hurt of growing up feeling “less than,” but also the resilience of learning that your value isn’t up for debate.
Made me more determined, more competitive, more career driven. All of these qualities allowed me to become the strong, independent, self sufficient woman I need to be today.
Made me realize that I’m independent and can’t wait for anyone to come and shape my life.
Learned to fend for myself. Motivated me to work harder, save more and be more independent.
Out of pure spite I put myself through university, worked in tech (from the way back), retired early.
I don’t speak with my two older brothers (one still lives at home at 56) or my mother. My father passed away 4 years ago.
I moved to another country. They can keep their more valuable kid.