Adopted Teen Wonders If He’s Not His Parents’ ‘Real Child’ After Learning Only His Sister Has a College Fund

A teenager turned to Reddit for advice after years of feeling like an outsider in the family that adopted him at birth.

He explained that his parents adopted him as an infant after struggling with infertility. “My birth parents chose them to be my parents,” he wrote, noting that his adoptive mom was even in the delivery room, holding his birth mother’s hand when he was born.

Everything changed a few years later. When he was 3, his parents unexpectedly conceived his younger sister — and from that point on, he said he could feel a clear difference in how the two of them were treated.

He shared that his sister was showered with pet names, affection and constant praise about how perfectly she looked like both of their parents. He, on the other hand, said he was always aware she was seen as “the real child.”

Extended family reinforced that divide. According to his post, some cousins would cruelly point out that his parents now had “their real kid” and joked that, if they could, they would “send [him] back.” No adults ever stepped in to stop those comments, he said.

Over time, the contrast became part of everyday life. He wrote that he didn’t receive the same cuddles and kisses his sister did and rarely got one-on-one time with either parent. He still got attention and presents, but “less,” and when he tried to talk about how hurt he felt, his parents brushed it off and never really addressed it.

The message he got at home was echoed by his sister. He said she would tell him she wished for “a real sibling and not a fake one,” and frequently pointed out that their cousins were her “real family,” not his.

Things came to a head when he overheard his parents and aunt discussing his sister’s future. In that conversation, he learned that his sister had “a huge college fund” — something no one had ever mentioned for him.

That discovery weighed on him as he approached his senior year. Around that time, he used information his adoptive parents had given him to reach out to his birth parents, hoping to build a relationship. Instead, he said, he was told they didn’t want contact. His adoptive parents responded with a flat “they expected as much” and offered no comfort, he wrote.

His sister’s reaction cut even deeper. According to him, she told him he had “four parents who didn’t want me so I must be broken.”

Two weeks before he wrote his Reddit post, his parents told him to have his school guidance counselor handle college planning without them because they were “busy.” That made him suspect the counselor wanted to talk about money — and forced him to confront the question he’d been avoiding. He finally asked his parents directly if he had a college fund like his sister.

Instead of an honest answer, he said they got angry. “They asked me how I knew about it and got mad at me for asking the question,” he wrote. When he pressed further and asked why they’d prepared financially for one child’s future and not the other, they told him not to ask “questions that are none of my business.”

To him, their silence said everything. “Not saying anything is basically an answer, right?” he wrote, adding that the tension at home only intensified. His sister, he said, continued to taunt him by bragging about her college fund and reminding him he didn’t have one.

One Reddit commenter firmly reassured him that his concerns were valid. “It is absolutely your business to know whether you have a college fund,” they wrote. “That kind of information can completely change your future. Your parents chose to bring you into their family the day you were born — they don’t get to opt out of the responsibilities of parenting just because they later had a biological child. I’m so sorry they’re letting your sister and cousins treat you this way.”