My Younger Brother

I can't remember how many conversations I've had about my younger brother. He is a person in a difficult situation with many other people, and most of us find ourselves asking why and how he ever got in this predicament. He is the type of person that most people would see as a slacker without any regard for his future, a person who hides themselves in their room so that they can play video games all day, a person who does not know how to take care of themselves without support from a parent. Yes, my brother is a human leech.

I can't help but blame myself partly for his down fall. He is, after all, my brother, and I have looked out for him most of my life, especially at school when others would pick on him. He hasn't walked the most golden path, and from time to time, I try to show him what life could be like if he made a few changes. For a short time, he heeds my advice, but after a while, he regresses back to where he once was. It is quite frustrating when he acts as if he wants my advice and then disregards it, but I am not an everyday influence on him, and I feel that has some weight as to why he doesn't actually take my advice.

There are only a select few people whom he interacts with on a day-to-day basis, and they have nearly given up on helping him. Since I have moved away from my parents' house, he has become more selfish than I ever expected someone to be, and he has completely lost all respect for people, most of all our parents. For that, I find myself hating him. There is no one in this world who has loved him more than my parents, yet he treats them as if they don't care for him at all. I feel more pain for my parents than I do for myself for they must live with him since he still resides at their home.

My parents have debated over this situation more than I will ever know. We have never actually all sat down together and discussed some sort of intervention, but we have discussed it on a 1-on-1 basis. It seems that at times my brother tears my parents from each other because when he "acts out" they disagree on how to handle him. I have on many occasions voiced my opinions, and they confirm that they have the same feelings, but I sense that they have lost hope for my younger brother. They seem to believe that he has fallen so far behind that he will never catch up. I think that he feels the same way, and so they have just come to the point that they will continue to succumb to and help him support his childish ways.

It is a dreadful to know that my parents have given up. It is easy for me to convince one person to do the right thing, but when I am up against three, it is much more trying. I never give up on any of them; I just tire of repeating myself. One day my younger brother will be an old man... a future I'm sure my parents cannot foresee at this time. Now and in the future, I will regret that my parents were able to instill ethics in me but not in him, and I will always wonder why that is so.