Parents force homeschooled 16-year-old to constantly play with his 11-year-old brother, refuse to let him make friends his own age: 'I’ve only ever had one friend'

Both of these kids are desperate for a social life, and their mother won't let either of them have one.

Having a second kid doesn't guarantee that your oldest will have a friend. A lot of parents have their 2nd child because they don't want their 1st child to be a lonely only child with no friends. You can debate over whether that's a good enough reason to have a kid until the cows come home, but that's neither here nor there.

What is here and there is that siblings often do not get along, and it's not common for them to be best friends, especially when they have a considerable age gap. A 10-year-old and a 12-year-old will be able to hang out with each other and do similar things for most of their childhood, but a 10-year-old and a 15-year-old have a much smaller window of opportunity to be playmates, and that's okay! You really can't expect a much older teenager to want to spend their precious free time with a little kid. They want to have friends their own age, and they should be allowed to have that!

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The mom in this story doesn't understand that her kids need a social life outside of hanging out with each other. Her 16-year-old son is annoyed with his 11-year-old brother for wanting to hang out with him all the time. According to the teenager, his brother should be okay with not having any friends from ages 11-13 because he also didn't have any friends during those years and turned out fine.
Am I the bad guy for not wanting to constantly play with my younger brother?

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