Mary Angel
(5/2025) We all have favorites. Whether it’s your favorite color, or favorite ice cream flavor, or favorite sweater, we all have favorites. I for one love chocolate anything, and I have a certain sweatshirt that is so raggedy and frumpy, my husband can’t stand it. But do we have a favorite child?
This is the question my children have joked about for years. You can’t watch a sitcom about families without an episode discussing who the favorite child might be. Now that my kids are older than have suddenly come to the realization that I might actually have a favorite. Apparently, the other night three of them had a little get together to discuss the fourth, who they believe is the favorite. Luckily for me the youngest, who was in the meeting, came to me and asked. She was in a talking mood and spilled all the details that were discussed.
I might not have handled it very well because I burst out laughing. Between you and I, I love all of my kids and really don’t think I have a favorite. The funny thing was that the child they were convinced was my favorite is the one who has given me the most gray hairs. She is my first girl and third child, she has been a wild one since birth, and she had some tumultuous teen years. When I asked why they thought that she simply said because she gets the most attention and gets in the least amount of trouble.
I couldn’t argue with the first part. The squeaky wheel always gets the most attention. I did point out that she really doesn’t get any more attention than anyone else, because she is rarely home. I also mentioned that the attention she gets isn’t always positive as she is the one who doesn’t always think before she acts and needs correcting. It appears she gets more attention is because when she is home, we are having to ask her if she did her chores or simply trying to get a couple minutes of facetime with her before she is off and running again. No moss will grow under this child. As for her not getting in as much trouble as they feel she should have, I had to remind her how her father and I worked with punishments and consequences.
Right or wrong, we have always tried to reprimand our children privately. What I mean is if one of the kids didn’t do their chores, for example, we would ask them to come talk to us privately, not in front of everyone else. If the infraction was something multiple kids were guilty of then we might call them all out at once. We would also have family meetings regularly to discuss things that affected the whole family. The point is that the other kids might not know the punishment of one of their siblings, because they were not included in that conversation. The other thing I reminded her of is that some "crimes" have a punishment built in and therefore we don’t always feel a need to add on with anything more than a talk about hard life lessons. When one of my kids blew through a chunk of their savings for stupid stuff and then needed that money later and didn’t have it, they learned a difficult but valuable lesson.
Sometimes we just let our kids fail because they learn way more than us telling them not to do something and them thinking we are being overprotective or strict. Other times there is a life lesson, but we might tack a little extra on to reinforce the lesson. So, with the savings example, even though the child lost out on something because they had spent money frivolously, we then added that they had to take a portion of their upcoming checks to replenish the account. So, they had not only missed out by not having the money but would be short on the cash they were expecting in the future because it was earmarked for their savings.
I then explained that I did not have favorite, and it was actually quite the opposite. The truth is that sometimes there is a child who is absolutely driving me nuts! So not a favorite, but a pain in the neck. I told her at their next meeting they should try to figure out who is giving me the most heartburn and gray hair. Maybe it isn’t who is at the top but who is at the bottom? We laughed and I reminded her that I always love my kids, but sometimes I think, "When will this child give me a minute to breathe?" I also reminded her that it wasn’t too long ago that her three siblings thought she was the favorite. She started giggling and admitted she had forgotten that. I also mentioned that each of her brothers were thought to be the favorite at different times in their lives. My last comment was that my favorite child was actually her father, my husband and that got an actual belly laugh out of her!
The fact is that on any given day a different child will cause so many emotions in me, including but not limited to, love, disappointment, joy, frustration, worry, pride, guilt, and amusement! These emotions can switch from one child to another quicker than a roulette ball can jump to the next number. Parenting is an emotional roller coaster at best and an emotional mine field at worst. Thank goodness, for me, the positive emotions outweigh the negative. Of course, that doesn’t include worry, because as a mom that is a non-stop ride with my monkeys and this circus!
The moral of this story is that no child is perfect, and they can all cause a few extra gray hairs. As a parent you love your children unconditionally but wouldn’t mind a moment or two when you don’t have to worry about them or reprimand them. As for favorites, I am not sure that is a thing. If it is it changes more than Carol Burnett changed costumes. Which child is causing you the most grief is a better assessment of the "favorite" situation. Sometimes one child needs you more than the others, but apparently in my house that might be showing favoritism. I guess you can’t win either way!
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