Your favorite (or least favorite) child/parent

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Did your father not know you would be there? Aren’t you away at college?
If he indeed snubbed you in this way, you need to sit down and have a discussion and find out what may have upset him to this point.
Fix it, instead of wondering if other dads do the same. HE’s YOUR dad.
Fix that relationship as best you can. If you reach out, you may find that he favors YOU a bit for your maturity.
 
Lea101 said:
So today my dad bought food for everyone except me and me, being really dramatic (and really, really hungry and broke) remembered a study I read in my psychology lecture where researchers found that as much as parents refuse to admit it, they tend to have a favorite child.

Personally I have noticed it- my friends’ parents tend to favor her brother (her other brother and sister are homosexuals, she is a bisexual) because he is straight, my parents preferred my other siblings (I don’t even have food tonight 😃 ) my cousin prefers her oldest child, stuff like that.

I’m just curious to see what you guys think (whether you think you don’t have a favorite, and relax, I’m sure your kids won’t find out!)

If you aren’t a parent, then I guess I can flip it around (who is your favorite parent). My favorite parent was my mom, she was the ‘calm’ in my family 🙂
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Based on the emoticon, I’m assuming you’re fine and in a playful teasing mood, not being subjected to actual neglect or abuse.

That said - I have six and darn right i have a favorite…the one who brings me the best birthday present each year gets dibs on being the favorite (tomorrow’s my birthday :D) - well, they’re the favorite until they do something to upset or annoy me (which, being kids, usually takes less than 12 hours), and then the positions open until one of them does something wonderful, funny, or helpful and they hold onto the position until the cycle starts again.

Seriously - I can give you a fault list a mile long, or talk about how amazing they are for eight hours straight, for each one of my kids. And I bet (and hope) they can do the same for me. We’re very big on the nobody’s perfect, everyone’s capable of awesome, kind of parenting - for them and for us.

Your story did catch my eye because I did come home without food for my youngest a couple weeks ago. They are at an age where they are active and busy - camps, friends, practices, so forth and add in the varying work schedules of hubby, me, and oldest kid and I just plain forgot she was going to be home when I arrived. 🤷

One apology (and an extra doughnut the next time I went to the store) and all was forgiven. She’s pretty good at forgive and forget…hmmm…think I’ll designate her my favorite for the night.
Seriously - it’s my belief that while some personalities get along better than others - actual favoritism (either way) tends to arise from someone have certain expectations of a person because of their role - and then ranking those people based on how closely their behavior matches that preconceived role.
 
CB_Catholic said:
Did you ever get anything to eat? Does this happen often? Are you without money for food? Do you go hungry often? This concerns me. Do you know where to get help if you need food? Oh dear, this makes me very sad. 😦
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It was late and the shops are closed so I didn’t end up getting anything

But it’s okay, I’m fine! Planning to get some breakfast later, thanks for the concern ❤️
 
pianistclare said:
Did your father not know you would be there? Aren’t you away at college?
If he indeed snubbed you in this way, you need to sit down and have a discussion and find out what may have upset him to this point.
Fix it, instead of wondering if other dads do the same. HE’s YOUR dad.
Fix that relationship as best you can. If you reach out, you may find that he favors YOU a bit for your maturity.
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I’m not at college and I live at home, he just forgot i existed for a moment and got the others food. 🤷

I’m pretty sure he wasn’t mad at me
 
Lea101 said:
It was late and the shops are closed so I didn’t end up getting anything

But it’s okay, I’m fine! Planning to get some breakfast later, thanks for the concern ❤️
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Well, that’s a relief. I’m part Italian–food is way up there on our list–I can’t stand it if somebody can’t eat. 🙂

God bless you.
 
Lea101 said:
I’m not at college and I live at home, he just forgot i existed for a moment and got the others food. 🤷

I’m pretty sure he wasn’t mad at me
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Well then he **wasn’t **playing favorites. :confused:
 
In terms of the larger picture (the thread title) I don’t think it’s unheard of for some people to simply have an easier time getting along. But that doesn’t necessarily mean “favorite” to me. My third baby could be said to be my “favorite” because he is so mellow and sweet. He is just very easy to like. But who knows if that will last once he hits toddlerhood? 😛

I think Irishmom is on to something. I love all of my children and like all of them too, but what I like about them is different for each. As hard as my first child is, I love his strength and determination and he is really fun to play games with. He loves to discuss and think about things, and we have that in common. 😃

I think one of our jobs as parents, besides setting our children on the path to Heaven, is to help our children be likable people. I think most people can achieve this, even if it’s clear some are going to be “life of the party” people and others will be “the good listener,” etc. Giving up on a child’s difficulties or weaknesses is not going to help that child in the long run (not saying you should try to change a child’s inner temperament or personality, but I think we can help them shave off a bit of the rough edges).
 
Depends on the day and year! During some phases one was/is much more “likeable” than the others, and then the roles would reverse at other times. I try not to show favoritism, but that’s not always easy either. It’s a good thing God loves all of us children equally the same at ALL phases of our lives - no matter what we do! Still trying to be more like Him in that regard.
 
Well as a parent of only one kid I cannsay he is my favorite lol.

I can see and admit given my divorce status there are alot of factors. I will maybe have a certain tinge toward the first as many do, but also if I find a new wife and we work out and have kids, the new kids will be raised more steadily by me and as me and my wife grow together the other half of those new kids personalities will be a piece of something I love.

My current is raised in part distanced from me, me and his mother share very littlce in the way of working together as parents, and she spends most of her tine trying to play games agaisnt me. My ex ninja status across state lines and pretended she cheated on me to lie on the Birth Cert and my son’s name is not mine.

Now if you think logically in a sense a child I raise in a loving home, who grows up in better conditions etc and spend way more time with me I have a better chance of ending up liking that kid better :confused:

In fact my goal as a parebt is to raise a good man and my exwife’s influence sometimes scares me and I can see the possible trajectory where I may not end up overly proud of the man my son becomes 😦

Ob the flip of that, sometimes once kids reach an age of reason they “overreact” to the negative influence and cling mkre strongly to the positive. In which case the final product that is my first son may actually gain favorite status…

Lol i actually thought kind of deeply about this bc of a gf who had a youbg kid still young enough to be molded comoletely in a sense. Anyway if things stayed I’d have been the only father figure he’d have known and he would spend more time with me than my own son or my gfs oldest who had an active dad. So it seemed odd that I could have ended up with a stepson who was raised more as I’d like than my own flesh :confused:
 
Dacinom said:
Favorites: yes but only when it comes to different things. I have a favorite child to go to the movies with. I have a favorite child to play cards with and another that goes on outings with me. There is my son that I love to joke with! Then there is my daughter that gives the BEST hugs. There is my daughter that I can talk on the phone for hours with. My son that fixes things for me and is a bit quieter but I can count on for anything and everything and is rock solid in his faith! You see each one has beautiful gifts! I also have children with special needs that require different attention but give me much more back as well.

I also can look at my children that get under my skin and there are things about them that drive me crazy in ways that I can’t stand. They have habits that have been getting on my nerves for YEARS! I am sure they feel the same way about me, in fact I know 100% that they do!
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To have a personal favorite child over and above the others is a very anti Catholic way of being a parent*. It denies the fact that God sent each and every child into your life for a reason. Each child is meant to be in your life deliberately. The difficult or challenging children are important, we are not meant simply to gravitate towards the easy children because they are pleasant for us. We need our challenging children. God sent them to us because we need them in order for us both to grow in grace and virtue. I believe that sometimes God sends us children with different temperaments on purpose because it is part of His plan that we are to embrace!
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This. It isn’t that you have a favorite parent or sibling or child so much as that you have favorite things to do with them or you find it easy to share certain things with one more than others.

If you live long enough, you find that everyone shines in their own way, eventually. It is a mistake to write someone off or to give yourself an excuse to treat anyone in the family unfairly.

I remember once I told one of my sons I loved him, and he asked me why. I told him that God had given me the very special gift of seeing how special he is. If you aren’t fond of one of your children, you need to look to develop that gift.
 
My kids are a part of me. I don’t see how I could have a favorite. I love each of them equally. Each of them claims I have a favorite, but none of them can ever agree on which one that is.

One of the things that I think influence how likely you are to be the sort of parent who’s obvious about having a favorite is whether you experienced favoritism yourself. From the people I’ve talked to and threads like this, I get the feeling that those who have been on the wrong end of favoritism are far less likely to have a favorite, or show it if they do.

In my case, there’s never been any question about how my parents rank us in terms of favoritism. I come in 12th (there’s far fewer than 12 of us). It’s blatant enough that it’s extended to my kids as well. My parents and siblings would deny this, of course, but the denials fall kind of flat when your kids are asking you, yet again, why Grandma and Grandpa canceled plans they’d had with them months in advance because of a last minute invitation to their cousin’s practice dance recital, especially when they already attended the other two earlier in the week.

Don’t get me wrong: My parents are supportive and help out quite a bit, but a lot of times getting them to do so is like pulling teeth, they make it sound as though it’s a major sacrifice and they’re apt to cancel even the biggest, most important plans at the last second if one of my siblings calls and invites them to the most trivial thing. At the same time, if one of my siblings calls and asks for help or invites them to something, no matter how much of a hassle it is they’ll drop everything they’re doing and accept without hesitation. So while getting them to watch our kids for 30 minutes can require begging, pleading, cajoling and promises to not ask them to watch them again for a set period of time, when they’re asked to drop all their plans and watch one of my sibs’ kids for 3-5 nights, they enthusiastically accept.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had the, “I’m never going to put my kids through that” conversation with my wife. I go out of my way to make sure that we treat our kids as equitably as is reasonably possible. We also don’t have rules that only apply to one or some of the kids and not the others. That doesn’t mean there aren’t hurt feelings at times but those times are exceptions and not the rule.
 
Allegra said:
I’m not sure who my parents favored, but I’m reasonably confident that it wasn’t me. I haven’t decided which of my kids I like the most yet. I’m holding out because I might still have more and I want to see all my options.
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Whichever is your favourite, don’t let on. It may be one of the others who decides your nursing home… 😃
 
Gordon_Sims said:
My kids are a part of me. I don’t see how I could have a favorite. I love each of them equally. Each of them claims I have a favorite, but none of them can ever agree on which one that is.

One of the things that I think influence how likely you are to be the sort of parent who’s obvious about having a favorite is whether you experienced favoritism yourself. From the people I’ve talked to and threads like this, I get the feeling that those who have been on the wrong end of favoritism are far less likely to have a favorite, or show it if they do.

In my case, there’s never been any question about how my parents rank us in terms of favoritism. I come in 12th (there’s far fewer than 12 of us). It’s blatant enough that it’s extended to my kids as well. My parents and siblings would deny this, of course, but the denials fall kind of flat when your kids are asking you, yet again, why Grandma and Grandpa canceled plans they’d had with them months in advance because of a last minute invitation to their cousin’s practice dance recital, especially when they already attended the other two earlier in the week.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had the, “I’m never going to put my kids through that” conversation with my wife. I go out of my way to make sure that we treat our kids as equitably as is reasonably possible. We also don’t have rules that only apply to one or some of the kids and not the others. That doesn’t mean there aren’t hurt feelings at times but those times are exceptions and not the rule.
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That’s sweet.

However I do notice with parents that there is a tendency to have a favorite/least favorite child, and that it takes effort for parents to show that they love their children equally.

Your parents are quite… 😦

My parents thought they treated all of us equally and that they have no favorites. I remember being 8 and interrogating my mom and she kept insisting that she loved all of us.

I’m sure she’s right. But sometimes I feel that there are parents who subconsciously act like they have one. Like my mother used to take my brothers out for ‘family’ outings and left me crying at home (because I wanted to go). Now it could be because she couldn’t handle 3 children and that I was the youngest, or she really had a favorite. But 6 year old me didn’t care about the former and thought of the latter. And then every tiny action by my parents will somehow get twisted to “they get more annoyed by you than _____”. So it’s hard to understand when parents say that they treat everyone equally. Because sure, they think they are, but their children might think differently.

To be fair, I’m extremely petty and cynical. I would be thinking “does he really love me” when a guy could be on his knee with a ring and I would think “he is going to divorce me and take the kids away” if he roll his eyes at me over a meaningless comment. :rolleyes:
 
I think my parents love their 4 children equally, however my older brother had a lot more freedom than the 3 girls. But my dad has most in common with my older sister (topics of conversation, interests, literature, sports, etc.), so they seem to bond more and do a lot together. I’m okay with that - I’m not very interested in the hikes they go on and things they discuss - I’m glad they have each other for that stuff. But I’m still the “first” baby of the family (2 older siblings) and he knows I have special privileges because of that, lol (even though the new baby of the family came along to end my reign when I was 19 years old, he’s willing to still acknowledge me as the first baby). I don’t have children, so I can’t comment on that (thank goodness, lol!) j/k
 
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