Parental Favoritism (teens, divorce, babies, support)

[Kibbiekat]

I don't think my parents had a favorite. There were only 2 of us, and I don't feel either was treated better than the other.

I have seen favoritism from grandparents though. My grandma favored my cousins. In some ways I see my in-laws favoring my niece and nephew. I wonder if it is a son vs daughter thing. My grandma favored her daughter's kids. My MIL favors her daughter's kids over her son's.

I can honestly say I don't have a favorite between mine. They are so different, though, I can see how I might treat them differently as they get older (not better or worse, just different).

[Momma_bear]

Originally Posted by hypocore

I think everyone has a favorite, however there are many categories that favorites come from.
I have 4 kids.....

My oldest is my favorite to go shopping with and cook with.
My second oldest is my favorite to solve puzzles with and drive places with.
My third oldest is my favorite to cuddle with and joke with.
My fourth is my favorite to play games with and to sing songs with.

My oldest cannot sing for anything and cannot find her way anywhere without help.
My second is a sorry loser and doesn't care to be joked about
My third is a horrible shopper and has no patience to solve puzzles.
My fourth hates to be in the car and does not want to wait on food to be cooked much less cook it himself.

The older two are grown and on their own and some things are different now than when they were younger as I expect some things to change as the younger two reach those ages. But I will still have favorites for certain things.

I agree with this post 100%. I don't have one child that is my absolute favorite.

I love to watch football with my oldest.
I love to talk music with my middle.
I love to cook with my youngest.

They are all my favorites in their own way.

[Glasvegas]

Interesting responses from both parents and children alike. I don't believe that the majority of parents intentionally try to play favorites. It's also interesting to read that often the least favorite children end up caring for the parents in their old age.

So here's my story...I posted this in the Relationships forum initially as rather than being a parenting issue, it's a relationship issue.

I am the oldest of 3 children. I am the only child of my mother's first marriage, which was a disaster. She remarried and had 2 children with her ex husband, who also has 2 kids from his previous marriage. Needless to say, the 7 and 9 year age gap between me and my half brothers didn't help, but the fact that they were given every advantage still stings to this day. I was basically forced to move out at 18 and work, rather than go to school. My mother & stepfather convinced me that I was "practical" rather than academically gifted and did not express any desire for me to go to college (even though I don't have any practical abilities). My mother in particular continually pushed me to move out - I drifted and veered badly off the rails. I think had I been a child/teenager today, I would have been diagnosed with ADD.

Meanwhile, my younger half brothers were continually nurtured, sent to the best schools and were pushed to go to college when the time came. Both of my half brothers have basically grown up to be quite obnoxious, particularly the older one, who is quite the narcissist and a true yuppie. They are both extremely successful career and relationship wise. The youngest just got married today (I did not attend the wedding, nor was I invited). My mother didn't hesitate to tell me how "big" of a wedding he was having, knowing full well I've just gone through a divorce (she never cared to get to know my ex wife anyway).

So I'll cut to the chase, the effects of favoritism have caused me to not want anything to do with my mother or my half brothers. I have tried hard to let it slide and be the better person, but interacting with them takes up bad memories and leaves me with a sickening feeling inside that takes forever to shake. What doesn't help is that my mother refuses to acknowledge it and acts as if there's something wrong with me for feeling like the black sheep. You go to her house and you'll see pictures of the younger 2 plastered all over her walls; baby pictures, graduation pictures, but not one of me.

So, I decided to sever all ties with that side of the family. I am lucky to have a good relationship with my biological father, whom I recently got back in touch with, having moved back closer to where he lives. I may need to consider therapy though at some point, as retaining these demons and painful memories is not healthy.

[num1baby]

My parents didn't have favorites. Or, if they did, they never showed it. I am 1 of 4 kids and we were all treated differently but not better or worse than the others. We were all just different so we were treated differently. We each even have our stories about how we are either the favorite or the least favorite depending on the joking mood of the day. I am #3, so I joke that I must be the favorite because they had the first 2 and said "we can do better". They had me and said "She is PERFECT. We can do it again." They tried again, had my little sister and since she wasn't as perfect as me decided to just stop trying to top how perfect I was.

I also have my story for how I was the least favorite. We all do because we can't see any favoritism from our parents. There are times when one sibling gets more attention, but that is because that sibling needed the attention then (having some trouble, celebrating something, whatever).

I only have one child, but I have often wondered if I would have a favorite if I had 2.

[txtqueen]

My mom CLEARLY favorites my brother.

I wasn't allowed to do anything as a kid,I was very controlled.
My brother was not.

I didn't get a cellphone till I was 15, my own functioning laptop till I graduated high school at 18. (I had a hand me down at 16 that wouldn't work unless plugged in and it had a short in the power port.)
My brother got a cellphone when he was 10. And is getting a laptop this Christmas at 17 and a junior in high school.

I didn't get my drivers license till I was just a month shy of my 19th birthday. I had my permit for almost 3 years and even then wasn't allowed to drive without my mom in the car for another 3-4 months.
My brother got his permit at 15 1/2 and his license at 16 1/2 and was allowed to drive alone that same day.

I was controlled and given a massive amount of rules.
My brother runs free.

I didn't get a smart phone till I was 18.
My brother got one at 15.

My mom NEVER came to my soccer games or swim meets.
She went to EVERY SINGLE one of my brothers practices and games.

She supports him in EVERYTHING he does.
She supported me in NOTHING I ever did.

She spends so much time with him.
She makes up excuses as to why she can't spend time with me.

She pampers and babies him.
She wouldn't even bring my spare set of car keys to me when I locked myself out of my car in the snow and cold and I had to have a friend go and get them from her.

He's lived his whole life with food allergies, so you think my mom would be good at remembering her food allergies.
You wouldn't believe how many times my mom has ordered mexican food and there has been guacamole smothered inside of whatever I had. Even at Taco Bell, its like she wants to kill me.

My brother is the golden child, good at sports, good with music, good at everything yet he skips school all the time, smokes, is a total man-whhore, and sits around and plays xbox all day.
I'm slightly good at sports, I am not musically inclined at all, I bust my ass at work, trying to do something with my life, I have career goals and everything in mind, I am not out causing trouble and I am a much better person than my brother.

I hate my mom for it. I hate her.
She doesn't even give me hugs or anything anymore.
I can/will write her out of my life as soon as I get a chance to.

[Ivorytickler]

Originally Posted by Glasvegas

I am interested in getting your thoughts on parental favoritism, particularly severe cases of parental favoritism (actual rather than perceived out of jealousy).

What are your thoughts on the subject? If you were the black sheep or the favored one, has the effects of parental favoritism remained with you into adulthood, causing strains or rifts between you and your parents and siblings? If you are a parent, how do you best avoid "favoring" one child, of that child is more academically gifted than his/her siblings, for example? If the favoritism was that bad and that blatant, were you able to forgive and forget?

I'll give you my take on it later or tomorrow (from personal experience), but I'd be more interested to read other people's experiences and thoughts as this is no only an interesting subject to me, but also something of a sore one. I also want to avoid making those same "mistakes" if / when I have children of my own. I will say this though: blatantly favoring one or two children over another (for whatever reason) is a recipe for disaster and can cause rifts that carry into adulthood and can often never be fixed.

I was the unfavored child. Most likely due to the circumstances surrounding my birth.


My brother was always favored over me and so was my next youngest sister. However, this doesn't really impact me today. I understand that my sister is different and my relationship with my mother was strained form birth. She did not want a baby, she wanted a divorce. She was trying to get out of an abusive relationship when she found out she was pregnant with me (not something she agreed to...shall we say my father forced the issue).

Growing up, favoritism was an issue for me. I felt unloved. I felt like I could do nothing right. Sometimes, mom's responses to me crossed the line to abuse. As an adult, I look at the whole situation through different eyes. My father was bi-polar and hallucinated when not on meds. My mom was just trying to survive. My next youngest sister was born out of wedlock and mom felt guilty over that so she favored her. What hurt me the most, and took me the longest to get over, is that my step father (her biological father) adopted her but not me while my biological father denied I was his (he and my mother had split up over the abuse).

I don't care today. It's all water under the bridge but I was, probably, in my 40's before I reached that point. My parents were just human and the situation was rough.

With my own kids, I try not to favor them but one gets more freedom than the other because she is, simply, the more mature of the two. I know better than to trust my oldest daughter out of my sight but my youngest daughter makes good decisions. She's just lousy at telling me where she's going/when she'll be home but I can count on her to be with good people doing good things. I have to monitor her sister at all times. I get accused of favoritism over this but they are different kids. If dd#1 doesn't come home from school, I'm worried about which boy's house she's over. If dd#2 doesn't come home from school, she's probably at a friends house or over at the elementary school helping her old teachers. I'm sure my oldest daughter sees this as favoritism. I'm not sure what to do about it thought. I can't give her the freedom her sister has and I can't see punishing her sister for failure to tell us where she is when she's never doing anything I wouldn't approve of.

We do not compare our kids but dd#1 feels compared to dd#2, who is gifted musically and academically. We have never even hinted that she should get the same grades but dd#1 feels like she should. I wish I knew how to get through to her that they are both different. If anything, dd#2 has more expectations placed on her but dd#1 does not see that. It bothers her that her little sister is taking the same classes she is (they are 2.5 years apart but taking the same math, foriegn language and language arts courses (different schools, fortunately). It bothers her that her sister performs in public and gets attention from performing. So she demands things like she wants private clarinet lessons instead of just practicing her band stuff on her own. In her mind, dd#2 gets private piano lessons so she should get private clarinet lessons which actually are just practice sessions because she doesn't practice. So I pay $75/month for her to have a practice buddy once a week....UGH while dd#2 needs the lessons to advance. Dd#1 does not understand that different needs should result in different responses.

[Magritte25]

I have favorite things about each of my children. But being brutally honest, I do not like either of them more than the other overall. They each contribute their own part to our family and I like it that way.

[Hopes]

Originally Posted by Red On The Noodle

My older brother was the fair haired child of the three of us. It was extremely blatant to friends and family. My grandmother even told my mother that she acted like she only had one child. I don't speak to my older brother and haven't for years. I talk to his wife and children, but never with him. Just because we are related doesn't mean I have to like him.

I think it's sad that you hold it against your brother. It's not his fault your mother did that. See CArizona's post below:

Originally Posted by CArizona

I was an only child but I got a taste of favoritism through my Grandma. It was obvious that she favored me over my cousins but she always denied it...My Aunts and Uncles started resenting me after awhile. And my Grandma's favoritism of me put up "walls" between me and my cousins. I was an only child and I wanted to have a bond and close relationship with my cousins...My Grandma always insisted that she treated all of her grandkids the "same" but this wasn't always true...My whole family split-up and went their separate ways after my Grandma passed away. No one stayed close. It was sad!...So it's not always "good" to be the favored one and it can lead to tons of resentment. I didn't want any of it!

Originally Posted by deerislesmile

It's taken a very long time for me to be able to say this, but... my mother's personality is much more in sync with one of my siblings than it is with mine (or with the third sibling's). Does my mother love me as a mother would? Yes. Does she LIKE me as a person? Not so much. Is that favoritism or just... LIFE?

My neighbor said something similar to me. She has two daughtersa year apart. When the oldest went away to college, she told me that the child she could have conversations and relate to was gone, that she couldn't relate to the youngest one on any level. I was a bit shocked at her honesty. But I do think it is just life. Just because people are in the same family doesn't mean they all have the same interests. The youngest daughter is the sweetest girl but I wouldn't be able to relate to her either because she's into the goth black hair, black nails, black clothes look. My neighbor clearly loves both of her children---always has and still does. She was simply able to foster a friendship with her oldest daughter. Maybe when her youngest matures, she will become friends with her too.

[Hopes]

My sisters and I always teased our little sister that she was the favorite. But it was just a family joke. We all knew that wasn't true. The reality is that our parents simply had more financial resources to spend on her.

She was 12 years younger than my oldest sister and 6 years younger than me. From 7th grade on, she was basically an only child because rest of us moved out of the house. Oh yeah, she was spoiled rotten. LOL

I was visiting one morning when she was getting ready for school. She wailed that she didn't have anythign to wear. I looked in her closet and counted 50 sweaters folded on the shelves. And that didn't count the sweaters that were in the laundry! LOL

Oh, and Dad bought her a new convertable sports car. But he bought me a car too at that age. Mine was a used sedan because that's what they could afford when we were all dependents and the two oldest through college (since my father's income was too high for grants or even loans).

Less confident siblings might have viewed it as favoritism. It was only a matter of resources.

[Ringo1]

Well, my story is a little different. My brother was killed when he was 8 years old ~ still the sweet, innocent, and perfect child. Try growing up with THAT hanging over your head! My mother often told me that she felt the child that loved HER most had died. I was always closer to my Dad.

But, anyhoo, that's not the story I wanted to tell.

My best friend has two boys - one is older and just graduated. He was the golden child; good grades; very active in sports; and Mommy's favorite.

It is SO obvious ~ I really don't know what to do. She has another son the same age as mine and he STILL plays second fiddle even though her older boy is in college. They leave younger son at home for entire week-ends while they go see golden child play his college sport.

She also felt that she could relate to Golden Boy better = he would ride bikes with her; he and his girlfriend would take her to the movies . . . younger child does not do that.

As an outsider looking in - it is clear that she favors Golden Boy. I really don't think she has any idea to what extent.