Sometimes having a favorite isn't as bad as it sounds....
I have a favorite child.
Oh, my! I can hear the gasps from here! The odds are though, that you have a favorite child too and are not admitting it to anyone because of the great social taboo and the hurt it would cause to your other children; and right you are!
When I first realized I had a favorite, I wasted a lot of time feeling guilty, and then I realized something: My favorite always changed, although my love did not. As a mother, if any one of our six children would have been in trouble, I would have flown to the ends of the earth and roared like a mother lion to protect them!
Day to day life of parenting means you are going to face challenges – usually on a rotating basis – from one child or another. Because we are human, that child, while you struggle to help him, may fall from your grace temporarily. Don’t let that bother you.
What should bother you is a continuing feeling of malice towards a single child. If you are unable to resolve those feelings, by locating the root cause and eradicating it, please seek counsel from your religious leader or another professional counselor.
Once I realized that it was a natural human reaction to turn from a person providing daily angst, I began to tell the children the truth: that they were each my favorite child. If it were up to me, I would never have brought up the subject, but you know children – each of them periodically will seek assurance that they are your favorite. I solved the problem rather creatively, if I do say so myself!
One day when asked, I took the child aside and whispered in their ear, rather conspiratorially, that they were my favorite – but I swore them to secrecy – because we didn’t want to hurt anyone else’s feelings!
From that day on, periodically when alone, I would be asked again, “Am I still your favorite?” Then with a hug and a quick kiss on the forehead, I could truthfully assure them they were indeed, my favorite.
It is amazing, through the years, the transformation that took place in both parent and child; not only could I look into each child’s eyes and see the results of the secret we shared, but each child – through any kind of circumstance, became my favorite. The love for each of them became deeper and deeper with each passing year as I reveled in their uniqueness.
I learned to look beyond the moment to see the possibilities of the wonderful human being standing in front of me. It helped me to extend love where a bit of aggravation might have lived before and appreciate the differences brought to us with each new birth.
A warning to all parents utilizing this method of reassurance: the bubble will burst one day. After many of our children were out on our own, they were having an adult discussion about their childhood, where eventually, someone had to brag: "Yeah, well, at least I was mom’s favorite…" Snicker’s followed – "She told me so…" More Snickers and defiantly crossed arms…. Then, every face in the room turned to me and practically in unison, in a pitiful plea arose. "Mom?"
They all wanted me to say it wasn’t so…but I couldn’t, could I? I then told the truth about how I had told each of them they were my favorite – and that it was the truth – then another amazing thing happened.
Throughout the day, each one of the children approached me again and I was instantly transported into the past when they put their arms around me to say, “Ma, I was really your favorite, right?”
