Playing favorites - kids

My husband and I 'play favorites' in some ways. I don't think it's good but it just is. Younger son is totally into sports and so is DH. Older one hates sports. So DH never ever missed one of younger son's sports events but is far less inclined to go see what older son has going on because he's 'not interested.'

I over compensate and am very close to my older DS. I always actively supported whatever he did and does. We talk frequently. Younger DS and I don't really share things in the same way. I went to his sports events of course because I love to see him play. but DH almost lived for it.

My older son has been a more difficult child to raise and got much more attention. Younger was easier to manage and as a result wasn't always drawing our attention.

So basically I think it is probably good to favor each child for different things and at different times, so that each feels special, loved and supported but not at the expense of the other one.

I have an only. It's gotta be hard, but I feel for that younger son in the OP. Parents do their kids no favors when they play favorites. This is why a lot of siblings have no relationship as adults.

My son had a friend in high school who was a great kid. This great kid also has a sister. The mother over the top with out a doubt favored the girl. Now they are all grown up and the great kid no longer has a relationship with his mom. He still is a great kid.

My brother had health issues and he was always spoiled by my mother. My sister used to be very quiet and was always daddy's princess. I grew up being neither parents favorite and that really impacted how I treat my own kids. I try to be as fair as possible but recently it came to my attention that maybe I'm not as good at it as I thought I was being.

My DD is very outgoing. She's got a lot of drama. She's used to being the squeaky wheel. My DS has always been very quiet and laid back. He has always flown under the radar. Well in the past year he has been having a lot of issues and it looks like he is bipolar like me. He has been demanding a lot of my attention lately. DD and I had a discussion about it just recently because she feels like my expectations are higher for her than they are for him. And it's true right now they are. I am simply trying to keep him in school and functioning on a daily basis. Whereas I have much higher expectations for her.

It's difficult because my kids are so different and I see now that DD is used to getting a lot more of my attention than my DS. Now that the focus is on him I can see that up until recently she did get more from me than he did.

I am trying my best to meet the needs of both my kids. But I can see maybe I did favor her in the past. Because she always demanded more from me than he did.

My mom favored/favors one dd and her only ds. My little brother is great and we all know he is favored, but because he is such a nice guy he has never used it or flaunted it. My sister is another story though. She has always used her position as mom's favorite to skate by in life. Even our aunts/uncles (my mom's siblings) have referred to her as the favorite it was so obvious. Now she is 50 yrs old, works every few years until she can get unemployment and lives with our dad. All the enabling our mom did because she was her favorite really messed her up

Because I'm the black sheep (my mom told me she hated me because I reminded me of our dad) I had to be stronger to survive. I also made sure I worked really hard to not favor any of my kids. Hopefully I've succeeded. Though it was also easier because of their age gaps, 34, 26, 16. So the only one that felt like they were not treated fairly is the now 26 yr old and that was when she was a teen. She no longer feels that way and felt it was just because she was a middle child being a teenager.

I favor the youngest who also happens to be our dog  . I have two girls who often ask who is my favorite. Invariably, I answer the dog because he doesn't talk back. I'm trying to be fair and equal to both of them.

In both my husband's family and my family the youngest son was favored. It hasn't worked out that well. The "unfavored" siblings have a closer bond, are more self sufficient and so on. 

My DS is the first grandchild for my side of the family. I lived with my parents during my pregnancy and after until DH and I married. They were very involved in my son's early life. My brother had 2 kids in between mine - a daughter, followed 6 years later by a son. My folks were also very involved with these two grandkids, even though my brother lived as far away as Germany during this time. My mom referred to my son and brother's daughter as her #1 grandkids, because they were the first boy and first girl among her grand kids.

Our daughter was a complete surprise. We had not planned to have any more children, certainly not with them being almost 8 years apart. Once we got over the shock, we were thrilled. Our son was convinced that our daughter was his toy, but in truth, he was more hers. LOL He totally adored her. My mom and dad were really strange during my pregnancy, though. Mom kept telling me that I needed to be sure that we 'remembered' we had 2 kids and that our son was used to being an only child. At first I thought she was concerned because my DH was not my son's bio dad; DS's bio dad was never a part of his life and DH had adopted DS as soon as it was possible. I realized later that Mom wasn't worried just about how DH treated Ds, but also about how I would treat him. When I realized this, I was ready to fight!

When we traveled back to my home town where my folks and family lived, we would stay with my grandparents. My folks and my grand folks lived about 1/4 mile apart. Mom and dad got in the habit of meeting us at Gran's, hugging necks, kissing the baby, and then leaving with DS. HE would stay with them until it was time for us to leave. My grand folks adored DD, as they had DS when he was a baby and we stayed with them, and they made sure that DD never wanted for any attention. My brother would bring his kids to Mom's and she would keep them and DS so that they could play together and she and Dad would take them to do things. My nephew was only 14 months older than DD, so DH and I assumed that as DD reached the age that our nephew was, Mom and Dad would include DD in the outings.

That didn't happen, though. They never asked if DD could go with them, never asked her to come down to play with the other kids, never stayed at Granny's any length of time to see DD. When DD was about 18 months, my dad came to Granny's to get DS to go off with him. DD held up her arms for her granddaddy to pick her up, and he turned his back on her. She went around to his front and called him and held her arms up again. He told me to come get her so he and DS could leave. My DH saw the whole thing from the door of the room and he told my dad that DS couldn't go, that we weren't going to be there very long and DS needed to stay with us. Dad looked at DH like he'd grown another head and told him that DS stayed with THEM when we were down and he'd bring him back later. DS went and got behind my DH - he knew the shit was going to hit the fan. But DH stayed calm and told Dad that that wasn't going to be the way it went anymore. Dad left.

Mom came down when she got off work that night. By then, DH and I had had a conversation and we were in agreement that this exclusion of DD had to stop. DS told us that he didn't know why Poppa and Grandma didn't love DD - he thought DD was a really good girl. Broke my heart. When Mom came, I told her what had happened and she just looked at me like I had lost my mind. She said that we favored DD so much, she and Dad had decided that they would 'be' DS's. They would be the one place that he went to where he was assured of being #1. I pointed out that my MIL, not DS's bio grandma, had always treated him as though the world was created just for him and that if she had EVER treated him the way my mom was treating her granddaughter, I would have walked barefoot to MIL's house to make her. That woke Mom up.  

A few days later she called me and said she realized that she and Dad were wrong. They had assumed that our excitement about a new baby  would make us treat DS differently that we had before she was born. This hadn't happened. We never asked to DS to change who he was so DD could fit in; rather, we raised DD to fit in our family as it already existed. Instead of asking an 8 yo boy to suddenly be very quiet so the baby could nap, we played music in DD's room when she napped. The louder DS was, the better DD slept.

The damage was done, though.

DD did go with Mom and Dad to their house sometimes, but only if the other grandkids would be there. Otherwise, she stayed with my grandparents and played with them. Just as they had for my son and for any of the great grands who came to stay with them, my grand folks stopped everything and played with the kids. I guess DD saw no reason to give up time with people she knew adored her to spend time with people who had to be reminded of their roles in her life. To this day, DD considers her great-grands her grandparents. Now that my DS is married and living across country and my brother's daughter has pretty much disowned the family, my parents would give almost anything to have a really close relationship with my DD. Though she is polite and respectful, DD limits how much time she spends with either of them. She and Mom have a fairly good relationship, but it's nothing like a grandparent and grandchild bond. When Mom is here at the house, DD spends time with her and goes to the movies with her, but she doesn't treat her with the deference the other grandkids do. I honestly think my mom has come to favor DD over the other grandkids because their time together is so good.

DD is polite when she is around my dad, but she only sees him when he happens to be at a family gathering.

Marcy