Several years ago, I interviewed a parenting expert about sibling rivalry and how to deal with the “you like her more” syndrome.
Dr. Carol Maxym, author of Teens in Turmoil, suggested that a parent tells the children “I love you each most.” It isn’t grammatically correct, but it rang true with me. There are things that I love about each of my children. There are things that aggravate me about each of my children. But they are MY children, and I love each of them most. I love them because they are four very different children, but they each delight me with their sense of humor and unique way of looking at the world.
Now Time magazine is claiming that ALL parents have a favorite child, and I am going to proclaim loud and clear that I do NOT. I have not been able to decide a favorite color, film, book, song, or any other category, so why would I have a favorite child? There are too many things to like about each that it is impossible to rate them.
It all reminds me of that supposedly ethical conundrum: if your car caught on fire with your family inside, who would you rescue first? The answer is supposed to give insight into who you love most. It didn’t work for me. If my car was on fire with my family inside, the first person I would rescue would be the easiest to rescue and then I’d move to the next easiest. My idea would mean I could save as many as possible (and hopefully ALL), which is what I would want faced with that sort of situation. Who wouldn’t?
The truth is that there are days where I could easily throttle my child (and feel free to insert any one of four names here) and there are days (sometimes the very same day) when my child (again any of the four) delights me so much that I am tickled pink and couldn’t be prouder to be that child’s mom.
Sometimes those periods last longer. I have struggled with parenting my oldest child in the last few years. She has made some bad choices, and she tends to tell lies. I tend to catch her in those lies and then evoke punishment that she doesn’t feel fits the crime. It causes friction. But this same child has done so many things to make me proud and happy.
And I’m singling her out because I’ve written about her a lot on this blog, but the same can be said of all my kids. There are things each of them do that just drive me nuts, but they also do things that make my heart swell with pride. On any given day, my relationship with one may be a little shaky or a little more solid than my relationship with another, but it is the nature of relationships and doesn’t have anything to do with how I feel about my children for the long haul.
I like what Lisa Belkin says in her column in the New York Times. In part, she writes: What’s hard is accepting that relationships are fluid, determined by the ever-changing variables that make a child (and a parent) who they are at any given moment. Those ups and downs, imbalances and inequities, are not something to overcome, but rather realities to be accepted. We treat them differently because they ARE different. Navigating that reality is the key to being a parent.
And in case you missed the link above, here is the link to the article I wrote many years ago called Mom loves ME More.
