Parents having a favourite child

[cuddly61]

So who watched morning tv with the mother who was saying she has a favourite child and made no secret of it to her other children?
It was like she was almost proud to be saying it.
I know someone who has a favourite child ,that child is now a 40 something adult but still clearly the favourite even though her mother denies having favourites but it’s crystal clear .

My MIL favours her middle child, and spectacularly favours their DC. She can’t just appreciate her other grandchildren - she has to always talk about golden GC. If you say, “x does this,” she will reply, “Oh, Golden GC does that” and will then start waxing lyrical about Golden GC. It’s so blatant and pisses me off, especially as DH just shrugs it off. I feel even worse for DH’s other siblings, who do so much for MIL while her golden child is totally flakey and not bothered. She barely ever mentions their children - just gabbles on about golden GC at every opportunity. Golden GC is actually a very nice child so none of the cousins show any resentment (yet), but they definitely notice - and DH’s other siblings are deeply hurt by it.

It's very hard not to have a favourite when one child is an abusive addict but my parents do their best. 🙁

Bahhhhhumbug 😂😂😂😂😂😂

figelnararage he was a one off my dad, no malice in him but would just say the most inappropriate things. He had no filter between thought process and mouth.
He was in a pub and some friends of my uncle asking him which one was me or the eldest between me and dsis or something and they thought he was pointing to my sister, so he corrected them by saying 'Nooo, the good looking one.' As l say my brothers thought this hilarious and sprayed beer everywhere laughing so much, so then dad just kept saying it as he then thought it was just a funny joke. But unfortunately my Dsis and Dbil /her dh got wind and were really miffed. So then dad started saying it in a stage whisper (he was quite deaf so thought he was being discreet ) just to get the laugh from the rest of us, but dsis and Dbil often overheard him.
He once told a neighbour who complained about mum and dad's dog barking whenever anyone knocked (unjustified really as it was only when someone knocked) 'Well we have to listen to it ! '

There was a favourite in my family. It was fucking horrible for all of us. The resentment it caused as kids had a knock on effect on our adult relationships. Sad but true.
I have a favourite.... but I only have one 😂.

My parents did. It wasn't me

Also I'm with a modelling agency and they post all sorts of TV jobs. I actually saw the casting call for this one saying how well they would pay for someone to do a TV interview with their family present about how they have a favourite.

Sometimes I think they fake it for the money!

Sometimes I think they fake it for the money!

This is what I assume.

My mother always said, like some posters on this thread, that her favourite child is whichever one she happens to be thinking of at the moment.

Thing is- I do believe she could be right.

My parents speak about one of their children(not me) with such a sparkle in their eye. Even now we are all grown up and he is indifferent to it and i do more to help them. My grandparents had favourites ( again not me). I never want my children to feel like that.

It sounds horrible. I can't imagine knowing that my mother preferred a sibling over me. It must be horrible - and a lot of pressure on the favourite too. I guess it's the the kind of thing that can either bring siblings together and turn them against the parents, or just drive them apart as they're treated so differently. Either way it's desperately sad.

I think I'll probably just go the same way as my mum tbh - the whole family knows that the dog is her favourite child

Unfortunately the favored children are usually selfish and horrible to the parents who raised them when they are adults. Because they were raised to be exactly that.

Both of my dc think that they are my favorites.

My xmil has favourited - xh def lowest in pecking order, even after her g/kids. Sure that's why he's like he is! our ds therefore bottom of pecking order too but I've no qualms with that as he has gp on my side who shower him with love and affection and is treated same as his cousins

I honestly couldn't pick a favourite if I tried. They're my children. My DC have quite different personalities and I love them for themselves. Full stop.

I genuinely can't understand parents who can consciously do so, and, worse, make it so obvious.

I have 3DC they are now all grown up but i always used to say to each of them you are my favourite middle child, youngest child etc., it always made them laugh. I hope they always new they were all loved equally. We always treated them all the same

Abbeylee I would agree that this can happen. It certainly did in my family. Being a favourite can bring unwanted pressures and expectations to succeed, and also a sense of obligation and/or entitlement. It can also mean that the favoured child doesn't get support from other family members and can experience hostility or indifference from the less favoured. They can miss out on learning vital social skills and values, such as dealing with criticism, team-playing and fairness which can make life very stressful in later life.

When my mum needed help in later life, favourite child couldn't cope at all. Instead of stepping up to support her, he focused his energy on undermining me and everything I was doing to care for our mother, and complaining about me to other family members. This went on for several years and caused immense distress to me and many others, and permanent damage to his own and my relationships within the immediate and extended family.

It's a shit thing for a parent to do because no-one benefits in the long run and it just messes it up for everyone.

I have a favourite child. The family dog. He's obedient, loves me unconditionally, doesn't stay out all night, doesn't answer back (although he grumbles a fair bit now that he's getting on in years) and has grown up alongside both of my actual children...

When my son was younger he asked me outright whether he or my daughter were my favourite child. I said "neither of you - [the dog]'s my favourite child, but ssh... don't tell him!" So it's become a "thing" now. I love both of my children equally. As other posters have said, they both have different traits which endear them to me, as well as similar ones that also make me proud of them. They're individuals in their own rights, as well as my children, and I respect them for these things just as much as I love and, actually, am irritated by their quirks.

My mother has a favourite child - DB2, who is 10 years older than me (I'm the youngest of 3, with DB1 being 14 years older than I am). Whilst DB1 and I both went on to university and careers (he's a paeds consultant, I'm a forensic archaeologist), and formed long-term relationships, DB2 drifted, didn't achieve a particularly great education (he could never decide precisely what he wanted to do), has no friends, is on his third marriage (his current wife doesn't know about his first - and I suspect, his second wife didn't either), and has very recently scammed our maternal grandmother out of her house and the money our grandfather left to her. His son literally moved to the other side of the world to get away from him, because - according to my nephew - "he's a narc through and fucking through". He also doesn't know about the fact that he has two granddaughters, not the one whom my nephew's (now ex) girlfriend belatedly informed him about. My ex is also his mother's pandered to favourite, the one who didn't achieve anything academically, has an inflated opinion of himself, who can't cope with being told "no" and who has tried to introduce the "favourite child" system of exclusion to his "old" family and his "new"... and can't understand why our son has a very low opinion of him for doing so!

Being the favourite child doesn't do you any favours in life. If anything, in my opinion, it actually hinders you, and stunts your emotional growth to the extent that you can't function properly as a responsible adult.

The family dog, on the other hand, simply revels in anyone paying attention to him and loves all of us irregardless.

I wonder if sometimes the parent identifies (perhaps subconsciously) a weakness in one of their children and then misguidedly compensates for it by favouring them over the ones who are perceived as more capable of independence?

ADarkandStormyNight I think there's an element of that. When I first met DH it was pretty clear his brother was the favourite child and he had some mild learning difficulties as a child. As they've all older and BIL has done well for himself that favouritism has disappeared. It was never to the exclusion of the others though, all were well loved.

My older brother was and still is the favourite with mother, he laps it up. We've always nicknamed him golden balls!

I don't have a favourite but I do have one that I am more in the same wavelength than the other.
One of my Ds's looks like me, has the same sense if humour, music taste and politics as me. We banter off each other and DO thinks weare arguing but we are not. We just try to top trump each other! However the other DS is very close to DP and their personalities are similar.
Both children, well young adults, come to either of us and discuss their issues and problems.
They both get their arses kicked equally when they behave like a dick so no favouritism there!

I've always felt that my MIL favours my DH over my BIL. Apparently when they were growing up, BIL called DH 'Little Lord Fontleroy'.

Now she says he's the one she most likes to talk to her, though that might be because BIL has firmer boundaries and isn't willing to spend an hour on the phone with her.

my older DC (14 & 12) would swear blind that youngest DC (8) is our favourite.

but they don't recognise that we expect less of him because he's younger. they conveniently forget that when they were his age, we expected less of them too. in fact, it's probably worse for the youngest, because often we ask him to do the same stuff his siblings do (putting clothes away, tidying up etc), which i don't think we did when the older 2 were younger.

my DW was definitely my PIL favourite growing up, but there was a big age gap between her and BIL (who had pretty much left home by the time DW was 10). nowadays, it feels a bit more like BIL has become the favourite (he's much more successful), but i expect he'd say the opposite.

my parents are much more involved with my DS and her DD, but she has needed a lot more support than we have (financial/childcare etc) - i wouldn't say she was their favourite, and fully understand the situation, and have no ill-feeling!

My in-laws have a favourite grandchild. In particular, FIL. My DD1 was the apple of their eye; they turned to mush around her, she was the first grandchild. When I had twins, boy and girl, my son was held in the highest regard and my 4 year old was devastated. She’d been queen bee and was now being ignored and criticised. My DD2 wants to do all the things my FIL tries to coax DS to do; painting models, doing the garden. I send her along too, whilst FIL tries to sneakily only extract DS! Sadly, the girls had to just get used to it, but I’m at a loss when I try to answer their questions about, why they aren’t included. It’s so infuriating. DH pulls him up on it, but he doesn’t want to listen. The fact that they live in another country makes the issue easier to deal with 😞.

No excuse for having favourites. My DH’s younger brother is mil’s Clear favourite, and said brother’s daughter is the favourite grandchild. It’s an abdication of parental responsibility bringing them into the world and then messing up their self esteem and their sibling relationships by having favourites.