My 21m toddler prefers his father. He says daddy about 50 times for every time he says mommy. He’s OK playing with me alone, but if his dad is anywhere in the house, he’s wandering off to search for dad every 10 minutes. If we both pick him up from daycare, he locks eyes with his father and runs toward him screaming “DADDY!”
My mother favored my brother over me for my entire life. So this is really pricking at my insecurities. I feel like I’m just the boring housekeeper doing all the cooking, cleaning, clothes and toy shopping…. I do bath time and wake up time. I do breakfast. I play with him every single day. But somehow daddy puts in a few minutes of fun and gets to be the favorite? It doesn’t seem fair. Tonight I was putting him to bed after bathing him and dressing him and brushing his teeth, and I was acting extra playful all the while — and suddenly he said, “Daddy?”