Playing favorites

I have a nervous stomach. I'm jittery all over. I'd like to call it nerves, but the truth is I'm experiencing guilt.

Horrible, unfettered guilt. And I blame it on Time. The magazine's recent piece on favoritism-- namely, that every parent has a favorite child-- has me crawling out of my skin. The article examines several studies of parent-child relationships, all of which point to one conclusive fact: Parents have favorites, and all the kids know it. No parent can hide it entirely, but the better ones deny such favoritism exists and go to lengths to cover it up (much to the health and happiness of the rest of their children).

Initially, when a friend mentioned I should read the article, I bristled. Why would I want to read such a thing? I've lived 41 years, comfortable with my parents' avid denials that they would ever choose a favorite. They loved us all equally, but differently-- because we were all different people. And it made sense. I clung to that sense, even in the face of anything to the contrary.

And yet, when I find myself in my chiropractor's office face-to-face with the piece, I am compelled to read the many-paged article word-for-word, my brain howling in denial the entire time.

But blips and blurbs and shades of truth whispered through the howling. Remember when son number two was born, and how you stared into each others' eyes all night? Remember all the adorable things he would do and say, and how you treasured each moment?

And yet I also see son number one, excelling well-past his learning differences, grabbing life by the collar and floating upward. So much of my time and energy was focused on his needs, his social issues, his anxieties.

And when my daughter arrived, my funny, perky little baby number three-- I worried incessantly about how the older two boys didn't really give two burps about her existence. And out of guilt to them and worry for her, I was constantly seeking balance.

And now I sit pondering this article and how it makes me feel about my oldest in college, my middle a sophomore and my baby in 3rd grade-- as well as the FOUR OTHER KIDS we've added to our family in ensuing years, and I'm rattled.

I guess the guilt I feel-- what this article has done to me and why I am so unraveled-- is derived from the fear that I may have made any of them feel like they weren't loved best. That any one of them is convinced they aren't my favorite, or worse, that they have perceived that someone else is.

The hard truth: I don't have a favorite. I swear I'm not saying this because I want t be one of the "better" parents, nor out of fear of being sacrificed and tortured on the altar of public opinion. (Well, not entirely that.) But the fact is, I honestly believe my parents were right: There isn't a favorite child. Personally, I have many favorite children. All of them, each of them, depending on the day and the situation and the angle of the sun and what particular hair is up my rump that day.

I favor the ones that listen.
I favor the ones that help.
I favor the ones that need my help.
I favor the ones that laugh at my jokes, that share their lives, that come to me for advice or to tell a story.
I favor the ones that love me back. And occasionally, the ones that don't.

I favor them all.

(Hey momma? Okay so seriously, who's your favorite?)