Everybody believes that parents should love all their children equally. More often than not, though, Moms and Dads will have one or two favorites among their brood. Sensitive parents will harbor a lot of guilt about this and live in denial or try to hide it. That’s pretty hard to do, though (as in just about impossible), unless you are a great actor or a compulsive liar. Most less-favored offspring figure out pretty fast, with no problem, that they are on the bottom of the family food chain.
One extreme example was Robert Benchley’s mother. They were at a Fourth of July picnic when she got the news that her other son had been killed in the Spanish-American war. She blurted out, “Why couldn’t it have been Robert!” Unfortunately, Robert, who was just a kid at the time and not even old enough to join the Army, let alone get killed in battle, was standing right there and heard her. To her credit, she was sorry right afterward, and she tried to make it up to him for the rest of his life, but something like that is hard to take back, you know.
Robert Benchley became a famous humor writer (as well as a pretty good comic film actor). What that means to the rest of us humor writers I can’t say, but he found things to laugh about, which was probably very good for his psyche.
Aside from hearing your mother put a death wish on you, how can you recognize if Mom or Dad likes one of your siblings best? Here are some things to look for:
1. Mom takes you and your sister on a shopping trip, spends the whole time in close conference with your sister and ignores you when you try to talk to her. If you persist, she gets mad. The fact that you are being really annoying to the other two by butting into their mother-daughter love fest is beside the point. You want your share of attention, and you’re not getting it.
2. Your parents call your brother names like “Champ” and “Our Little Genius” and refer to you as “The Other One.”
3. You get your brother’s hand-me-down clothes, even though he’s younger than you are and you’re a girl.
4. When your sister misbehaves, your parents think it’s cute. When you do the very same thing she did, you get yelled at.
5. When you try to imitate your sister’s cute look, you get yelled at again.
6. Your parents’ nickname for your sister is “Buttercup.” Your nickname is “Poison Ivy.”
7. Aunt Polly is always holding up your brother Sid as a paragon of behavior, and she punishes you by making you whitewash the fence. (Oops! My apologies to Mark Twain.)
8. Your brother’s drawings are posted on the refrigerator then saved in a special drawer. Yours are used to line the cat litter box.
9. You’re a boy, and your parents keep telling you they really, really wanted a girl because you already have two older brothers and the house needs some variety.
10. You’re a girl, and your parents keep telling you they really, really wanted a boy because you have two older sisters and Dad can’t pass on the family name.
11. Your father tells you you could play tackle for the 49ers, and you’re a girl.
12. Your parents tell you that they love you anyway, even though your sister/brother is better looking, smarter and harder working than you are and you never do anything they can brag about.
As a middle child I can relate to your list. My sister got the real Barbie Dolls and I got the Betty Dolls. They were like Barbie with low-self esteem.
Barbie Dolls were overrated, anyway. All Barbie could do was look gorgeous in different outfits. She couldn’t talk or wet herself or walk or anything like that.
My parents made me wear a t-shirt that said “you’ll never be as good as your sister”. This didn’t really bother me but I wasn’t impressed with my sister’s t-shirt that said “my brother will never be as good as me”.
My sister used to borrow my clothes without asking me, which I guess was a compliment, in a way.
She probably thought she looked better in them than I did.
And it’s really bad if they take the dog to the vet over taking you to the dentist!
Bwahaha! Some kids would consider that a favor! 😉