How to Be an Unfavored Child

Dad Talking to Unfavored Child
Parents are supposed to favor all their children, but we all know how that goes. Parents are human, and some of their kids are going to get a better kind of attention than others.

How to Tell If You are an Unfavored Child

1. You can’t get away with anything. On the other hand, your sister can burn the house down, and your Mom will sympathize with her because she’s too hot.

2. Your parents expect you to be more mature than your siblings, even though you’re only in the first grade.

3. You are constantly being compared unfavorably with your bastard brother.

4. People look at your sister and say, “What a pretty child!” They look at you and say, “What happened?”

5. Your brother’s report card has all A’s, and you deliberately lose yours on the way home so your parents won’t see it.

6. Your parents think your sister is sweet and you’re a smartass pain in the neck. The fact that this is true doesn’t make you feel any better.

7. Your mother calls you by your full name whenever she is mad at you, and she does this ten times a day.

8. Your sibling does something silly, and your parents think it’s cute. You want to be cute, too, so you do the same thing, and they get mad at you.

9. Your brother gets a new bicycle for Christmas, and you get underwear and socks.

10. You have to wear your sister’s hand-me-down dress to the prom, and you’re older than she is.

11. Your parents save for years and mortgage the house to send your brother to Harvard. They send you to the local community college and expect you to work your way through.

12. You do something you know will get you in trouble to get some attention.

13. Your mother hates everything you give her and brags about how good your sister is at choosing the right gifts.

14. You go shopping with your mother and sister, and they try hard to pretend you’re not there.

15. Your mother sends your sibling to yell at you when you do something wrong.

Let’s face it. It isn’t easy being an unattractive, smart-mouthed underachiever, and it takes real courage to face the negative consequences of having such a personality. You need to be impervious to pain, rejection, and sharp words, which is good training for adult life. I am willing to guess that many of the world’s great achievers were unappreciated children. The bravery and plain old-fashioned stubbornness they developed as children were invaluable when dealing with leaders of hostile nations, writing immortal poetry, or inventing things that made life easier for humanity. Remember this the next time your mother gets after you because you’re not as cute as your sibling.

Unfortunately, however, career choices for many unfavored children can be limited. Unless you plan to be a leader of nations, a comedian, or a writer, your tendency to mouth off, wear unattractive clothes, and ignore the basic rules of polite society will not likely guide you to success. You will need all the encouragement you can get from whoever doesn’t mind hanging around with you. If you are lucky, you will eventually experience an epiphany and give yourself and your personality a dramatic makeover, like the proverbial ugly duckling. This will shock everyone who knows you, including your parents and favored siblings, but it will be worth it, if only to see the looks on their faces.

In the meantime, don’t be discouraged. There are many unfavored ones like you, and they manage to survive the experience. Some even become famous, hopefully for a good reason, not because they became serial killers. There is hope for all of you.

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2 thoughts on “How to Be an Unfavored Child”

  1. I was the favored child. My parents took the Bon Jovi music away from me but left it with the brother and sister of The Legendary Legend.

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