Science says that my parents have a favourite child and probably so do yours.
I read an article recently, adapted from the book The Sibling Effect by Jeffrey Kluger, about how all parents have a favourite child.
The article's stats say 65 per cent of mothers and 70 per cent of fathers outwardly exhibit a preference for one child, and probably a majority of those other 30 per cent just hide those preferences and never admit it. The others won't admit it to a researcher doing a study, and they definitely won't admit it to their children.
It got me thinking about how I stack up against my four siblings in our parents' eyes.
In some ways not being the favourite is a good thing. In some cases the favourite is the favourite because a parent sees it as the least likely to survive on its own. My parents may not have doted endlessly on a six-year-old me because they already new I was tough stuff and could handle the world beyond.
The bad is that in most cases, favouritism develops as parents decide who is most likely to be outstanding, and they decide to put most of their eggs into that basket in the hopes of developing one extraordinary person. I wasn't fingered early on as the exceptional genius that could bring great things to the Baker name.
I'm the second child, but it's the first child who often receives favouritism. It's natural to desire that something one puts the most time and money into becomes a success, and there will always have been more money and effort gone into the first child.
That sounds like it applies to my siblings. My older sister is the most effortlessly successful of us kids. She got a degree, got a job right out of school and has moved on to more schooling, expecting a new career in the health field that has some pretty good prospects.
I did a victory high school lap before going to college, only received a diploma and have spent time collecting employment insurance. One of my brothers didn't finish his college program and has recently restarted his education, and the other finished a one-year program and is without a job in his field. All three of us boys moved back home immediately following post-secondary school. My youngest sister is still in high school, so she has to at least graduate before she can be considered any kind of success story.
The article also pointed to how the youngest boy in a family needs to develop certain abilities to disarm the larger kids in a playroom, and I don't mean an awesome arm hold. My youngest brother is certainly the most charming of the three boys. Mom definitely appreciates his disarming charm more than my smarmy sarcasm.
In turns out a lot of kids are very perceptive to either being treated better or worse than a sibling.
While the simplest formula for figuring out those who are the parental favourites sums up as Mom likes the eldest boy and Dad the youngest girl, I think my mom favours the youngest boy and dad the oldest girl. I asked my oldest sister what she thought and she confirmed my intuition, adding that maybe Mom likes me best, but I think she just didn't want to hurt my feelings by not giving me some consideration. My parents can feel free to use the comment section on our website to voice their opinion.
The only way to be sure is to ask my parents themselves to be honest and fess up to which of us they like more. I'll keep my fingers crossed, but I won't hold my breath.
