Do parents have a favorite child?
Many children grow up with another sibling. In these families with multiple children, do parents have a favorite child or do they love their children equally?
Researchers from Pennsylvania State University conducted a study in which they interviewed 388 families once a year for three years. The families consisted of parents that were married who had two siblings that were four years apart or less. The parents were asked about how the children were doing academically and it was found that 48 percent of parents considered their oldest child most capable academically, whether or not the child was actually the smartest. 33% of the parents considered the youngest the most intelligent and 19% favored their children equally.
Jeffrey Kluger, author of “The Sibling Effect: What the Bonds Among Brothers and Sisters Reveal About Us”, says “It is my belief that 95 per cent of the parents in the world have a favourite child, and the other five per cent are lying.”
Since parents may lie when being interviewed or given a survey because they do not want to seem like they favor a child, researchers have found more findings by conducting observational studies.
British professors David Lawson and Ruth Mace published a study in which they watched 14,000 families. Their results showed that parents may actually have a favorite child. The younger siblings received less care and the older siblings were fed more. 65% of mothers and 70% of fathers showed that they preferred one child over the other.The older siblings also had higher IQ’s.
So why do parents seem to favor the first born child?
Researchers propose that it might be that the parents have higher expectations for the eldest child. Another theory is based on Darwinian logic and states that the firstborn is favored more because it absorbs a lot more parental time and energy. Parents would want to protect that invested time, and therefore devote more care to the firstborn. Parents may also favor the oldest child because a study by Brigham Young University found that parents perceive that the less-favored child to be twice as likely to use alcohol and drugs.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/parents-biased-toward-first-child_55a3d771e4b0b8145f730667
http://abcnews.go.com/Lifestyle/favorite-child-affect-sisters-brothers/story?id=30294681
http://mom.me/in-the-loop/7778-parents-really-do-have-favorite-child/
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/sibling-effect-parents-favorites-birth-order-counts/story?id=14627020
http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2094371,00.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/mother-tongue/8943106/Why-all-parents-have-a-favourite-child.html
This blog really caught my attention and it also scared me a bit. To think of all those studies that were done and concluding that some parents actually do have a favorite child is cruel to me. I believe a parent should love each other their child equally because that person is the one that brought the child to this earth. If the child is misbehaved and rebel then he/she is likely to have learned bad habits from the parents themselves. This could have horrible effects on the child in the long run. This article explains the effects that favoritism can have on a child. If the child is the favorite one in the family then it will go on in life feeling confident and powerful. This can lead to them being great business men and women in the world. The not so favorite child can end up being depressed and have psychological problems because the lack of love and attention the parent gave them as a child. they could end up becoming serial killers or addicted to heavy drugs.
I have always wondered if parents had a favorite child so I had to read your blog post. I agree as with your statement that parents do have a favorite child. However, I don’t think they do it on purpose. I think that it comes naturally. I compare it to my friend group. I have a close group of friends, but out of that group I have my best friend. It is not like I chose her to be my best friend, it just happened on its own. Basically the same thing that parents to. They don’t want to have a favorite child because they know that it is wrong, but they can’t control it. Another thing I agree with is that I do believe the favorite child is the oldest. I am the youngest and do better in school than my brother, but I still believe my brother is the favorite child.
There was no way that I could scroll over your post after reading your title. Like the two comments before mine, I of course have to share a personal anecdote about my family, especially since we constantly discuss how my parents have a favorite child. I am the youngest of 3 girls. The first girl is brilliant and is currently the president of an architecture firm her first year out of college. The second girl is currently a nursing major in the honors college at Temple University. She is currently battling two other students to be #1 in the school of nursing, has never misspoke, or done anything that would lead her to get in trouble. Then there is myself, obviously the least brilliant of the trio, that takes far greater strides in being involved and making the most of every opportunity than on my school work. Do not get me wrong, I still work for great grades and accomplishments, it is just not the only thing on my mind. You would think after reading the lay down on my family that my parents would shower love to sister one and two and then give me what they have left over, but that is certainly not the case. I feel the characteristic that leads me to be my parents obvious favorite child is that I keep them updated and involved with my life. I call my mom twice a day and we discuss the latest drama, what is new with her and what is going on with me.. things that my sisters do not take nearly as much time to do.
I feel that the research that you present in your blog is valid and has the ability to define many families, but not all of them. There is far to great of differences in family structure and dynamic to believe only two studies done on the subject can lead you to ask the question “So why do parents seem to favor the first born child?” The subject is too broad to ask such an intensive question.
Another thing that came to my mind while reading your blog was the classic idea of the spoiled youngest child. Both my sisters and I are often asked if I , being the youngest, gets whatever I desire or if my parents let me do whatever I want. Luckily for me in my family this does kind of hold true, but The Telegraph reports on a study that found out of 1,803 families 59% of them favored and spoiled their youngest child. I feel that this presentation of new information that was not shown in your blog helps to support my claim that there are too great of differences in families for there to actually be a scientific correlation between being the oldest child and the favorite child. Something else that I feel would be a good addition to your blog would be to analyze why the middle child has the classic notion of being forgotten. I know in my family, despite the middle sisters constant success and accomplishments she is never rewarded or praised. It is something so obvious in my family that we laugh at, but I know that my family is not the only instance of this happening. The article in The Telegraph also stated “research shows that there are definitely benefits to being either the youngest or oldest in the family,” but no good comes from being stuck in the middle.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/mother-tongue/8889472/Parents-favour-their-youngest-child.html
This blog interested me because in my family, it is the exact opposite of what the studies showed. I am the youngest child and have one older brother who is two years older. It is known that I am the smarter one as he does worse in school and gets poor grades. It is also known in my household that there are higher expectations for me, the younger child. I think it just varies between each family. I also found a study that showed that parents favorite the daughter over the son. In times of economic crisis, a study shows that parents favor their daughters over their sons. The Rutgers Business School performed a study where the parents preferred to enroll their daughter in a beneficial program as opposed to their son. The study also showed that the parents preferred to give a U.S. Treasury bond to their daughter over their son. Here is a link to the study!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3143788/Bad-news-boys-Researchers-say-parents-prefer-daughters-times-tough.html
This post is really interesting and something I don’t really think about often. I am the youngest sibling in my family, and a lot of times I consider myself the favorite child. However, there are times where my parents very clearly favor my older brother. I never really knew what they favored about us. A lot of times I thought it was based on our behavior or our high grades in school, but after reading your post I decided to look into it. A blog on the website What To Expect talks about why parents favor a child. Researchers have found that mothers in particular favor the child that she thinks will take the best care of her later on in the future. These findings were published in the Journal of Marriage and Family so I definitely think you should check it out. I loved this post!
http://www.whattoexpect.com/wom/family-life/1018/the-real-reason-moms-favor-one-child-over-others.aspx