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Re: Favorite child

Posted by antigua3 on January 24, 2009, at 15:04:47

In reply to Re: Favorite child » antigua3, posted by wittgensteinz on January 24, 2009, at 7:39:16

> Just my gut instinct: I don't see how a discussion of 'favouritism' is relevant or useful unless there is a clear inbalance of love and/or an unfairness or inequality in the way you treat your children.

Great point. This is how I was viewing favoritism--that there was an imbalance that I wasn't conscious of--and that is what was distressing me for many of the reasons I've already discussed. Maybe it shook my confidence in my parenting abilities, but I'll be OK.


> The question from your pdoc seems very loaded and provocative - I'd be angry too if I were asked such a thing (and I don't even have children!).

I wish I could remember the context. Funny thing how my memory doesn't work when I'm trying to block something out, but I'm going to grill him when I see him on Monday.


> The reason I write what I do is this: my mother's clear favourite was my brother. I was always compared to him - always told "why don't you do things how X does? He'd never have done what you just did" etc. we were punished differently, spoken about differently to my mother's friends etc. and it was taken to an extreme and was very difficult and confusing for me. My father by contrast could relate better to me but that never prevented him from showing my brother and I the same degree of love. Likewise, he didn't discriminate against my brother (unfortunately he was never able to put us before my mother and that's where he 'failed', but that's a separate matter). I think that's the important difference. Even if you can relate to one child over the other (not saying you do) but that when it comes to love, treatment and valuing the individual these things should be equal.
>
Well, I can say that when I was a kid, we were all punished in the same ways (violence, really, and extreme emotional and verbal abuse), but there was a varying intensity in how "justice" was meted out. I may not have been swacked as hard as my brothers, but I had my own private hell that they weren't part of. A lot of guilt for me, really.

As to my kids, the punishment does vary, given the kid and the circumstances of the crime. Not that I've had to really do it much, but I have to admit when I've had to, it has been big, but not violent or abusive.

I'm sorry you had to grow up that way. It must have been very difficult.
antigua

 

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URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20090109/msgs/875871.html