Do Parents Love Their Children Equally?

My mother did. A good hearted soul to allow equal shares to both her kids, maybe? and a good parent too, who treated both her kids equal? We are good kids, good natured too, that we accepted what was given to us and none had to make compromises or even wanted more than our shares? Possible right? If that other extreme families exist, we do too, maybe to just balance this world, 'equally' you see!

 

True, agree ....no answers for me regarding those questions but had seen, listened and felt those kind of stituations.

 

If you understand Tamil you should be familiar with dialogues like "thavuttukku vangina Pillai" (the son you exchanged for the husk )and many more. Just to say @Sparkle favouritism and partiality is something that has been there always.ex Esau and Jacob to Arjuna- Duryodhana. Psychologist and behavioural experts says it is ingrained. Well that is favoritism and it could happen for a variety of reasons from being the mirror of the parent, unexplainable ones too.

Coming to treating kids with equality, is something we have been trying our level best to follow and let me be honest there have been days when my son who had acute special needs got a chunk of the time. Then one incident happened and my guilt hit the ceiling...
Have a son and daughter. Dd elder while son is the younger who needed us to be alert to take him to the hospital almost every 10 days from the day we brought him home. Being in a joint family and dd being the gps pet saved me many a time.

So one day my daughter wanted to go to the doctor for no reason. She was going to be 4 and she said if I take her to the doctor it would be fun. It dawned on me how much ever I took care of things for her in the tough times, she thought her brother's frequent visits to Hospital was special and she was being deprived off. Sharing it to show a perception. We explained to her why we are having to do it and that she is our special angel. Oh I had to adjust and make up for some of it and never regret the hard work.

What glared at me as I revisted those 4 yrs is that I had 100's of pictures of my daughter while a lot less of my son. Would it be construed as partiality by my son? .. in reality keeping him kicking breathing easy took on most of the time..

As a parent who wants to consciously treat her kids equally it is tight rope walk especially when both the kids are on poles apart in their thinking to everything. You revisit your actions and their reactions.

Today at 21 and 18 if you were to ask my kids whom does mom love more they would say "dad" and we come second. Standard answer from both. They know they are treated equal. Yeah thank god for learning from our mistakes and of course from our parents and trying to rectify it at the nick of time.

Coming to opportunities we talk about available ones but it is their choices. And their passion about their choices is strong enough to override the differences in costs, or anything else. We have told whatever we have would be split equally. So much that if I get some gold for dd we get something for our son. When my son asks what am I going to with this, my husband tells him your life partner would also be the daughter of this family so you get a equal share.

Irony is we think they may not even stay in the property that we may will to them. they know it is all just hard earned by their parents who did not take a penny from both of their's. In fact they tell us to spend everything and enjoy our life.

Bottom line most of the favoritism and partiality arises from residual treatments we received and also circumstances. It is something we need to talk and discuss instead of allowing it to fester and infect a otherwise beautiful family. It needs a lot of courage, patience and non-defensive mind set to being open to hear what your loved ones have to tell you. And sometimes listening to what is not said.

 

@Sparkle this is the parenting session so my answer is as a parent alone. And I agree to the various shades and reasons parents give for the way they treat their kids. Relationships are hard even the so called unconditional love of a mother carries caveat.

@Laks09 good girl and we are open to both the kids about taking parents responsiblity. Don't want them to be chained by the guilt that there are times I look up for assisted living provisions in India. And another thing that I talk about is you two have grown up together while your partners would be new to the family. Keep things separate. If they amalgamate well fine if not you should still keep your relationship going strong and not tarnished by your partner's views. Same applies to you and your partner's siblings if any.
My husband makes fun of me saying their life and their situations may be different, but I believe knowing where to not interfere and where to accept suggestions is something they learn and steering their thoughts in that direction is not wrong.

 

Hmmm interesting... wanna be in audience group

 

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Wow did I open a pandora box. You are welcome. I think half the problems we face in relationships is the failure to listen understand what is actually said and going with just our perceptions and assumptions. From where I stand today, I try to reason out why a person reacted the way. It becomes easier to forgive them. Nobody is 100% good or bad it is in the eyes and mind of the opposite person and you cannot change that unless they want to. If you can help change do it or else accept and move on.

aww we are making lemonade out of our lemons, albeit the hard way. There are people in worser shape.thanking god for the countless blessings our way. Don't we @Laks09