London - On the second to last day of term, a text pops up on my phone from my 11-year-old daughter. “Where can we keep stick insects at home?” it says. I’m at work in a meeting and only just manage to suppress a squeal of horror.
We don’t have a “creepy crawly wing”, so I reply: “Nowhere.” The texts keep coming, imploring me to house the school’s peculiar pets for the summer. She resorts to illogical blackmail: “Mum, they will die if we don’t have them” (sad face emojis appear on screen). I stand firm. Then her last text pops up. “Please, Mum. After all, I am your favourite child.”
She had played her trump card: the assumed privilege of the supposedly (and in this case self-appointed) “favourite child”. This is a deadly parenting booby trap into which you must never fall.
The notion of a favourite child is a controversial concept and this week I notice Prince William has tumbled head-first into this trap.
Looking after two children is a challenge, he told a crowd in East Anglia, but two-month-old Princess Charlotte is a “little joy of heaven” while brother George, nearly two, is “a little monkey”. He didn’t say “Charlotte is my favourite and my best”, but the implication was there. Of course, Prince William, like every other parent, would never admit to having a favourite.
That’s taboo. He’ll skirt round the issue as we all do, saying “I love them both the same, but maybe enjoy the company” of one more than the other. He will stand nervously in no man’s land while this sibling battle wages throughout their childhoods and beyond.
I have a friend whose mum still saves the best roast potatoes at Sunday lunch for her younger son (now over 6ft and age 28). When all the family stay at their childhood home, he gets the first shower - it’s tradition. For many years, probably since her brother, now eight, was born, my Gracie has been lobbying for this mythical “favourite child” title.
She craves a badge of family identity because she is the second of four, which is nothing to boast about, according to her. She’s neither the oldest nor the youngest and she isn’t the only boy like Henry, so she has her eye on a bigger prize: “The favourite.”
She signs every birthday card for me: “From your favourite child”. It’s an admirable ambition and proof of how important the moniker is. Sometimes I think I should make her a “Favourite” badge and we can all move on.
We may hide behind our parental code of silence, telling them we love them the same every day, but the little devils still insist we like one of them best.
My elder girls, aged 11 and 12, complain that their little brother is favourite. He’s the one I would save from a burning building they tell me (girls are so dramatic).
They still haven’t forgiven me for making an impressive pass-the-parcel for his fifth birthday, which, apparently, I didn’t do for them.
“Confess,” they demanded just last week. “Just say it’s him and we won’t talk about it again. You cook him separate food if he doesn’t like what’s for tea and he gets more biscuits because you secretly give them to him.”
My son is a gentle soul looking for the path of least confrontation. If you ask him to clean his teeth, he does so. You don’t need to have a five-minute conversation about why.
He knows how to make the biggest withdrawal from the bank of “Mummy love”. “I’ll give you a thousand kisses,” he used to say when he was small, his chubby little hands clutching my cheeks, much to the jealous duo’s fury.
For the record, I don’t love my son more than the three girls, but I have to admit that sometimes he’s easier to spend time with. Mabel, our youngest, who’s now four, just behaves as if she is the outright favourite. The force is strong with this one, as Darth Vader would observe.
She’s too young to be as accusatory as the elder girls and her strategy to put herself on the pedestal, no questions asked, is smart. Plus she’s the “last baby” - it’s a comforting place to be.
But this ebb and flow of parental love is to be expected, especially in larger families. Because while you dare not admit who’s your favourite (if you have one), there are moments when you can definitely identify your least favourite.
A mum of two teenagers tells me she believes it’s more about which one you get along with best, rather than love most.
“The things that drive me nuts about my fiery daughter are the things I don’t particularly like in myself,” she says. “My son’s a more straightforward character. We rub along together much better.”
We all dance around the subject cautiously, tiptoeing across a minefield of emotions delicately. It’s a daily tightrope walk and, inevitably, we don’t always make it to the other side.
But no parent in their right mind would admit to loving one child more than the other, no matter how much they test your sleep-deprived maternal patience, because that’s impossible.
When you have the first one you can’t believe you’ll ever feel this much warm, velvety, all-encompassing, passionate love again. Yet the moment you clap eyes on baby number two, you do. It is a miracle. The truth is that a family grows on the shifting sands of unpredictability, the routine and emotions around it change every day. No one knows what’s coming next because your situation is unique to you.
Daily Mail
Lorraine Candy is editor-in-chief of Elle magazine.