"Mom, this article says that you have a favorite.  So who's your favorite?" my friend's son asked her last week.  He was of course referring to the Time magazine articlediscussing 'the science of favoritism.' My friend was a bit thrown, she doesn’t have a favorite.  "Do you have a favorite?" she asked me.

I don't have a favorite kid at all. When I was pregnant with number two I was worried that I couldn't possibly love him as much as I love my daughter. Other moms told me not to worry, that I would love my kids equally but differently.  My kids are such different people, it makes it easier to not have a favorite I guess. I will say at times I may not 'like' one of them very much. But I still love them - not more than their sibling - differently. 

My oldest is a child whom seems physically pained when someone utters a swear word. My youngest can drop swear words with alarming alacrity. My oldest as a toddler had to be told once "Don't write on the walls."  My youngest would respond by asking "you mean like this?" while drawing all over the wall in sharpie. Like I said, entirely different people who require different approaches to disciple, and interaction. There is no uniform cookie-cutter approach for handling your kids and to assume so is folly.

As Lisa Belkin stated in her response to the article, "relationships are fluid....Those ups and downs, imbalances and inequities, are not something to overcome, but rather realities to be accepted."  Just as marriages go through ups and downs, parent-child relationships go through ups and downs.  

I love my daughter's kind, caring nature.  I also love my son's seemingly curmudgeon-like view on life.

We have rough patches, as I said - they may get on my nerves and I may not like them very much - but it passes. Some ages are harder for me than others - I don't have the patience for the terrible twos others may have, and the starting of teen angst is exasperating, but, I love them each regardless, and wouldn't change them for the world.