Favorites...

Okay, full disclosure before I start, I do have a favorite child. I know a lot of you would call me out on it, I've not been subtle about it after all.

Anyway...

My mother's parents had a favorite child. They never tried to hide it at all. Annie was their joy and mom and Dorothy just weren't. There was a boy child, I don't remember his name, as well but he died either as an infant or a toddler, I don't remember that either, I'm not sure if he would have taken over as favorite, as males sometimes do, but for mom's entire life she was clearly an also ran. They weren't subtle either. And it really made her and Dorothy's lives unpleasant.

Because of that she constantly tried to make sure that none of us felt like that. There would be no favorites. And she extended this to the grandchildren. I might have written about this before but there always had to be balance. The grandkids back in New Mexico always thought Katie was the golden child because Mom constantly brought up good things she was doing when they did something good. I had to tell them that no, she did it the other direction as well.

For instance, when we told Mom that Katie had made the state honors' band her reply was, "That's great. Jesse just got off parole and can now leave the state." I just had to laugh. I mean, okay, sure, both good news I guess but not really comparable. But it was the first thing she could think of to bring balance. We laughed that it must have been the word state that triggered it.

Now, even with all of her balancing we all knew that Jeff was her favorite child and Brian was probably her favorite grandchild. Jeff was absolutely the right choice for a favorite child. Never caused trouble, always helped them. Brian was the first grandchild and the only one for a few years so they could really focus on him so it was a logical choice as well. But she'd never admit to either one.

But there was one time, just once, where she didn't hold to her no favorites rule.

We were talking about someone else who clearly had a favorite child. I said I wasn't sure how it made the other child feel, but it couldn't have been great. Mom talked about what it was like for her, and for Dorothy. Which I had heard her mention it before but to get specifics was hard. Like they were just ignored a lot of the time. Annie sucked up all the oxygen in the room and there was nothing left for them. I told her I wasn't sure how you could have a favorite child, after all they are all your children. She popped out with, "Every parent has a favorite, that's natural, everyone has favorites, you just can't show it. You're probably my favorite." I laughed and told her that it was okay, I knew Jeff was. She said, "Well you're the most like me anyway."

So for a moment in time I was her favorite. Because she thought I was the most like her. Which probably meant that at a lot of other moments I was her least favorite. Because I was the most like her.

But either way it's okay. She never made any of us feel like we weren't the favorite. Even if the balancing thing was super annoying. Nobody got the spotlight alone. Honors' Band, lead in the play, employee of the month, parole, your shoes both match, it was all the same. There were no favorites.

And since there were no favorites we could all pretend that we really were the favorite.

Even if we all knew it was Jeff.