My Favorite Son


You can keep score or you can have fun playing.


We were rushing through the grocery store trying to get what we needed for dinner bought before it was time to go pick up Aodán and Xander, so I had a grumpy Søren with me, and Rainer peaking out of the sling. The cashier was trying to make Søren smile, and that just wasn't happening, as three other strangers we'd encountered on various other errands today had also failed. So this woman asks my 22 month old son, "Did your baby brother replace you?" I am hoping that was over his head, though I am often startled by what he does understand. This woman then proceeds to tell me about her granddaughter who hits the baby because she is jealous and my tongue was swollen from how I was biting it not commenting on her family dynamics. And I didn't tell her that Søren has startled me by how little jealousy he has shown -- we enjoy the time we have together, but he is also basking in affection from lots of my friends and showing more self-sufficiency, playing by himself and being patient when I can't get to his needs right away. Our transition to family of six has been much easier than I'd ever have dared to dream.

I don't mean to sound unrealistic. Sibling rivalry is going to exist. I know too many sad stories of adults still carrying around bitterness about the unfairness of their own childhoods, too many parents trying to treat their kids the same to show they love them equally. I felt pangs of jealousy of my sister even as an adult, and I don't think I half understood how my parents could claim to love me and my sister equally until my second son was born.

Actually I shocked Raven yesterday when he was asking how Xander and I were doing -- there is a lot of stress there because Xander is so dreamy and I can't always figure out how to motivate him to move as quickly as I need him to -- and I answered "But he's my favorite, you know." And I know how hideous that sounds, only Aodán is also my favorite, and in a completely different way so is Søren, and so is Rainer. Each of them has claim to completely different real estate in my soul, Anyway, I don't think I'll use the word "favorite" with my boys, and will continue responding to any charges of unfairness with "Don't you have everything you need? Haven't you always gotten what you needed? Shouldn't I do the same for your brother?"

My own personal growth has included the realization that I have wasted way too much of my life keeping track of what other people have that I don't, and realizing that envy is blasphemy, that somehow it's not trusting that God's goodness is big enough to take care of all of us. Marriage became a much happier thing when I stopped trying to figure out which of us was putting in more or getting more -- there's no calculus for that. And I am working to extend that throughout my whole life. So if I don't always work on making sure my children are getting exactly equal treatment because I trust that my love for each of them is beyond measure and so incomparable, and because I know things will come out even in the end, maybe that will give them a head start on this bigger realization?

Posted: Wed - September 1, 2004 at 07:25 PM        

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