I Never Had a Favorite Child

So, I came across this quote today:

“I never loved one of you more than another.”

I stopped on it and realized it resonated with me because, as a mother, I know exactly what it was trying to say.

I have never looked at my children and thought, I love this one more.

I also know this to be true, I have not had the same relationship with each of my children.

I don’t think we’re supposed to.

There is a difference between loving your children equally and having identical relationships with them.

Motherhood isn’t a mathematical equation. You don’t divide your heart into three equal portions and hand each child 33.3 percent.

You love each child completely; but you love them differently.

Sometimes, without even realizing it, you become closer to one child in a particular season of your life.

I know from the outside looking in, most people who know me think that has always been my relationship with my youngest daughter. You might notice that she shows up in my stories more often.

She does.

For whatever reason, I sometimes feel the need to explain that.

Maybe it’s because I’ve had the occasional nonchalant comment over the years that has made me feel like I need to defend myself a little. Nothing particularly harsh or intentional; just little comments or observations that leave me feeling as though mentioning one child more often or making plans with her somehow says something about how much I love the others.

It doesn’t.

I talk about my youngest more because we have a different relationship. We spend more time together and have more everyday moments together. So, naturally, that means I have more stories about us.

It doesn’t mean I love my other children any less. It just means our relationships aren’t identical.

When I actually sit and think about it, something happened recently that made me realize how ridiculous that was.

I was doing one of those social media trends where you look through your camera roll for pictures of yourself with your children and express how much it has meant to you being their mom. As I started looking for pictures of me with my other children, I found them, but they were old.

Really old.

Most of them were from when they were still living at home.

There were pictures from birthdays, holidays, vacations, school events.

Snapshots from a different stage of our lives.

Then I started looking for pictures of me and my youngest. Suddenly, there were hundreds.

Recent pictures.

Random pictures.

Pictures in the car.

Pictures at restaurants.

Pictures where neither of us were particularly dressed up.

Pictures of ordinary days that weren’t important enough to document at the time, but apparently important enough that one of us pulled out a phone anyway.

We laughed when we realized it because I have a friend who jokingly tells his kids that he’s taking pictures for the memory wall they’ll have when he’s gone. 😂 And for a second, I thought, well, people are going to leave my funeral thinking, “Not hard to tell who her favourite was.” But underneath the laughter was something that I’ve thought about a lot.  We simply spend more time together, we talk more, do more things together and we share more of the little, insignificant pieces of everyday life.

Our relationship has developed its own rhythm.

That doesn’t mean I love my other children less, it means their relationships with me are different, because they are different people and I am a different mother than I was when they were younger.

The mother I was with my oldest wasn’t the same mother I was with my youngest.

I had different experiences, different worries, different knowledge, different mistakes under my belt, and different stages of my own life.

Each child brought out a different part of me.

When I first met my stepdaughter, we rarely had time alone; our time was almost always shared with the rest of the family. The same can be said for my son and I. Once we became a blended family, those one-on-one moments became few and far between. So comparing our relationships doesn’t really make sense. As they grew older, became more independent, and eventually started their own families, they naturally needed me less. My relationship with each of them simply evolved with the lives we were living.

Some relationships are naturally more talkative and built around shared interests.

Some are quiet but incredibly deep.

Sometimes your children need more of you at certain points in their lives.

Some need less.

None of that is a measurement of love.

I wish we could let go of that concept as parents; the constant measuring.

Do I spend enough time with this child?

Did I do as much for them as I did for their sibling?

Am I being fair?

We can drive ourselves crazy trying to make every relationship look identical.

Being fair doesn’t always mean the same.

One child may need a hug while another may need space.

One may need you to listen for an hour and another may need you to show up and say absolutely nothing.

One may call you every day, another may go weeks without calling and still know, without question, that you’ll answer when they do.

That’s not favoritism, that’s knowing your children.

And yes, there are probably moments when one child gets more of me than another because there are moments when one needs me more.

There are moments when I’m simply closer to one because of where we both happen to be in our lives.

I don’t think we need to pretend otherwise.

My youngest appearing more often in my stories isn’t proof that she has more of my heart.

One day, when my children are much older, I don’t want them looking back and counting the number of photographs or measuring the number of times I mentioned them.

I want them to remember how it felt to be my child.

To know that when they needed me, I was there.

To know that their accomplishments didn’t determine how much I loved them.

Their mistakes didn’t determine how much I loved them.

Their choices didn’t determine how much I loved them.

And neither did their sibling’s place in my life.

I never had a favorite child.

I had three completely different relationships with three completely different people.

And I am grateful for every one of them.

Motherhood isn’t about making sure every child gets the exact same version of you, each child well enough to give them the version of you they need.

And if that means one child fills my camera roll more than another?

Well…

I guess that’s just evidence of a relationship, not a ranking.

There is room in a mother’s heart for every child they don’t have to be identical rooms.