Who's my best boy?

When Leo Burley was growing up, the younger of two boys, everyone thought he was the favourite. Now he has two sons of his own, he wonders - is favouritism inevitable?
Father and son.
Father and son. Photograph: Murdo Macleod/Murdo Macleod

As soon as I laid eyes on my second son, Cyrus, all my doubts about having another child faded away. From the moment he was born, eight months ago, I fell head over heels in love with him. So much so that it worried his mother. "You will love them both the same, won't you?" she asked me nervously, referring to our first son, Cassius, who is six.

What a question. Of course I would. Wouldn't any parent? Well, no is the short answer. Parents often favour one child over another and, at its worst, parental favouritism can be one of the most profound and damaging emotional dynamics a child ever encounters. It can affect the rest of their lives.

I was the younger of two boys and many who knew me when I was growing up think I was a favoured child. I don't remember it like that but I may not be in the best position to judge. Some of the favoured children I've interviewed have a sense of unthinking entitlement that is worryingly familiar.

"You know when you get a litter of puppies and one of those puppies is simply more vibrant and attractive than the others? I was that puppy," says a friend, who, like many people I talked to, refused to be named for fear of upsetting his siblings. He is the eldest of three and indisputably the favourite child. He says his siblings simply accept it and that they are all very close and happy. But then as the favoured one he would say that. What may appear an equitable distribution of parental love when you are sitting in the box seat can seem horrendously unfair to the neglected sibling.

"My sister's the favourite and I'm not - it's as simple as that," explains a female friend from a single-parent family. "She has always been much more like my mother. She relates to her better. My mother 'gets' her, she doesn't 'get' me. I never felt like I was part of them, even as a child. It makes me feel isolated and not good enough. Whenever I try to talk about it, I'm told it's not true and that it's my imagination and that's very hard too. As a parent I'm very conscious of it and I don't favour one of my children over another. I don't think it's in me to do that. But neither does my mum."

Why does favouritism occur? Is it a natural feature of parenting or an abnormal dynamic that can and should be resisted? And is it possible for me to love my sons equally, even if I end up feeling closer to one than the other?

Earlier this month, a study of 14,000 UK families by David Lawson and Professor Ruth Mace, of University College London's Human Evolutionary Ecology Group, suggested that first-born children tend to be favoured over their younger siblings, particularly in middle-class households. But other experts suggest a more complex picture of how and why favouritism occurs. "There are going to be some aspects of a human being that one responds to and enjoys more than another," says Ellie Baker, a psychotherapist from the Centre for Child Mental Health in London, who specialises in child and family therapy, "and that's going to happen in families, but a closeness with one child needn't become favouritism. It can just be a difference.

"It will often become apparent with a client that favouritism is an issue and that it has dictated how they approach their lives. The roles and scripts that you learn as a child are often assigned and played out when you yourself become a parent. But you don't have to pass it on. It's a cycle that can be broken.

The first issue is the parent's own life story. Where were they in the family pecking order? What have they internalised about being loved or not being loved? Into the mix of all of that you bring the personality of the child. Quite often the things we don't like in our children are the things we unconsciously don't like in ourselves, and that has a large part to play in favouritism."

At first Cassius was as pleased as I was with the arrival of Cyrus. He had campaigned long and hard for a sibling on the condition that we produce a little brother and that's what he got, a little brother who took up a lot of the parental attention that had been focused solely on him. As weeks turned into months and people were still coming round to coo over the "new" baby, Cassius finally snapped and accused us of giving Cyrus "all the attention". I began to ask other, more experienced, parents about favouritism and how to avoid it. "You can't treat each child the same. You take the water to the plants that need it," says Emma, now in her 60s and one of four children who went on to have four of her own. "But favouritism is a form of spoiling and to spoil means to damage." Her youngest sister was born when Emma was nine and her father began to favour the new arrival immediately. "He didn't bother to disguise it. He said, 'From now on she comes first.' It was spelled out. In one sense we simply accepted it but it was deeply damaging and has continued to be so, down through the grandchildren."

Her sister had minor health problems as a baby, which Emma says her father used as an excuse to favour her, but she suspects that the birth was really a consolation to him in what by then was a troubled marriage. "My mother could be very difficult and my sister's arrival helped to cement their relationship," recalls Emma. "I adored her and spent a lot of my time looking after her, but when she was eight I left home and she became spoiled. She began to collude with them to maintain the position of favoured child within the family and she's dedicated her adult life to that end."

Emma describes how, even when she was in her 40s, her parents would favour her younger sister over the other siblings, taking back family heirlooms from them to give to her. "It was so blatant but no one had the guts to confront them about it. My youngest son feels that I should be more angry, but the person who really copped it was my brother."

Emma describes how her younger sister decided to get married for a second time, "So my dad could walk her down the aisle again." Her eldest brother chose not to attend the wedding. "My father insisted and he refused so he was thrown out of the family. When my mother was dying my father wouldn't let him in the house to see her. For a mother to be denied access to her firstborn on her death bed is pretty serious stuff," says Emma, who places the blame squarely on parental favouritism.

Emma's own children are now adults and often complain that she favours one over another. She even admits to having a very close relationship with her youngest son but is adamant that while she values different things in her children, she has loved them all equally. "I don't think favouritism comes naturally. There are some children who give you more pleasure and that can be difficult; love can't be commanded but justice can and favouritism is an injustice."

While not being as good as one of your siblings but not knowing why can clearly be damaging to a child's development, Baker suggests that the dynamic can be negative for all those involved: "The label of good, sweet and clever can be a difficult one too. A favoured child may spend a lot of time trying to figure out why they are so good so they can stay in that position, which is hard work. To be a favourite can bring with it the potential for disappointment, guilt, a sense of separation from your siblings or a sense of grandiosity and entitlement, which can become problematic later on in life and affect things like friendships. And for the parent, shame becomes an issue. They may not be honest enough to say 'I don't like this child as much as another.' Who can they say that to? Parents often don't know what to do with those feelings or how to process them."

Costas and Virginie Papantoniou overheard me discussing favouritism with a friend in their shop and were open enough to explain how it occurred in their family and how they deal with it. Their eldest son, Mikhail, is 15 and was born just after they decided to set up their grocery in west London.

"By the time he was about 14 months old I was doing such long hours in the shop that it was placing a great strain on our relationship and it came close to breakdown," says Costas, who realised that if the marriage failed, his wife would almost certainly take Mikhail back to her own family in France and that he would lose contact with his son. "I started to take him to the park. I became aware that I really had to enjoy my time with him as it wasn't clear if he'd be staying with me. We became very close. By the time

the second two came along our marriage was back on track and I didn't make the same kind of effort with my younger sons."

Virginie feels that this intense bonding period with his first child means that her husband now has a special relationship with Mikhail and can sometimes overlook the needs of his other children, particularly their middle son, 11-year-old Lucas.

"Sometimes Lucas will ask Costas a question and he won't answer. Then he'll turn round to me and say 'Daddy never listens to me.' I often have to ask Costas if he realises that he's doing it. He's really proud of Mikhail and tells him he's clever and Lucas feels that difference," says Virginie, who hasn't discussed the subject with her sons. "I never say, 'Oh, you know that dad loves you as much as your brother' because I don't want to put that kind of emphasis on it."

Costas stresses that they are loving parents and have taken steps to address Virginie's concerns. "Parents are people. Depending on the personalities of the children they will be drawn to one or the other but I make an effort to compensate for that by talking to Lucas and trying to show him that I do think of him as well. There is an awareness that I need to give him some special time," explains Costas. "I say to them that one is my favourite big child, one is my favourite middle and one my favourite small child. The question is, do they feel loved? If they do, then it's not a problem. Mikhail may get more attention from me but Lucas can get it in other ways."

As we talk it transpires that Lucas, like his mother, is a gifted musician but she says she doesn't favour him, despite having been favoured herself. "I was the first of three sisters and my mum told me when I was in my 20s that I was the favourite and she may have said some awful things to my sister that were very damaging. I have seen what can happen and I don't want to repeat the same mistakes. My sister was a second child, as was my father, and he had the same problems, so it's gone down through three generations. I don't want Lucas to feel that hurt."

I ask Baker whether it is wrong to feel closer to one of my children than the other. She considers this for a moment before answering carefully: "If there is some aspect of your child that delights you, then revel in it. If you can do it without excluding the others, then why not have a specialness? But ultimately you should find things in all your children to love and enjoy."

I'm walking to school with Cassius, which is our special time when we talk about life, the universe and the complexities of the Nintendo DS. There is a pause in the conversation and I take my opportunity: "You know I love you just as much as I love Cyrus don't you?"

Cassius considers this rather bald statement of non-favouritism, gives me his most winsome gap-toothed smile and says: "Don't you love me just a little bit more?" And at that particular moment I think I do.