These days, blended families are as common as sliced bread. Step-parent, step-sibling issues are nothing new. Each parent favors the kids related to them, usually. What about favoritism when it comes to grandchildren, though?
In-laws are often guilty of this before and after divorce. All because they don’t like the child’s other parent. My ex-in-laws kept my daughter’s photos hanging on the wall behind the open front door because they hated my guts. The. Door. Was. Always. Open.
Enough said.
I know a grandma who actually favors one of her step-grandsons over all of her grandchildren who are actually her biological grandchildren!
That situation causes drama between the grandma and her daughter. It also causes fighting between the daughter and her step-sister. It’s so bad that many family get-togethers have been ruined by the turmoil. Personally, I find the whole situation ridiculous.
Every child deserves to be loved equally. Sometimes a child is favored because of their appearance. Such as blue eyes and blonde hair verses brown eyes and brown hair. Maybe it’s even a race issue or preference of a male child over a female child.
Then there’s the times a child isn’t treated well because the person showing favoritism doesn’t like that child’s parent. The unliked toddler in this case, is treated different because he looks just like his father. He’s a beautiful and smart two year old who is too young to understand, for now.
In a few years, he’s going to start noticing that his half brother, the favorite grandchild, gets away with everything. He’s going to become a resentful, angry child. Do you blame him?
Why can’t every child have the same worth as a human? When an unliked child grows up, how is he or she going to treat people?
Just the other day, the mother of the favorite child and the unliked child, I have written about in this article, said to me, “why can’t they treat my kids the same? For God’s sake both of them came out of the same vagina!”
Exactly.
So the next time, you or someone you know treats one child differently than another, ask yourself this question. “What did this child do to deserve this?”
Children should all be treasured and treated like their a gift. I know people who can’t have kids. They would give everything they own to have a child of their own to love, unconditionally. Their parents may never know the joy of having a grandchild.
I consider favoritism of one child over another to be a form of abuse. Every unkind word or action that is directed at kids, leaves an invisible scar that will not heal. So tell and show your kids how much you love them all. I don’t care if their related to you by blood, marriage or adoption. Maybe it’s a foster child. That kid deserves love, too.
How would you feel if your boss treated you that way? Can you imagine him saying, “sorry, I don’t like your dad. He’s a dick head and you look just like him. So I’m giving “so-in-so” a raise and promotion instead of you.” You would be pissed, right?
Children are people, too. Don’t show favoritism! Do the right thing. Love all the children, equally.
I just don’t get how people justify to themselves that it’s okay to treat kids so differently from each other. Small children don’t understand what’s going on and love the people who do this, the same as they love everyone else. If only, we could all love each other, with the same innocence that a child loves us. What a different world it be!
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