Most parents would deny that they ever show favouritism towards their children. But recently some studies and surveys have revealed that, despite best intentions, things don't always work out like that.
Those who claim to have “middle child syndrome” - a very real phenomenon that leads to the middle child feeling neglected and unloved in comparison to their siblings - would agree that it isn’t out of the question for parents to show bias (unintentionally or not) over one child in comparison to another.
In 2016, researchers at the University of California discovered that 74 percent of mothers and 70 percent of fathers have a favourite child.
And now we have another survey which has revealed that parents tend to favour their youngest child.
Mumsnet conducted a survey of 1,185 of its users that are parents, while Gransnet carried out a survey of 1,111 of its users that had at least one grandchild.
Nearly a quarter of the Mumsnet users admitted to having a favourite child, while 42 percent of the Gransnet users confessed to showing preference to one of their grandchildren.
Over half of the parents with a favourite child revealed that it was their youngest child, with 61 percent admitting they find the other siblings more "tricky or demanding."
This backs up similar findings published in 2017 when a different set of researchers found that the favouritism isn't necessarily down to the personal preference of the parents - it's because the youngest is often perceived as the favourite.
On the other hand, the mumsnet survey also found that a lower percentage (26) of the parents said that their favourite child was their eldest.
"Favouritism is one of the last taboos and can provoke a lot of guilt, so it’s important to say that feeling a great affinity for a particular child – often, whichever one is willing to put their shoes on – is fairly common, and doesn’t have to be disastrous,” Justine Roberts, founder of Gransnet (Mumsnet’s sister site) said.
“The distilled Mumsnet wisdom on this issue is that lots of parents like their children differently: the crucial thing is to love them all wholly.”
