No, You DON’T Love All Your Children Equally!
Nature Designed ‘Favorites’…
No parent on Earth is capable, or wired for it; unequivocally; unerringly!
If you believe you’re different, you’re living in denial; lying perhaps; or not acutely self-aware.
Leave alone unconditional love, even feeling the perfectly same volume, or intensity of love for all one’s offsprings is a virtue beyond human. Scores of parents might feel instinctively offended by the very suggestion! They can’t imagine they love their children or that their parents loved them, any other way; especially if they come from or have created largely emotionally fulfilled families.
The problem isn’t the intention, the human condition is. Nothing human is unconditional or equal. Even the deep, intense, pure love for someone that makes us self-sacrificial serves us deep down somehow; the wholesome us or the unhealed us.
Our very birth from the One undivided source created duality, & conditions.
The moment those are; there will be ‘choice’.
And, Wherever there is ‘choice’, preferences will be. We’re inherently guided by them all our lives; whether we’re always consciously aware or not.
Even if there’s nothing extraordinary poignant or drastically wrong making any of your children either impossible not to deeply love or mortally impossible to; even if you’re a parent par excellence; deep down your heartstrings will connect deeper to one child. It might be so subtle that your conscious mind, even your conscience allows you to effortlessly traverse parenthood. So imperceptible that you might get away with it for life without any of your children realizing it, even well into adulthood.
You might go red-faced denying it if ever confronted.
Yet, it’s a pang of guilt you’re stuck with.
Humans are susceptible to personality, energy; & cultural conditioning. Parents are not immune to a child's presence contrasting or catering to their own hidden subconscious needs. A child’s inherent tenderness; or endearing mischief. Perhaps their demeanor fills a deep lack inside the parent such as a sense of security, or their socially alienating roguishness arouses a parent’s dormant fiery protectiveness.
When your nest is long empty, & the phone rings, which of your children do you first hope it to be?
If only one could be with you for a year; who would you secretly opt for?
Or…
If all your children got lost in a wood in some twisted plot of fate, & a genie made you toss a coin for granting back only one; in that proverbial moment before the coin hit the ground; what would your wretched heart reveal?
Until the day a sophisticated measure is invented, those might be your only clues…
Ones you might never reveal to another or acknowledge to yourself…
Unequal affection for their children is a painful human nemesis a parent will almost always deny. But always develop.
The only panacea is awareness, & relentless commitment to how to not make it obvious!
Because there are no perfect parents. Only perfectly well-intentioned ones.
