Playing Favorites

Those of you with more than one child, admit that you play favorites. Just do it. Don't try to deny it. You have a favorite. That's not to say that you don't love each and every one of your children, but it's okay to admit that you have a favorite, a child with whom you have an extra special bond. The favorite probably changes day-to-day, hour-to-hour, but at any given moment, you have a favorite child.

When I'm not busy being the world's number one dad/husband (which is pretty much every second from the moment I wake up to the moment I fall asleep on the couch watching reruns of The Simpsons), I obsess about my favorite sports teams. I know, I sound like a real catch, right. I pour over stats and read way too many articles about my baseball, basketball and college football teams. In my defense, this has created a real bond between me and The Boy — a break through for us, but something for another article. One of the items I look forward to each week is what is typically called a "Power Ranking" where some writer ranks teams based on their performance during the course of the previous week taking wins, losses, injuries and schedules into consideration.

(Stay with me please, I promise this article will not be a tribute to ESPN or Major League Baseball.) 

I recently received a call at work from my wife who called to tell me about her latest adventures in parenting involving something The Boy or the baby did. I don't recall exactly what it is was he or she did, but whatever it was, it was bad, and I remember thinking to myself that I'm lucky I have my oldest daughter who is so mellow and sweet. I hung up the phone, shook my head, told myself that I'm lucky I'm at work and went back to reading the most recent power rankings for the current baseball season and that's when I had a revelation of sorts: "I 'power rank' my children." I thought about it some more and wondered if I was the only one that did so and I convinced myself that all other parents do this to some degree. I'll use my parents and my siblings as an example. 

First, you need to know that I am the oldest of seven children. Yep, seven. Second, I have the world's greatest parents and if I do only a quarter of the job they did as a parent, I will be a monumental success. My parents taught us about the importance of family, education, working hard and the joys of Raising Arizona — I probably paid too much attention to that last item and not enough on the other ones. Having said that, if you were to poll all of my siblings, I believe they would unanimously agree on two things: 1) our parents love each and every one of their children and would do anything in the world for any one of them; and 2) without a doubt there is a favorite. It's a subject that used to be talked about in hushed tones in the basement or on a tee box on the golf course, but recently the topic has been brought to the surface and is even joked about at the kitchen table over Sunday dinner — usually when the favorite calls home.

The beauty of power rankings is that people/teams can move up and down if they get on a winning streak, or, in my family, if you have another grandchild. However, if your family is like mine, there may be one member of the family that has the top spot locked up. My youngest brother has had held the top spot for close to ten years. It's a dynasty. He's the Tiger Woods of the family power rankings. He can do no wrong. So, how does my family's current power ranking break down (for the sake of anonymity, I shall use code names):

    1. Youngest Brother: In addition to being the youngest son (our family had four boys and then three girls), he also recently graduated from medical school. Youngest son plus soon to be doctor equals a powerful combination. Add in the fact that he has recently had a baby, moved closer to home and you've got all the makings of a family superstar. In addition, he's a great guy, easy going, funny and growing up he rarely talked back to his parents and he let his oldest brother tease him for years and years. Like I've said, he's got the top spot locked up for some time.

    2. Oldest Daughter: This is where things get interesting. Usually, I would place Oldest Daughter third on the list, but she's been on a hot streak lately and she is in the best position to overtake Youngest Brother. What has she done to make this jump? Oh, only be pregnant with her first child which means she will be the first daughter in the family to have a child. She's one to watch for the rest of the season. 

    3. Youngest Child: She usually occupies the second spot, but has slipped a spot due to no fault of her own — nothing she can do when her older sister is going to have a baby. Youngest Child is not going to go down without a fight, however. She's not married or engaged yet, so she gets lots of one-on-one time with the parents, boosting her chances of reclaiming the number two spot. If Youngest Child gets married and has twins that will be end of the power rankings. She'd be number one forever. There is nothing any of us could do that would beat that. It would be like creating a super human with all of the talents of Oprah, Michael Jackson and Michael Jordan into one. She would be unstoppable.

    4. Engaged Sister: Since her engagement she's seen a jump in her ranking. Lots of bonding with mom while picking flowers, pictures, dresses and other wedding junk. While she's been steadily climbing the charts, after the wedding and after she moves away to pursue a graduate degree, she may fall another spot or two — and it's going to be very tough for her to overtake Youngest Child or Oldest Daughter again (having twins would help — having twins will help anyone on this list).

    5. Brother Living at Home: One of my brothers is living in my parents' basement with his wife and baby boy while he transitions from one house to the next. This means his son gets lots of time with grandma and grandpa and more time with grandma and grandpa means a higher spot in the rankings. 

    6. SoCal Brother: This was a bit of a shock to me. Before I sat down to hammer out where I think all the siblings fall into the current rankings, I would have pegged SoCal Brother for a spot in the top three of four, but as I said above, things change in an instant. Sisters get pregnant, engaged and brothers graduate from medical school and move home for a short period of time. These things happen and it keeps things interesting.

    7. Anonymous Husband: Yep. No surprise here, is there? I just don’t have much to offer. I had the first two grandchildren and enjoyed a spot near the top for a good three to four years, but then siblings got married and had their own kids. In addition, a number of my siblings have moved away from home for work and schooling and that adds to their appeal. I'm still local which is good and convenient, but just not quite as sexy. For those of you that grew up visiting The Cheesecake Factory on vacations, I'm like The Cheesecake Factory after your town finally got it's own Cheesecake Factory. On vacations you loved making trips to the Cheesecake Factory. You probably raved about it to your friends and looked forward to your next visit.  Then they opened one up in your town. You looked forward to it, it was still good, but something was missing. It just didn’t feel the same. That's me. 

So that we are crystal clear on this, there is no question that my parents love and adore each one of their children. The rankings are merely a reflection of the different relationships each one of my siblings and I have with our parents. There is no real benefit in being number one in the rankings. In fact, being last in the rankings has it’s privileges, as I can call Youngest Brother and tease him with zingers like "How's the favorite child doing?" How can he possibly recover from that? Answer: He can't.

How do my children rank on my current power rankings? I'm not dumb enough to put it in writing and besides, with a younger family like mine, the rankings change by the hour, if not the minute. If I'm sitting at home watching a baseball game and The Boy sits next to me wearing our team’s baseball hat (yes, my team is his team until he gets older and figures out his dad has horrible taste) and he’s asking me about our team and when he gets excited about our team winning, he’s probably going to be top child on the list. When Sweet Pea holds my hand as we’re walking (yes, I occasionally get off the couch) and tells me about her day at school, she’s probably going to move up to number one.  And when my youngest sits on my lap and tries to sing "Itsy Bitsy Spider" or "Wheels on the Bus" (complete with hand actions) she's unquestionably going to be my current favorite. 

As you can tell, I've convinced myself that all parents do this, please tell me I’m right. Please. Pretty please.

Plus, if you tell me I'm right that will give me license to start power ranking things like my favorite dinners. There is no way I could get in trouble for that.

Author: Anonymous Husband

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