Kids fare poorly when Mom plays favorites, but now a study from Cornell University has found that even adults may experience lasting effects from Mom’s preferential treatment. The study, published in the Journal of Marriage and Family, found that people who grew up in homes where they perceived maternal favoritism were more prone to depression as adults. Strikingly, it didn’t matter if they were the favored or unfavored child. “Favored children can experience guilt about their preferred status, extra demands from parents, and resentment from siblings,” says Karl Pillemer, the lead author and a gerontologist at Cornell.
This article was originally published with the title When Mom Has Favorites.
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4 Comments
Add CommentWhat about when Dad has favorites... or are we still living in the 50's?
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Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo, we live in the 21st century. Dad's left home and is living with some 18 y/o coed.
More seriously, even in this day and age children are more likely to spend more time with Mum than Dad. Although it would be interesting to see if it makes a difference which one is playing favourites.
I would suspect the gender of the parent wouldn't matter so much as which is the primary care-giver. I wonder if any thought was given to this.
In a divorced family, it might just make a huge difference if the secondaray custodial parent favors one child over the other, since children often crave the love of the departed parent. Such favoritism can be devastating.
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