Fess up. When it comes to your kids, you do have a favorite.
You might not play favorites—in fact, to make sure your other children don’t catch on, you might be especially hard on your favorite—but deep down, it’s likely you have one, says Jeffrey Kluger, author of the new book "The Sibling Effect," one chapter of which is devoted to favoritism.
“It is my belief that 95 percent of the parents in the world have a favorite child, and the other percent are lying,” says Kluger, the father of two daughters, 10 and 8. Ever diplomatic, he adds, “The only exceptions are my wife and me.”
I also have two daughters, 14 and 12, and I would say my favorite depends on what day it is. Sometimes even what time of day it is.
I get tickled when I see glimpses of myself in them: my older daughter’s interest in current events and, yes, shopping; my younger daughter’s goal of becoming an actress. And that joy of recognition, that desire for a mini-me, drives parental favoritism, says Kluger, a senior editor at Time magazine.
“Having children is an act of genetic narcissism to begin with. We are hardwired to do it,” he says. “What we look for in a child are traits that remind us of ourselves. You may love your husband, but it’s your genes that are in play. You want the most direct portal for your genes in the following generation.”
In our TODAY Moms/Parenting.com survey of 26,000 moms this summer, one in 5 moms admitted to having a favorite child (19 percent, to be exact).
And in addition to parents admitting to favorites, Kluger told TODAY that more kids “are willing to come forward and acknowledge candidly, without too much pain, that, ‘Yes, it’s always been a given in our family…that favoritism exists.”
So what child has the line on being most beloved? Research suggests middle children are less likely to be the favorite than oldest or youngest kids.
“One thing that makes it a little easier for a middle child is if you’ve got company,” says Kluger, the second of his parents’ four children. He became fast friends and playmates with younger brother Gary, his parents’ other middle child. Middles most likely to gain favored status are those who happen to be the only son or daughter, Kluger says.
Interestingly, studies show that fathers’ favorites are likely to be their youngest daughter, while moms are likely to favor their oldest son, Kluger says. They may be of the opposite sex, he says, but they tend to share traits associated with the parent’s sex. In other words, that favored youngest daughter might become a take-no-prisoners businesswoman, the favored oldest son a sensitive poet.
In his family, Kluger says, the oldest son was his dad’s favorite, while the youngest was his mom’s. When I was growing up, I always felt my brother, the youngest of three and the only son, was my mom’s favorite. Okay, I always sensed that I, the oldest, was my dad’s favorite, because we had a lot in common.
Not that my parents would ever admit to having favorites. “There’s some value of the parents’ code…never to speak of it,” Kluger says, even though most families know who the favorite is. Fibbing about not having a favorite, he notes, is itself an act of love.
Parents, take our poll and tell us: Do you have a favorite child?
Rita Rubin, a contributing writer for msnbc.com and today.com, previously covered medicine for USA Today and U.S. News & World Report. She lives in suburban Washington, D.C., with her husband and two daughters.