BUT ARE YOU THE FAVOURITE?!
If you have a brother or sister, or maybe even a few brothers and sisters, you'll definitely be aware of that weird feeling of sibling rivalry where you have some sneaking suspicion that your parents just like one of you a little bit better.
Of course, no parent will ever confirm those suspicions. It's rule one in the parenting manual: do not let your kids know that you have a favourite.
But according to a recent study from a sociologist named Katherine Conger, parents definitely do have a preference.
They asked 384 sets of siblings about the way that their parents treat them and whether or not their treatment had affected their self-esteem at all.
The study found that older children do feel like their parents prefer them. Because the eldest child is the first to achieve all the major accomplishments, they help their parents learn what to expect.
By the time a younger child comes along, their parents already have a game-plan in mind so the younger kids get less attention and are more subjected to strict rules.
But then here's the big bit. The study asked the parents of all their subjects to talk about their kids and they found out that 70% of fathers and 74% of mothers did admit to having a favourite child.But hey, just because you feel like your parents prefer your sibling to you, you might not necessarily be right.The study found that all children feel that their parents prefer their sibling to them at one stage or another, so you might be the favourite without even knowing it!
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