Playing Favorites

Matthew was most unhappy last Friday watching his brothers enjoying their swimming lessons. The poor kid is sidelined until his cast comes off in mid-July. This weekend, I took pity on him and kept him home with me while Tab took the other two boys to their lessons.

For the next two weeks, Stephen and Daniel will have swimming lessons four afternoons a week. I've asked my mother-in-law if she would stay with Matthew a few of those days, and she readily agreed. Tab and I have joked that Matthew is Stephanie's favorite. She usually denies it but always with a little smile on her face that indicates our comments have hit the mark.

Today she answered back, "Well, which one loves me the best?"

It's true: of all the boys, Matthew does give her the warmest greeting. He is more attached to her than are the other two, though they love her, too, of course. The thing is: she always preferred Matthew, even before he was old enough to show her any affection back. She felt sorry for him because he was smaller than Stephen at birth and struggled more to learn how to breastfeed. "I always love the underdogs," she said on several occasions when the twins were babies.

So while she may claim now that Matthew is her favorite because he is more loving to her than the other two, I think it is actually the reverse: he is more loving to her because she has always been more affectionate to him.

Not that there's anything inherently wrong with having favorites. The trick is not to be too obvious about it. Tab likes to repeat an aphorism that he read somewhere: "Parents who say they don't have favorites don't know their children very well." I love all my boys equally...but some days I like one of them better than I do the others. Which one that is varies from day to day, however.

One of the billboards along Route 1 just changed to a Budweiser ad. The ad consists of a surfboard emblazoned with the words "Bud Light." The surfboard is being held by a woman, but all you can see of her is her arm and her bikini top; her neck and head are cropped out of the image, which I find disconcerting (and more than a little offensive).

Today, Stephen noticed the new billboard ad for the first time.

"There's a lady on that sign," he remarked conversationally.

"How do you know it's a lady?" I asked, curious. I thought most kids his age judged more by faces and less by body type.

He shrugged. "I just know."

"Stephen, you are a flaming heterosexual," I muttered to myself, out of his hearing.

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