It’s a long-held cliché (and complaint of older siblings) that the baby of the family is always the parents’ favourite.
And a new study has revealed this may indeed be true – but only because younger siblings want it that way…
Researchers at Brigham Young University’s School of Family Life have concluded that the younger members of the family are more concerned with comparing themselves to their siblings, meaning it’s more important for them to form a stronger bond with their parents.
The team quizzed 300 families, each with two teenagers, about favouritism. The parents were asked how much warmth and conflict they had with their children, and the teens were asked about their relationship with their parents.
They found that if younger siblings feel they’re the favourite and the parents agree, the relationship is strengthened. If not, then the opposite happens. However, it makes no difference to the older sibling-parent relationship whether the child feels like the favourite or not.
‘It’s not that first-borns don’t ever think about their siblings and themselves in reference to them… It’s just not a part of their daily life,’ said study author Alex Jenson in the Journal of Adolescence.
‘My guess is it’s probably rarer that a parent will say to an older sibling, “Why can’t you be like your younger sibling?”‘
The researchers also said that, when parents are loving and supportive to all kids, favouritism tends to not matter as much.
‘Some parents feel like ‘I need to treat them all the same,” said Alex. ‘What I would say is, you need to treat them fairly but not equally.
‘If you focus on it being ok to treat them different because they’re different people and have different needs, that’s ok.’
