The Secret Behind Having a Favorite Child (And Why It’s Not What You Think)

Almost every parent with more than one child has felt it: a favorite child, even if you’d never say it out loud. A pull toward one kid that’s easier, warmer, less effortful than what you feel toward the other, followed immediately by a wave of guilt so heavy most people never say it out loud, not even to their partner.

Let’s just say it plainly, because pretending it doesn’t happen helps nobody: you can love your children equally and still find one of them easier to be around. That gap isn’t a character flaw. It’s usually your own Enneagram type recognizing itself, or its opposite, in one of your kids, and reacting accordingly.

If you’re a Type 1, a child who is naturally tidy, fair minded, and eager to do things “right” will feel effortless to parent, because they’re not constantly touching your fear of being wrong. A child who is messy, impulsive, and unbothered by rules, often a Type 7 or an 8, will trigger you more, not because you love them less, but because their nature sits right on top of your own sore spot. If you’re a Type 2, a child who needs you, who reaches for your affection, will feel like an easy match for your desire to be needed. A more independent, withdrawn child, often a Type 5, can leave you feeling rejected in a way that has nothing to do with the child’s actual feelings toward you.

Why Having a Favorite Child Isn’t Proof You’re Failing

Here’s the part that actually matters: the guilt you feel about this isn’t proof you’re a bad parent. Shame only shows up when you’re not meeting your own internal standard, and for most parents, that standard is something like “a good parent loves all their children exactly the same, in exactly the same way, every single day.” That standard was never realistic to begin with. You are a person with your own fear and your own Superpower, and some children’s nature is simply going to sit closer to your comfort zone than others. That’s not favoritism in the way the word makes it sound. It’s chemistry between two nervous systems, one of which happens to be still growing.

The danger isn’t feeling the pull. It’s not noticing it, and letting it quietly shape how much patience, warmth, and benefit of the doubt each child gets without you ever choosing that on purpose. A child who consistently gets less patience than their sibling feels it, long before they have language for why, and it plants a belief about their worth that has nothing to do with reality and everything to do with which type happened to be easier for you to parent.

Research on differential parenting, summarized by the American Psychological Association, backs this up.

The Actual Solution

So here’s the actual solution, and it doesn’t involve a confession, a dramatic conversation, or forcing yourself to feel identical warmth toward every child, which isn’t honest and isn’t necessary. It starts with noticing, privately, which child touches your own fear the most, and asking what standard of yours is actually being triggered by their nature. Once you can name it, “I get impatient with her because her chaos touches my own fear of things falling apart,” you stop needing the child to change in order for you to feel calmer. You shift the standard internally, and the extra patience you were struggling to find for them starts showing up on its own.

This is exactly why understanding your own type matters as much as understanding your child’s. The friction was never really about them being harder to love. It was about which parts of yourself they happened to reflect back at you.

My free Enneagram e-book is a good place to start too. If you want to understand your own Enneagram fear and how it’s quietly shaping how you parent each of your children differently, my Empowered Children course covers exactly this. Explore Empowered Children: Parenting with the Enneagram →