My Favorite Child

My Favorite Child

by Erma Bombeck

Every mother has a favorite child.She cannot help it. She is only human.I have mine.That child for whom I felt a special closeness. The one I reach out to in a rare moment, to share a love that no one else could possibly understand.

My favorite child is the one who was too sick to eat the ice cream at his birthday party, had measles at Christmas and wore leg braces to bed because he toed in.

She was the fever the middle of the night, the asthma attack, the child in my arms at the emergency ward.

My favorite child spent Christmas alone away from the family, was stranded after the game with a gas tank on E, lost the money for his class ring.

My favorite child is the one who screwed up the piano recital, misspelled committee in a spelling bee, ran the wrong way with the football and had his bike stolen because he was careless.

My favorite child is the one who fell asleep over an assignment on China that the teacher never bothered to grade, flunked her drivers license test five times and told us she could hardly wait to get out of the house.

My favorite child is the one I punished for lying, grounded for insensitivity to other people’s feelings and informed he was a royal pain to the entire family.

My favorite child slammed doors in frustration, cried when she didn’t think I saw her, withdrew and said she could not talk to me.

My favorite child always needed a haircut, had hair that wouldn’t curl, had no date for Saturday night and a car that cost $1000 to fix.

My favorite child said dumb things for which there were no excuses. He was selfish, immature, bad tempered and self-centered. He was vulnerable, lonely, unsure of what he was doing in this world . . . and quite wonderful.

The one I loved the most is the one whom I have watched struggle and-because the struggle was his-done nothing.All mothers have their favorite child. It is always the same one, the one who needs you at the moment for whatever reason-to cling to, to shout at, to hurt, to hug, to flatter, to reverse charges to, to unload on, to use-but mostly to be there.