This American Life - 264: Special Treatment

Broadcast on: 07 May 2004

Everyone in the family agrees, Edie's the youngest, and so she gets more attention, she gets more stuff. Ayla, her 15-year-old sister, puts it this way. She spoiled for her birthday last year, she got a scooter, you know, one of those high-tech things. And then I got a CD, and my parents were like, "Yeah, well, you know, you'll be getting a car soon, but she'll get a car sometime, too." Even Edie sees it this way. One of our producers, Jane Feltis, is their cousin, and Jane got this out of the 10-year-old, under tough, tough questioning. You are your sister who gets treated better. Me? Who gets more stuff? Me? Who gets punished more? Ayla. But who gets a worse punishment? Ayla. Edie gets more attention. Edie gets more stuff, but she gets smaller stuff. This is Kathy, their mom. Well, you want to treat them exactly the same, but that's hard to do because they're so different. Every kid is different, and with my two kids, they are totally opposite of each other. I mean, you do try to be fair, but you do treat them different, and, you know, it's just the way it is. I don't know how else to say it.

You know, you don't really hear a positive word about favoritism very often. Most of us think that parents are supposed to treat all their kids exactly the same, but the fact is, sometimes it just doesn't matter. I think what we're finding is what's more important than equal treatment is kids' perceptions about what they're getting. That's Amanda Cole. She co-authored a study of 300 kids and 135 families, where they asked everyone in the families questions like, "Is one child favored over the other? Who gets praised more? Who's the parent's stricter with?" And, okay, let's just start with the big news first, America. We are not giving equal treatment to our kids. Very few kids actually said their parents were exactly equal in every aspect. Really? How rare is that ideal? I think we had about five kids. Out of 300? Out of about 300 that said in every instance, it was exactly equal. And all the other kids. Most kids were able to think of a way that their parents did treat them differently. But, here's the other news flash. Most kids didn't care. 70%, 70%, 70% of the time. When a kid said they are their sibling, got praised more, or punished more, or whatever, they said it pretty much made sense to them. It pretty much seemed fair. Most kids think differential treatment is fair, whether or not their benefiting or their siblings are benefiting. And they felt that way because why? I think one of the most compelling reasons was when they felt that their sibling needed differential treatment or that they did. For example, one child said that his sibling didn't have very many friends. And he felt very sorry for him. So, it made a lot of sense to him that his parents would spend more time with his sibling. If one child is older than another, he may have more chores. He may have a later curfew. He may also be punished more, potentially because he has the ability to maybe get into more dangerous situations.

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