i just read the most recent issue of time magazine, the article named "playing favorites". they tried to describe the science behind favoritism and explain why and how we nurture our children differently. frankly, i don't like to be compared to animals in the way i raise my "offspring", but i did find the article interesting in how it relates to raising step-children.

in the beginning of the article is a series of cartoons depicting the different types of children: the funny one, the pretty one, the smart one, the one who is pretty smart AND funny (i have one of those), etc. okay, so at the end of the pics is a drawing of a man holding his son, and his son is drawn in the exact image of the father, both wearing equally proud, stupid, goofy grins. this is exactly how i see my husband and stepson. my husband is indeed the reproductive narcissist.

but so am i...

the article goes on to say that because many of us favor one child over the other, that the favored child has entitlement issues. very true in my home, i think. also, and most importantly, the less favored child may grow up feeling that he or she is unworthy of love because of the emphasis placed on the "golden child". very sad, and i just keep thinking about this after i read how people truly feel about their skids. and sadly and truthfully, how i feel about my own sometimes. i am not self-righteous in this - just spillin the truth. but i'm always fixing what's going on between us, and we'll get better...moving on-

so, i think what i'm realizing more is this: i know it's natural to favor your own kids over your step kids. there is some validity to this reproductive narcissism thing. we favor what is like us most, i think. maybe not even favor the kids like us, but maybe we're closer or something? we have more in common? whatever.

maybe it's harder to love the kids that perfect way because they aren't OUR copies. they are the copies of the bm we dislike. they are a product of intimacy between our alpha male and the one he mated to first - i know, i feel like grunting and scratching right now, and perhaps even pissing on his car to mark him. later.

we love them, but don't favor them. we see ourselves in our own children, and the stepchildren are not recognizable to us. they look different, act different and even smell different. as a baby, my ss didn't smell like my other babies, even though he lived with us most of the time. we simply favor what we create. doesn't mean it's right. we have this free will thing that animals don't have.

kinda off topic...i was reading a post yesterday that this woman was tired of her ss following her around everywhere, bugging her. okay, follow me here. so the traits that come to our biological children innately, as in our own children are born already having our traits, well the stepkids don't have it. they know it, too. they feel it rolling off of us. they feel a lack of connection. so what they do is they hang with you to get to know how to be like you. the point is they enjoy you, if even only a little bit. it is a survival mechanism. they try to win you the only way they can. they need to be taken care of. we see it as annoying. they just like us. see, if we stretch our minds a little bit, we start to see reasons...

moving on...
the article goes on to say that if you have a child who is different in any way, they will go the extra mile to get extra attention and your parental "investment". you know, if your own children are doing this stuff to win your attention, and they do it, imagine how much more - good behaviors or bad -the step child who doesn't belong is going to do. and they get more annoying. hmmm.

these scientists found over time that kids who felt they were loved less were more likely to suffer from anxiety, low self-esteem and depression. these children act out. then they are punished. the less favored child can be seen as always doing wrong, too. you lower your expectations of them. the nurture does not exist. don't you just come to expect their failure sometimes? i USED to.

.......................................................

the article kind of hit me. yeah, there is a science behind it, a natural we-were-once-cavemen order of things. the first inclination for many of us is to behave like animals, and i just keep reading and writing the proof online. sad, i know, but we've got to be honest here.

i keep seeing posts that include words like HATE and CHILD in the same sentence. it is very scary to me. and there is no science in it. i can see a lot of young step mothers on here who are exactly where i was 10 years ago. and i speak from experience, and a little bit of time magazine arrogance , when i say that we can destroy these children and we shouldn't act like animals. i know exactly how you feel. our stepchildren are not our children. they may have been spawned from a rotting dysfunctional abyss. we don't like their mommies. we don't have to. we raise their kids for them so they can be free. (aah, i remember those days) their kids walk all over us most of the time.

but as much as we're feeling and venting our honest feelings, and we should keep on doing it for sanity, we gotta have a place in our blogging for the good days and the funny moments, for the stupid article reviews for time magazine...and for all the good memories we're gonna make with these PEOPLE. when people go to my facebook page, i want them to see more pics of my ss than of me and my dog. it's what we as humans are supposed to do, reproductive narcissist or not.