Never Have a Favorite Child—They Notice More Than You Think - Rabbi Yirmiyahu Cohen

My name is uh Yirmiyahu Cohen and now I'd like to talk about parenting part four. I would say that the one of the most important principles in parenting is or maybe even the most important is not to have a favorite child. Never ever have a favorite child. And the truth is that ever since I learned Chumash, I learned the Torah portion, I've always asked I've always asked this question which is the question we've all asked. And that is that in Parshas Vayeishev which is in Bereishit it says that Yisrael ahav et Yosef mikol echav. Yisrael meaning Yaakov Avinu he had 12 sons. And the pasuk says he loved Yosef over all the other brothers. And not only that, the pasuk says he gave him a coat of many colors. And not only did he show the love, but the children noticed. So there was three things over here the pasuk says. One, the pasuk says it's a fact. Yaakov loved Yosef over the other brothers. It wasn't an impression, that was a fact. The Torah says the reality, he did. Two, the Torah says he gave him something extra. And three, the brothers noticed. And what happened? What's the consequences? Hatred, jealousy, eventually they will eventually they wanted to kill him, they sold him, but the but the matter of fact is that it was a very very bad situation that Yosef seemed to be in favor. Now, the Gemara in Shabbos actually says that because Yosef because Yaakov favored Yosef and gave him this ketonet pasim, this coat of many colors, it actually caused the galus. The Gemara in Shabbos actually calls out Yakov Avinu and says, "This was something that shouldn't have happened." But, it happened. Now, I'm not I'm in no position right now to explain why Yakov did what he did. But, the fact of the matter is that one of the hardest episodes in the Torah is the story about Yakov and his 12 sons, how they how 11 of them ganged up against Yosef and they almost killed him and eventually they had him sold to Egypt. In parshas Vayechi, we see the complete opposite. Yosef had two sons, Ephraim and Menashe. And we see from the parshas Vayechi that Yosef loved his sons equally. Now, equally does not mean exactly the same. Equally means that each one is given 50%, 50/50, and then the father applies each son according to their own strengths. But, either way, Yosef loved Ephraim and Menashe equally. And we see afterwards that when Yakov came to bless them, right? That the brothers were not jealous of each other. And in in fact, till this day, till this day, we say we when we bless our kids, we say we bless our kids based on the bracha, on the blessing of Ephraim and Menashe. Because Ephraim and Menashe, those two children of similar ages, same mother, they are the example of good parenting. Two children, two strengths, equal love, they loved each other, and we see we bless our children. We want our kids to be like Ephraim and Menashe. So, Yakov's sort of failing was the fact that he had he favored Yosef over the other brothers for whatever reason, but Joseph fixed that. He didn't love anybody over the other. He loved them both equally. So, I'm saying to you that don't favor your son. And you're going to say, "Obviously, I'm not going to." But I've had this question asked to me many, many times. Okay, but what if my child does does actually accuse me of saying, "You love Johnny more than me. You love Rachel more than me." What do I say as a parent? Many parents have asked me, "If my child accuses me of favoritism, what do I do?" So, I'm going to tell you what I think you should do. First thing, don't react. Don't react and say straight away, "No." If your son says, "You love Rachel more than me." or "You love Johnny more than me." don't react. Think for a second. Think for a minute and ask yourself, "Is he right? Do I really like A over him? Do I really like B over him?" If the answer is that he's right, that I do love the other one over him, I don't know if he should apologize because it's going to be very hard to apologize to your son and tell him, "Yes, you're right. I love Rachel more than you." That's not something that you can do so easily. However, if he knows he's right, he should correct it. He should work on himself not to love A over B. Now, if the answer is no, if the answer is no, that I do not love Rachel over Johnny, or I don't like Johnny over Rachel, but my child is accusing me, what do I do? So, I think that the answer is ask your child, "Why do you think that? Why do you think that I like A over B?" So, the obvious answer, the most predictable answer is going to be because you are more lenient with him over me, or more lenient with her over me, or you giving more presents than you give to me. And therefore, the child gets an impression that if you are more lenient with A over B, you must love A more. If you give A more gifts than B, you must love A more. If that's true, correct it. But if it's not true, explain it. So, I'm going to give you an example of how you could explain this. Let's say for I'm going to give you the example of a boy and a girl because it's simpler. If my daughter tells me, if my daughter would tell me, "Aba, Daddy, you are more lenient with with your with the with our with our brother, with my with your son. Why is that? Because you don't come back later at night. Curfew by my son is, let's say, 1:00." And she says, "And by me, I'm similar age, it's 11:00." Or whatever the time is. So, she says, "From the fact that you're being more lenient with him, must be that you love him more than me. And you're being more strict with me." So, now, that's would be her angle. Now, my son comes to me from a different angle the next morning. And when I wake him up for shacharit for morning prayers or for learning, she he says, "Aba, why do you wake me up at 7:00 a.m. while my sister, she can wake up at 11:00 or 12:00 and you don't tell her anything?" So, he comes to the conclusion that from the fact that he is forced to wake up at 7:00 a.m. or 8:00 a.m., I'm being more strict with him. And she at 11:00 or 12:00, I'm being more lenient. So, that means I love her more than him. And the answer is that I explain to them that that's not the case. Each child is looked at differently. Each child is separate gender. The reason why I say my son can come back later because he's a boy. He can protect himself more. He's older. And the girl has to come back early cuz you're a girl. And you have to be more you have to be more careful of when of what time you are outside at night. In the morning, it's the opposite. Because you're a boy and you have an obligation to pray, then I can wake you up earlier. And I wake her up later. It's not a love or not love, it's because you're the separate gender. You can you can have this the same application by separate ages, different ages, different genders. Now, this leads to a different subject, a different question, which is and this is going to overlap with this with this same question is, what happens bare minimum really if I have a child that's very talented in school and one child that's that's that's not talented. And one child gets all kinds of is very successful in homework and the test and the other child is very normal, doesn't get anything special. How do I reward the talented child over the non-talented child? If I reward the talented child, it's not fair for the for the non-talented one. The answer is that I always tell my kids, I don't gift you, I don't praise you and compliment you on your accolades or what you on what you succeed or what you achieve, but rather on your efforts. So now, if my son tells me, you give her more gifts, I can say, you know why I give her more gifts? Not because she's smarter than you, but because she helps more, she tries more, she puts a bigger effort. Effort is equal. So, so it comes out like this. If my child accuses me of favoritism, if he's right, I must correct it. If he's wrong, ask him why. And then explain. And when it comes to when it comes to having equal children, it's not the same treatment. Each child according to what he is. So, today's main point is do not show favoritism. Let's emulate Joseph how he raised Ephraim and Manasseh, same age, same gender, same everything. Each one with his own strengths. They love each other and we bless our kids forever on them. Thank you.