<p>Secrets by their very nature are powerful, untold realities. Their energy lies in their governance and mystery. Acting much like a rudder and sail, secrets steer human behavior while their covert nature fills and billows with potency. All families have secrets. And they serve to bind humanity together for we all share the same secrets. One classic family secret is that of the favorite child.</p>
<p>Phrases like the teacher’s pet, boss’s protégé, and Daddy’s little girl all smack of partiality. It is a common tool used in reality TV shows to heighten drama. Competition is fueled as one contestant is offered a privilege–be it a coveted date night with an eligible bachelor or a free pass that promises safe passage through a maze of obstacles. Partiality chooses one and un-chooses the other. To those excluded it increases the desperation to scrap and crawl to the top of the heap. Literature abounds with stories of the favored child who struggles against the hatred of their own flesh and blood. The narrative of Joseph chronicled in the Old Testament is one example.</p>

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Now Jacob loved Joseph more than any of his other children because Joseph had been born to him in his old age. So one day he gave Joseph a special gift-a beautiful robe. But his brothers hated Joseph because of their father’s partiality. They couldn’t say a kind word. One night Joseph had a dream and promptly reported the details to his brothers, causing them to hate him even more…When Joseph’s brothers saw him coming, they recognized him in the distance and made plans to kill him. “Here comes that dreamer!” They exclaimed. “Come on, let’s kill him and throw him into a deep pit. We can tell our father that a wild animal has eaten him. (Gen. 37:3-20 NLT)

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<p>Where favoritism flourishes, jealousy and resentment reside. The two fuse, igniting revenge. Hatred eventually erupts into an assassination attempt upon Joseph’s life in retaliation for the alliance held between father and son. Sibling rancor and revenge imprisons the favorite child in their own home, stripping them of innocence as they are cast out and abandoned. Their soul is left to bleed and die. No child chooses to be the recipient of preferential treatment. No child chooses to be an outcast, betrayed by those closest to them. It happens within empty marriages and single parent homes–when a lonely parent focuses their attention on one child to fill their own emotional needs.</p>
<p><h3>Words that Bind</h3>
When a child is sucked into the vortex of a parent’s loneliness this sets the stage for enormous harm. Why? Because a child will sense that they have the power to make Mommy or Daddy feel better and they will seek to fill the void. A child quickly learns that they can change the atmosphere in the home by altering a parent’s mood. In the beginning false intimacy nurtures the child; however, the emotional burden soon begins to sear the soul, branding them as the parent’s caretaker. Think about the following scenario: A child overhears the sobs of his mother coming from the other room. The frightened toddler goes to the parent and says, “I love Mommy.” The mother responds, “Oh, you are my little prince. You make me feel so good. Come here and give me a hug.” A healthy parent models emotions for a child. In this case, the mother crosses a line and her words bind the child’s soul to her own. Pat Love, author of The Emotional Incest Syndrome, lists other phrases that can emotionally entrap a child: Of all my children, I expected the most of you. Translation: I’ve selected you to be the one to make my life worth living. You’ve never caused me a minute of trouble. Translation: Ignore your own needs, I can’t handle them. You’re the only one who truly understands me. Translation: I would be totally alone if it weren’t for you.</p>
<p><h3>A Star is Born</h3>
Not only does a parent deaden the soul of a child through words of guilt-induced obligation, it can happen when the sycophantic parent seeks to live vicariously through the life and dreams of their child. Showering a child with applause and attention, motivated from self-gratification, presses the child into a role of being the star of the family. Sadly, it creates an insecure actor who lives to perform and poses to avoid being known. One or both of the parents act as star-struck groupies indulging the scholastically or athletically gifted child. As the star takes center stage, the siblings are now exiled in their own home as a cold wind blows through the hollow halls of their existence. Nothing they do is ever good enough and there is no spotlight to call their own. In the end they remain lost in a crowd of one as they trudge behind the omnipotent shadow of the star. Simultaneously, the child star is robbed of innocence and crippled by the responsibility of being chosen to remove the family’s shame. Just like many child movie stars, their adult lives are often mark by tragedy.</p>
<p><h3>Invasion of the Controlling Parents</h3>
Controlling parents are invasive parents. While they seek to live through the dreams of their child, they can vacillate between genuflecting devotion and abusive behavior. And while the cruelty appears opposite of the stereotypical role of a favorite child, it is the same. Whether the child is used for hero-worship or scapegoating the parent still victimizes through getting their emotional needs met at the child’s expense. Controlling parents further dishonor the child’s soul when they script their life. By pressuring and imposing their will, they transgress the sacred boundary of choice-given by God to all His children. In the end the devoured child feels manipulated and smothered. They will enter adulthood withered, either existing as a cynical, contemptuous rebel or a naïve, clinging vine.</p>
<p><h3>Birthing a Surrogate Spouse</h3>
Psychological coercion is one way to inflict damage, another is to breach the incest boundary. An exclusive relationship belongs only within the context of marriage. By reversing the roles, the favorite child fills the relational canyon that exists between their parents. In an effort to avoid the pain of intimate relating with a spouse, the needy parent will unconsciously cling to the child, bestowing on them the mantel of surrogate spouse. Often, this can be observed within the physical confines of the home. A child who sleeps in their parent’s bed beyond the newborn stage can be filling relational needs lost in disharmony. Simply noticing the hierarchical position of the favorite child at the dinner table or in casual settings can unveil the cracks in the marital bonds and point to the one who is selected to replace the exiled spouse. Sometimes each warring parents selects a favorite child. An empty parent can become over-involved with the chosen child through activities like home schooling and devoting a great deal of time to the development of their talents. In addition, there may be a reluctance to hire babysitters, restricting the child’s activities that causes them to leave the home, and resenting the time a child spends with friends.</p>
<p>As the favorite child inherits the role of surrogate spouse, it is not uncommon for child to be designated (used) as the communication conduit between the parents and other family members. For awhile this false sense of intimacy is warm and filling to the child, only to become like ingesting raw sewage. Boundaries are violated as one parent makes the child their confidant, sharing concerns about their mate or other family members. Phrases like Let’s keep this our little secret, Don’t tell the others, it will hurt them, and You know your father would get mad if he knew are meant to manipulate and perpetuate an exclusive relationship. The trap is laid; the surge of parental neediness overwhelms its helpless victim. No longer able to resist, the child’s hungering heart surrenders to the undertow. How sad to hear a child say, “My mom or dad is my best friend.” This narcissistic approach to parenting sacrifices the soul of the favorite child for the abysmal needs of the parent. Children are never meant to bear the crushing weight of being a peer to their parent. Put in this position, over time the child develops a disrespect for the weak parent and an over-inflated sense of importance as they take on the role of parenting their parent.</p>
<p><h3>For Your Eyes Only</h3>
For the vacuous parent it is often difficult for them to see their partiality even as they juggle to hide the inequity through overcompensating with the un-chosen children. However, there is one defining characteristic that can’t be hidden. Ask any child who has endured growing up in a home with a favored sibling and they will share that it wasn’t necessarily that their brother or sister received more attention and material possessions, rather it was the difference in the look of the parent’s eyes. There was a twinkle that spoke volumes. A shimmering delight that the un-chosen child never got.</p>
<p><h3>Engulfed by One and Hated by the Other</h3>
The final blow that crucifies the soul of the favorite child is the abandonment they experience with the exiled parent. The spouse who is displaced by the exclusive relationship will feel fierce jealousy. And rightly so. The adoration and abandoning love fills and swells for the favorite child, stealing from what is ordained for the spouse alone. In the end, the chosen child walks on an emotional tightrope, teetering between being engulfed by one parent and ostracized by other.
Unexplored secrets are more deadly than those acknowledged because they are unconsciously replicated from our past. Adult favorite children can be prone to create alliances in the home and seek to be the star in relationships. If they are unable to leave their parental bond and cleave to their spouse, they are more susceptible to marital affairs because of their inordinate and unmet thirst for deep soul connection and sustained lack of boundaries growing up.
Much of the harm that exists in parent-child alliances can be rectified if the needy spouse will address the issues which causes them to seek a surrogate spouse. Likewise, if the exiled spouse utilizes the protective and kind nature of jealousy to lovingly confront the harm, not only within the spouse and favorite child, but within all family members, relationships can be receptively transformed and secrets exposed by the light of eternity filtering through the hidden recesses of each soul.</p>
<p><h3>The Divine Secret</h3>
Oddly and yet divinely, we are made with a desperate and insatiable hunger to be chosen, cherished, and consecrated to One. It is a reflection of home in our hearts when we will be finally filled and sated in the presence of God. Frederick Buechner writes, “… I suspect that it is by entering that deep place inside us where our secrets are kept that we come perhaps closer than we do anywhere else to the One who, whether we realize it or not, is of all our secrets the most telling and the most precious we have tell.” (Telling Secrets).</p>