Maternal Favouritism Ripple Effects
Maternal favouritism at any age can impact yours and your siblings lives.
It can affect the relationship you have between you and your mother; between you and your father; between you and your siblings; and it can affect you, including the trajectory of your life.
Let’s look at what can happen and how to take back control of your wellbeing and your life.
Maternal Favouritism and ‘Disfavouritism’ Research
Researchers set out to understand how maternal favouritism and ‘disfavouritism’ during a child’s adulthood years, affected his/her wellbeing [1].
Using the Within-Family Differences Study-II, researchers sourced the data of mothers who were 65-75 years old with at least two living adult children, in 2008–2011. The data used consisted of 725 adult children from within 309 families.
Their key findings were as follows:
- Adult children who perceived that they had the greatest conflict with their mothers had higher depressive symptoms.
- Adult children who perceived that they had been the children in whom their mothers were most disappointed had higher depressive symptoms.
- Adult children who perceived that they had the most emotional closeness to mothers also had higher depressive symptoms.
Okay! So even during adulthood, maternal favouritism can have far reaching consequences for both victims of disfavouritism and favouritism. Let’s take a closer look at each with some tips from me should either of these resonate.
Perception Of Greatest Conflict With Mothers Linked To Higher Depressive Symptoms
Lots of conflict with one’s mother is a distressing situation for any child to find themselves in at any age. Your mother is supposed to love you and care for you and yet with high conflict between you, and given the aforementioned link to higher depressive symptoms, you’ll likely engage in thoughts and behaviours, accidentally, that sabotage your own goals and happiness.
For example, high maternal conflict could lead you to believe that perhaps you’re not likeable enough or good enough, hindering your self-worth. Subsequently, you might feel sad and/or hopeless, and you might withdraw from others and/or engage in negative self-talk, all of which would have negative consequences, as a ripple effect, in your life. Think relationships, career, health behaviours.
Key Takeaway
Therefore, nourishing your feelings of worth will be important for your recovery and for you to thrive, and working to change the relationship dynamic with your mother can create massive changes too.
Perception Of Being The Most Disappointing Child Linked To Higher Depressive Symptoms
That sentence hurts my heart so much – ‘perception of being the most disappointing child’. For adult children of 65-75 years old mothers to feel this way and have those depressive symptoms, chances are these maternal relationships have always been at least somewhat oppressive, and these adults may have been struggling with their worth since childhood.
Either way, this perception of their maternal-child relationship will have negatively impacted their self-image and, consequently, choices they will have made in their lives that brought them to this sad place in their adulthood.
How you see yourself, how you think your mother sees you, and how your mother treats you, can determine a great deal about what you think you are worthy of and capable of.
Key Takeaway
Therefore, this is the time to (a) nourish your self-worth and (b) separate fiction from reality, embrace your authentic self, and grow in the direction of self-realisation and happiness. Think of it this way: ‘Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.’ Rather, you must find the right path in life for YOU.
Perception Of Most Emotional Closeness To Mothers Linked To Higher Depressive Symptoms
You might think that perceiving oneself to be the most emotionally close to one’s mother would be purely beneficial – a launch pad to a great life, one of internal ease and external successes. However, what might come with such closeness is a mixture of rivalry, high expectations, inordinate family pressures, and mixed emotions.
This prime position in the family’s emotional-connectedness constellation could be causing ongoing conflict between you and your siblings, albeit subtly; those who see you as the favourite might be jealous, bully you, behave passive-aggressively towards you, and be actively sabotaging your relationships, health, career, and life goals.
Equally, your mother may have higher expectations of you in terms of how much you do for your family, and what you achieve personally and professionally; and your parents and siblings may expect you to take on much more responsibility for your ageing parents as they require more physical and emotional support.
All in all, being the ‘favourite’ can come with pressures and contempt from others. Pressure on your time, energy and other resources, and facing the brunt of rivalry, jealousy, bullying, and so on.
Key Takeaway
Therefore, finding balance in your life, safeguarding yourself from others’ toxic behaviours, and owning your worth and your right to a fulfilling life, will be of utmost importance.
You Are Worthy
In the words of Les Brown, ‘Someone’s opinion of you does not have to become your reality’.
What matters is what you do now to take charge of what you can.
How you nourish your self-worth and maintain healthy self-esteem.
How you transform unhealthy relationships with others into healthy relationships, or failing that, safeguard yourself from their negative repercussions.
How you carve out your right to a balanced, fulfilling life.
And learning to know when to say, ‘Yes, please’ or ‘Yes, thank you’, and when to say ‘Thank you, but no thank you.’
Own your worth and the right people for your life will too. And when you do, you will make choices that are right for you.
References
1. Suitor, J. J., Gilligan, M., Peng, S., Jung, J. H., & Pillemer, K. (2017). Role of Perceived Maternal Favoritism and Disfavoritism in Adult Children’s Psychological Well-Being. The Journals of Gerontology. Series B, Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 72(6), 1054–1066. https://doi.org/10.1093/geronb/gbv089
