The most difficult task in the world has always been raising children from birth to adulthood. This includes raising them physically, psychologically, spiritually, socially, etc.
Throughout this process, we experience ups and downs. We make mistakes and learn from them. A human life is sacred, and that means it should never be a draft. Though it is inevitable.
When you give birth to your first child, it becomes your first experience of raising a child, and you will necessarily make a bunch of mistakes.
However, some mistakes are to be avoided, and we must all know them before we even enter the realm of parenting.
One of those mistakes is treating children in the family inequitably.
Children are a blessing. Even though they might come from the same parents (father and mother), we cannot expect them to look alike or act the same way 100%. It is impossible.
They might come from the same parents, but they are different physiologically, mentally, psychologically, and emotionally.
As parents, we should know that our children’s differences can never be the root of giving them inequitable treatment.
The story of Joseph in the Bible is a very good example (Genesis 37).
Jacob loved Joseph more than his other children. That was because Joseph was born to him in his old age, according to the Bible, but our problem here is not about when he had him.
Jacob made a special gift for Joseph: a beautiful robe made with different colors, something he had never done for his eleven other children.
The special treatment Joseph was receiving from his father made his brothers hate him, even if they couldn’t say it openly.
Joseph, a young boy who never held any grudges against anybody, was turned against his elder brothers by the special treatment he was receiving from his father.
His brothers didn’t hate him because of something bad he did to them, but simply because of how their father loved him with a special kind of love he never showed them.
Was this his brothers’ fault? Were they bad people?
Everyone tends to blame them, but we often forget that inequitable love or treatment creates resentment and stirs up questions.
Human beings have a very strong sense of fairness and belonging. When we expect equal treatment and it doesn’t happen, the brain interprets it as rejection or injustice. That can trigger emotions like jealousy, resentment, hurt, and anger.
Often, the hatred is not really about the person, but about the pain of feeling less valued.
In situations where people were supposed to be loved equally, the deepest wound is usually: Why am I less important? Why was I not chosen the same way?
So the emotion is often pain disguised as anger.
Coming back to the story of Joseph, his brothers went far beyond the limit and chose to sell him. All this because of how much he was loved by his father.
You are probably saying that it was God’s plan and that it had to happen that way. I don’t disagree.
But just because it was planned does not change the fact that it was a parenting mistake.
When you love one child more than the others in the family, it is not – love, it is separatism.
When you always buy gifts for one child and ignore the others, you technically turn the other children against the most loved one.
Sometimes you do it as a form of appreciation to show others how they should act to earn your love.
But to be honest, your children should never have to beat themselves up to earn your love.
When you prioritize one child, keep one child closer, and ignore the others, you create the devil in those children. They feel unseen, they resent, they become dangerous to you, and they hate their sibling for no reason.
Let us seek wisdom in our parenting, treat children equally, and build families marked by fairness, fraternity, and tolerance.
