Which Son Do I Like Best?

Some time ago, I listened, with wrinkled brow and rankled sensibilities, to a guy being interviewed on the radio. He had written a book about parenthood and one of his contentions was that parents have a favorite child when they have multiple children. He argued this was natural. What's more, he argued it was inevitable.

"Nonsense," I barked, sitting at a red light. "Anyone who has a favorite among his children is a bad parent. Bottom line."

MC Escher

But last night, my wife and I were out for some rare grown-up time (the kids were living it up at my mom and dad's house in a wonderland of donuts and infinite video-game time) and she and I got to talking about one of my sons. We both got the warm-fuzzies about something he typically does.


"Well, there it is," I said. "I just had an epiphany."

"What is it?" my wife said, preparing for yet another such announcement in a twenty-year string of such  dramatic revelations.

What I realized was that the fellow on the radio was right about natural favoritism in parents. I don't love my sons equally. I do have a favorite. It's quite simple: they are both my favorite at opposite, concurrent and alternating times, all at once. They are, both of them, my favorite person in the world.

If that were not the case, I would, indeed, be horrible parent.

I mean this completely, not as a clever evasion, but as the only way to represent how I feel about my boys. It's like a puzzle of quantum physics, but for the emotions. Sometimes the inexplicable is the only possible explanation.

It's the only possible truth on this matter.