There aren't a lot of ironclad rules of family life, but here's one: No matter how much your parents deny it - and here's betting they deny it a lot - they have a favorite child. And if you're a parent, so do you.
Interpretation
Parents often have a preferred child, even if they deny it.
This quote highlights the unspoken dynamics within families, suggesting that favoritism exists among parents regarding their children, regardless of whether they admit it. It sheds light on the complexities of familial relationships and the emotional impact that perceived favoritism can have on siblings and family life.
In practice
You might use this quote during a family gathering to spark a light-hearted discussion about family dynamics.
Humans have a fraught relationship with beasts. They are our companions and our chattel, our family members and our laborers, our household pets and our household pests. We love them and cage them, admire them and abuse them. And, of course, we cook and eat them.
The truth, of course, is that the only necessary and sufficient condition for human beings to murder one another is the simple fact of being human.
Marriage is a lot of things - a source of love, security, the joy of children, but it's also an interpersonal battlefield, and it's not hard to see why: Take two disparate people, toss them together in often-confined quarters, add the stresses of money and kids - now lather, rinse, repeat for the rest of your natural life. What could go wrong?
There are a lot of obstacles in the way of our understanding animal intelligence - not the least being that we can't even agree whether nonhuman species are conscious. We accept that chimps and dolphins experience awareness; we like to think dogs and cats do. But what about mice and newts? What about a fly? Is anything going on there at all?
Be the best father you can be to your children. Because nothing is more important.
To maintain a joyful family requires much from both the parents and the children. Each member of the family has to become, in a special way, the servant of the others.
A lot of mothers will do anything for their children, except let them be themselves.
I never had a lot of drive, but because I had family responsibilities, I had a lot of tenacity - the tenacity of a drowning man.
If I were dammed of body and soul, I know whose prayers would make me whole, mother o' mine o mother o' mine.
I cannot however help repeating Piety, because I think it indispensible. Religion in a Family is at once its brightest Ornament & its best Security.
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