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THERE ARE FEW taboos left in the world of parenting these days. The stigma that was once attached to discussing subjects like perinatal depression, gender disappointment, not bonding with your newborn from the off, miscarriage and IVF is all but gone, thankfully.

Openly admitting you have a favourite child, however, remains very much a taboo subject and is not something parents are ever supposed to say out loud. That is, of course, unless you’re Katherine Ryan.

The outspoken comedian recently dared to say the quiet part out loud, admitting that she does indeed have a favourite child. “I can say it. Violet’s my favourite. She’s the firstborn daughter,” Ryan told Davina McCall’s Begin Again podcast.

Ryan, who raised 17-year-old Violet largely by herself after separating from her father, also has three other children: Fred (3), Fenna (2) and Holland (9 months) with husband Bobby Kootstra.

“[And] I think people don’t like that,” she continued. “That’s a very provocative thing to say as well. I don’t worry about it hurting the other kids’ feelings, because guess what? Those are nepo babies.

Violet is my favourite,” she added, because her siblings will get to “go to private school, grow up with a dad. Life’s not fair. She’s my favourite,” to which McCall replied, “That makes sense in a way, doesn’t it? They have privileges she doesn’t.”

You can imagine the reception Katherine Ryan received in the comments section after that admission. She was accused of damaging her children by making such an open statement. Something the righteous commenters were quick to declare they could never, ever do. But if we’re being honest, was Ryan just verbalising something that all parents feel deep down inside, whether they want to admit it or not?

The unpalatable truth is we try to hide when it comes up, or we convince ourselves that we are somehow better than the rest, because we don’t have a favourite and could never choose between our children?

Research tells us that most parents do, in fact, have a favourite child. In one study in the UK, up to 74% of mothers and 70% of fathers have been shown to exhibit preferential treatment towards one child over another.

Last year, a meta-analysis by the American Psychological Association, where researchers analysed data from 30 studies and 14 databases with information on more than 19,000 people found that even if you don’t think you have a favourite child, you probably do, because parents will subconsciously favour daughters, younger siblings and children who are more agreeable and conscientious.

Having a favourite child feels like the ultimate taboo for a parent because it assumes that we choose one, to the detriment of the other, but the reality is often not so black and white. I could point out plenty of times I’ve unconsciously come down on the side of my youngest over my eldest when they are disputing the result of some game they are playing, because he is the younger sibling, when in fact, I’m meant to be the impartial referee.

Or times when I’ve rewarded my eldest because he is the more reliable one. As the research alludes to, agreeability plays a bigger role than any of us realise. Is it simply human nature, isn’t it? To sometimes gravitate towards the child who goes up to bed without a huge fuss when you’re exhausted or the one who listened the first time when asked to put on their shoes.

The truth is most parents will lean into one child over another or connect with them differently at different stages of their life. Maybe your child has recently taken up the sport you love, and you bond over your new shared interest? Maybe your other child has hit that sweet spot between toddlerhood and the tweenager years and is just bloody lovely company right now.

Or on the flip side, maybe your teenager is in the slamming doors stage at the moment, and you can say nothing right or maybe your toddler is going through the mother-and-father-or-all-meltdown stages (my thoughts and prayers on that one; it will pass, I promise) and you cannot wait for the clock to hit bedtime.

If you ever feel guilty over it, let’s not forget most children will have a favourite parent, that changes with the wind. One day it’s the parent who let them go out for ice cream, another day it’s the one who let them stay up 10 minutes later. I honestly think for the most part, these patches of surface-level favouritism within families are completely normal, once it’s underpinned by the fundamental that you love and adore your children equally; and that’s the big difference. I’d happily jump in front of a speeding train for either of my kids, and feeling like you’ve a favourite for a day is completely different to a change in how you love them. That’s got to be the constant.

You get the sense that’s the case with Katherine Ryan and her saying the quiet bit out loud was one part tongue-in-cheek, and by her own admission, one part a protective instinct. A way to rebalance the scales for her eldest, whom she feels was at a disadvantage compared to her subsequent children. Still, thinking it and saying it out loud feel like two very different things, and I can’t help but feel it’s not a card you should ever play lightly, if at all.

In other cases, where telling someone they are a favourite child is less well-intentioned, that perceived parental favouritism has been associated with low self-esteem in children, as well as childhood anxiety, depression and behavioural problems.

It’s not all roses for the so-called “golden child” in these scenarios either. They can live their lives under intense pressure to be perfect all the time, to maintain their invisible halo and can even feel alienated from their siblings.

You might be wondering if I have a favourite child then? Of course not. I love both my kids equally. But if the house catches fire, I’m grabbing the one who actually puts their shoes on the first time I ask them. Joking aside, unless I find myself in a scene from Sophie’s Choice, I won’t be divulging that information any time soon.

What I do know is that feeling like you have a favourite child at certain times, and another one at others, is completely normal, and you shouldn’t beat yourself up over it.

You’d be hard-pressed to find a parent with a clean scoresheet for treating their children the same all the time, even though we try our best to be the fairest referee on the pitch.

The real trick is not so much denying the truth; it’s never letting them know this information and loving them equally regardless of it.

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