What can happen when parents show favoritism…

If you struggle with being a people-pleaser like we talked about last week, or generally feel like you have perform in order to valuable, one possible source could be parents who showed favoritism between you and your sibling(s).

In the BUILD method of growing in your faith, we look at uncovering the lies that we believe (U) and then investigating where those lies came from (I). One lie that I have struggled with has been that my value is wrapped up in how well I do something or what I bring to a relationship. I discovered that one source of that lie was the fact that my parents showed favoritism between my brother and I growing up. I’m sure I’m not the only one who has been in this situation. (For an overview of the entire BUILD method, click here.)

First, this is not a parent-bashing post. As a parent, I can testify that raising kids can be really challenging. It can be hard when one child is very compliant and “easy” where others resist your guidance and leadership (to put it mildly and diplomatically…). My husband likes to say that kids are like bolts that need to be loosened. Some bolts require a light tap and other require a blowtorch. It’s tricky to manage different personalities of kids without showing favoritism. We’re not perfect parents, and neither were our parents. My goal is not to berate them, but to simply understand in our own lives, how their parenting, or our perception of it, shaped us and created lies that we struggle with.

Which leads to my second point: Your parents may not have loved you and your siblings any differently, but if you perceived that they did, it’s still going to create the same struggles in you. Your parents may not have erred in this area, but if, as a child, you felt that they did, it’s going to affect you the same as if they really did. Those of us who have kids can attest to how their perceptions of events don’t always line up with reality!

The other thing I’ve realized as I’ve gotten older, is that my parents were products of their own parents, who passed along varying degrees of dysfunction to them. I’ve grown to have more compassion for them and less criticism. They had their own baggage that they brought into parenting and life in general.

With all that said, what can happen when our parents show favoritism between us and our siblings? (Or we feel like they do…)

It can create a conditional, works-based view of relationships.

My pastor mentioned this in a sermon a year or so ago and it was such an eye opener to me. I had just one younger brother. I was the compliant, “easy” child and my brother was a complete rebel. I have always struggled with a works-based view of relationships. I’ve wrestled with the lie that my value in a relationship comes from what I can contribute or how helpful I can be.

“But I’m the good kid - the favored one - why would I struggle with that mentality?”

Because I realized that if I didn’t remain being the “good kid”, I could lose my favored status just like my brother did.

Lightbulb!

The lie that I learned was that love is conditional. So I’d better keep on being good if I wanted to keep that love.

Now, the Bible certainly does talk about blessings and cursing based on our behavior. Unconditional love does not mean no consequences for poor choices and no rewards for good ones. Deuteronomy 28 spells out to the Israelites what blessings they will receive if they follow God’s commands and what curses will happen if they fail to do so. And there were lots of times in their history when they failed! And yet they never ceased to be God’s chosen people. He always embraced them back again when they repented and turned back to Him. He still loved them, even in their disobedience, while they were being punished.

This is an area that I think my husband does really well. Our three kids are definitely different and require different levels of discipline in different seasons of their lives. But whenever one of them is disciplined, once the consequences are over, he always makes sure that he spends quality time with that child to reaffirm his love and renew his fellowship with him or her.

My parents weren’t good with consistent consequences for my brother’s behavior. So instead of them doling out punishment and then renewing their fellowship with him, they were constantly annoyed and fighting with him and each other, never really getting anywhere in teaching him to be a civil member of society. I’m also not convinced that he rested in their unconditional love for him. He became an alcoholic and died several years ago in a drunk motorcycle accident.

I was the compliant child, got good grades and made good decisions. My parents would say things like, “I wish your brother was more like you.” Even our teachers would ask, “You’re Amy’s brother?” in amazement when he would have the same class a few years after I did. The insinuation was that he wasn’t a “good kid” like I was.

The subtle message underneath all that was that if I didn’t keep on being the good kid making good decisions, I might lose my status just like he did.

What does this look like as adults? What lies do we embrace and how does that affect our relationship with God?

1. We can embrace the lie that our relationships with others are based on what we bring to the table.

2. This can lead us to become people-pleasers - doing whatever will make others happy with us. It also can make us defensive when criticized, since we believe that our value comes from what we do right. When we do something wrong, then that value is threatened, which is very scary!

3. Since we tend to get our view of God from our relationship with our parents, favoritism can lead to us having a works-based relationship with God. We can think that if we sin too many times that He will give up on us. It creates insecurity, fear, and anxiety. We can say that we believe God loves us unconditionally, but do we really live that way? With confidence that we go with God no matter what?

How do we fix it?

You’ve investigated the source of the lie you believe. If you have found that you struggle with being a people pleaser or works based thinking, perhaps you’ve traced it to the fact that your parents practiced favoritism between you and your sibling(s) - or at least you perceived that to be the case.

Now what?

Forgive.

Forgive your parents for not being perfect. Let them off the hook. Let God work with them. Realize that they were dealing with their own baggage from how THEY grew up. And in some cases (mine, for example), they didn’t know God themselves. They couldn’t be expected to mirror His character when they didn’t even know Him.

Then reinforce what God’s Word says is true about you and your relationship with Him.

“In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.” Ephesians 1:11-14

“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8

Those are a couple verses, but there are others.

For more information on how to use BUILD to uncover lies from your past and grow in your relationship with Jesus, take a look at the overview here.