Do Parents Have Favorite Children? Of Course They Do.

In a society that frowns upon the unequal treatment of children, measuring parental favoritism is no easy feat. When J. Jill Suitor, a professor of sociology at Purdue University, first set out to recruit mothers to what would become the largest longitudinal study on the effect of parental favoritism, she remembered her family’s skepticism. “No one is going to answer your questions,” one family member warned. “Good parents don’t do that.”