When my children were very young, I sang them silly songs. Waking them in the morning, as I unpeeled my daughter?s covers, I?d croon: ?Who?s my favourite Jeanne"? I?d pause, tickle. ?It?s Jeanne!? To my son, a similar ditty: ?Who?s my favourite Finn" It?s Finn!? Nowadays, I write them Valentines cards addressed to ?my favourite daughter? or ?favourite son.? Same thing at Christmas. I think it?s hilarious.
I thought I was evading a hopeless contest. Who was my favourite" My daughter, the bright, conniving, trickster girl" Or my son, the sly and poofy-haired sweetheart" Neither! They?re both my favourites!
My attempt at humour masks an obvious taboo. Parents aren?t meant to talk about how these creatures come along with personalities, indelible and already formed. And sometimes this makes them not always equally easy to raise. Sometimes who they are just makes it easier to like them. Like most of us, I think, I prefer easy parenting to excavate-your-human-weaknesses-via-your-offspring parenting. I confess. Anyway, my daughter, Jeanne, arrived as a punchy promise that I?d have a friend for life. How could this not be true" She was me. Roguish, verbose, witty. Independent and hilarious. We went to Mexico City for two weeks while I was pregnant with Finn. She was nearly two years old. We spent our days walking in parks, going to galleries, cramming into women?s-only subway cars. It was bliss. In our last days, she even started to speak some cute lit...