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Both Rain Dog and I grew up knowing families with favored children. Each parent had a favorite; that child usually represented an ideal of some kind: either the parent's unfulfilled dreams, or a sense of family bonding that no one else--parents or siblings or spouse or other family--had ever been able to fulfill. On the flip side, we saw, one parent's favorite became the other's anathema--often because s/he represented and maybe even embodied too many of the parent's own flaws.

Parents who favor assume that the child is tabula rasa, the "blank slate" theorized by philosophers including Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, and Freud. Children's personalities, interests, aptitudes, and other psychological traits can be molded; the child, in other words, is what you make him.

Savvy parents, on the other hand, recognize the beginnings of personality as early as their babies' second or third month. A sense of humor starts to emerge; the baby begins to recognize people, figure out likes and dislikes, and basics like the best way to self-comfort.

So it scared me deeply when I started to recognize elements of favoritism creeping into my own thoughts. Why, I wondered, did Hamlet have to be so complex, so intense? Why the tantrums? Why are preschoolers so complicated, compared to baby siblings who only fuss when tired, wet or dirty, hungry, or gassy?

I feared that I was risking sibling rivalry. The favorites we knew were played off against each other, and when they were old enough, learned how to do it themselves. How would Hamlet react when he sensed that I preferred to take care of his brother?

That lasted all of a few hours. Before long, Boris started to fuss. As far as I could tell, he wasn't wet or dirty; had been fed and burped; and while he was likely tired, he wasn't going to sleep. If only he could talk. Heck, if only he could self-comfort, I found myself thinking. Why are babies so helpless? Why is their communication so primitive?

When I had Boris, I knew there would be a period of adjustment while we all figured out each other's personalities and our new or adjusted roles, but I didn't anticipate that part of it would involve comparisons--at least, not so early. However, I realized that it didn't mean I liked one boy more than another. Instead it meant that I was learning, on a however rudimentary level, about their differences. And that's the first step toward appreciating them for who and what they are--and what they grow to become.