favoritism

I'm looking for some perspective here, particularly from other parents, about something that's been troubling me for more than two years.

I find myself continually favoring one child over the other.

This first came up back when Chris was still here. I don't remember how it came up, but one evening in the kitchen by ourselves Niki spelled it out for me point-blank: "You love him more than you love your own daughter."

That hurt, but I couldn't argue with her. It was true. I had been making an effort to shoulder more of the burden with Chris because he was such a handful for Niki and she had a hard time dealing with his issues, and in the process ended up spending more time with him than I was spending with Eowyn, and becoming closer emotionally to him than I had been with Eowyn.

I made a point of correcting that, and spent as much time with Eowyn as I could. I went out of my way to mend the relationship with her and to make it clear to her that I love her with all my heart. Although it's been strained by the hours I've had to give Worrall NEwspapers, Eowyn and I have a strong relationship.

You can probably tell where this is going. I don't feel as close to Ruth as I do to Eowyn, and -- I hate to say this -- I don't enjoy her as much as I do Eowyn. I love to watch her develop and I take pleasure in her accomplishments, and I enjoy going for walks with her and letting her sleep on my shoulder -- but the relationship I have with Eowyn is not there. I don't know what it is -- maybe it's because Eowyn has a lot of my personality and some similar interests, and Ruth until recently has been the quiet, personalityless baby -- but I find myself time and again favoring Eowyn over Ruth.

It actually started fairly early on. For whatever reason, when Eowyn was a newborn, I could walk her around for hours and never once complain about the lost sleep or the time it took for her to settle down. With Ruth, I never had that zeal for staying up with her, and tonight found myself resenting the fit she threw about having to go to sleep, and the inconvenience at having to let her sleep on my chest until Niki came home.

I'm told this is fairly natural and normal, and it may very well be so, but it still eats at me. I don't *want* to play favorites. I want my children each to feel and to be special to their father, and I don't want one of them being able to point at another and say, "There's the one Dad loves." My brothers and I can do that to an extent with our mother, and even can point to where it shifted from one brother to another; and my mother never had any doubts which of her sisters was favored by which parent -- and who get what was left over, if anything.

In some ways, I suppose the situation here is to be expected. Ruth was born less than a month after Chris moved back with his parents. She came at the best possible time -- her arrival helped us to move on from our grief -- and also at the worst possible time -- the joy that should have welcomed her arrival was mixed with tears. (The painful irony is that Ruth is named after my grandmother, whose older brother had died shortly before she was born. My great-grandfather wanted a son to replace the one he had lost, and never got over her being a girl. I also wanted a son.)

So ... any insight from other parents here? How do you avoid playing favorites with your children? And how have others of us dealt with seeing the favoritism that our parents played?