Once there was a mother who always compared her two sons. The eldest was obviously her favorite, and was no secret to anyone. Her comments, particularly when she was displeased, usually came out to the advantage of her favorite, sometimes in striking ways. When she rebuked the younger, it was by wondering why he could not be more like his brother. And when she praised him, which was rarely, it was by saying that finally he was starting to resemble his older brother, at least in some small measure.
One day the mother’s sister happened to be visiting for a few days, and saw a particularly ripe example of all this. She had seen it before, but never in quite so glaring a way. Not only so, but it was a delicate matter to bring up because when the two sisters had been growing up, their mother had done the same kind of thing, to the distinct advantage of the mother who was doing this now. She was a kind woman, and the fact that this kind of thing might be painful to someone had never even occurred to her.
The sister’s visit was drawing to a close, and she was trying to figure out if she should do something, and, if so, what it might be. It didn’t seem to her as if having a talk would fix anything. The day before she left, an idea struck her and she went out shopping for presents for the two boys. She came back with a remote control car for the oldest, and a clear plastic baggie with three popsicle sticks in it for the other. She took her sister into her bedroom and showed her the presents she had gotten. Her sister was speechless, and then finally stammered that giving disparate presents like this might cause problems . . . real hurt feelings. “Oh,” the visiting sister said. “I don’t want that. I’ll just give the car to both of them, and they can share.”
But the good news is that about a week after she got home, she received an email from her sister, asking her why she had done that. “You must have had a reason.”