What remains unspoken settles into the unconscious and acts from there
En casi todas las familias late una pregunta que pocos se atreven a formular en voz alta: ¿existe un hijo preferido? La psicóloga Deborah Bellota confirma que sí, pero desplaza el debate desde el amor hacia la identificación, recordándonos que los padres no eligen sus preferencias con malicia sino que las heredan de sus propias historias no resueltas. Lo que está en juego no es el afecto, sino la conciencia: la capacidad de mirar hacia adentro antes de que el silencio familiar haga el daño por nosotros.
- La psicóloga Deborah Bellota irrumpe en el debate familiar con una confirmación incómoda: el favoritismo parental existe, es medible y deja marcas psicológicas en todos los hijos, no solo en los postergados.
- El hijo preferido carga con el peso invisible de las expectativas elevadas, desarrollando ansiedad crónica y una autocrítica devastadora ante cualquier error.
- El hijo no preferido absorbe, sin que nadie se lo diga explícitamente, una sensación persistente de insuficiencia que erosiona su autoestima desde adentro.
- El orden de nacimiento agrava el panorama: el primogénito bajo escrutinio permanente, el del medio buscando su lugar, el menor ganando libertad a costa de la atención que sus hermanos sí recibieron.
- La salida que propone Bellota es exigente: los padres deben verbalizar lo que sienten, examinar sus propias proyecciones y traer intención consciente a la forma en que distribuyen su atención entre cada hijo.
La pregunta aparece en casi todas las mesas familiares, pero pocas veces se responde con honestidad. La psicóloga Deborah Bellota llegó a los estudios de LN+ para decir lo que muchos sospechan: sí, existe un hijo preferido. Pero aclaró de inmediato que eso no tiene que ver con el amor, sino con la identificación. Los padres no eligen conscientemente a un favorito; la preferencia emerge del encuentro entre sus propias ambiciones no cumplidas y el temperamento particular de cada hijo.
Un padre que abandonó la música puede volcar toda su atención en el hijo que muestra aptitud artística. Otro puede sentirse más cómodo con el hijo cuya personalidad se parece a la suya, o con aquel cuyo comportamiento resulta más manejable. Los niños, por su parte, no son pasivos en esta dinámica: perciben el clima del hogar a través de gestos, tonos y silencios mucho antes de entender las palabras. Una mirada que se ilumina o se apaga, un suspiro inconsciente: todo queda registrado.
El costo psicológico del favoritismo alcanza a ambos lados. El hijo preferido parece haber ganado, pero convive con expectativas altísimas que se convierten en ansiedad permanente. Bellota ha atendido adultos que fueron hijos favoritos y hoy no toleran sus propios errores, porque internalizaron que siempre deben ser excepcionales. El hijo no preferido, en cambio, carga con una sensación silenciosa de no ser suficiente, que corroe su autoestima sin que nadie haya dicho nada explícito.
El orden de nacimiento dibuja patrones reconocibles: el primogénito bajo el peso del escrutinio y los errores parentales de aprendizaje; el hijo del medio buscando su lugar entre la novedad del primero y la indulgencia hacia el último; el menor creciendo con más libertad y menos vigilancia, lo que le otorga independencia pero también distancia.
Bellota no ofrece soluciones sencillas. La herramienta más poderosa que tienen las familias, dice, es la verbalización: nombrar lo que se siente, examinar las propias proyecciones, traer conciencia a lo que de otro modo actúa desde las sombras. Lo que permanece sin decir no desaparece; se instala en el inconsciente y moldea la dinámica familiar sin que nadie lo entienda del todo. El amor hacia cada hijo es real, pero no es estático ni idéntico, y reconocer eso con honestidad es el primer paso para que el favoritismo deje de hacer daño en silencio.
The question surfaces at nearly every family dinner table: Do parents really have a favorite child? Psychologist Deborah Bellota arrived at the studios of LN+ with a straightforward answer. Yes, she said. But not for the reasons most people think.
Bellota has spent years in clinical practice watching families navigate this uncomfortable terrain. She confirmed what research has long suggested—that parental favoritism is real and measurable. But she was careful to reframe what it actually means. "It's not about love," she explained. "It's about identification." Parents don't consciously decide to prefer one child over another out of malice or cruelty. Instead, favoritism emerges from the complex interplay between a parent's own unfulfilled ambitions and the distinct temperament each child brings into the world.
Many parents, Bellota observed, project their own unrealized dreams onto their children. A parent who abandoned music lessons as a teenager might pour particular attention and expectation onto a child who shows musical aptitude. Another parent might gravitate toward the child whose personality mirrors their own, or toward the one whose behavior feels most manageable. A calm, rule-following child might naturally draw more parental warmth than a restless sibling constantly testing boundaries. The preference isn't calculated; it emerges from the texture of daily interaction.
Children themselves are not passive in this dynamic. They develop their own preferences too. A child might prefer doing homework with one parent and playing sports with the other, not because of any deficit in either relationship but because of how those specific pairings feel. And here lies a crucial insight: children don't merely hear the words parents speak. They absorb the climate of the home through gesture, tone, and behavior. A parent's unconscious sigh, the way their eyes light up or dim, the energy they bring to an interaction—children register all of it. Actions, Bellota emphasized, carry far more weight than words during childhood, but those actions must be guided by conscious awareness.
The psychological toll of favoritism extends in both directions. The preferred child often appears to have won the lottery—admired, watched, invested in. But this position carries its own burden. High expectations become a constant weight. The child knows the bar is set higher and lives with the perpetual anxiety of falling short. Bellota has sat with adults in her office who were once favored children, now wrestling with crushing self-criticism and the inability to tolerate their own mistakes. They internalized the message that they must always be exceptional, and anything less triggers deep distress.
The non-preferred child faces a different wound. They experience a pervasive sense of insufficiency, a quiet knowledge that they don't quite measure up. Their self-esteem suffers not from overt rejection but from the subtle mathematics of parental attention and investment.
Birth order creates predictable patterns. The firstborn arrives as pure expectation—the most watched, the most scrutinized, bearing the weight of every parental mistake and learning curve. The middle child often finds themselves adrift, neither the novelty of the first nor the indulgence of the last, struggling to locate their own distinct place in the family constellation. The youngest frequently grows up with more freedom, less surveillance, developing independence and a comfort with risk-taking that their older siblings never quite achieved.
Bellota offered a path forward, though not an easy one. The most important tool families possess is verbalization. Parents must name what they notice in themselves—the different feelings they have toward each child, the projections they carry, the ways their own history shapes their parenting. What remains unspoken settles into the unconscious and acts from there, shaping family dynamics in ways no one fully understands. Each family is its own world, Bellota reminded her audience, and love itself is not static. It changes, shifts, and deepens differently with each child. But if favoritism is real—and the evidence suggests it is—then families must look directly at it, speak about it, and bring conscious intention to how they distribute their attention and affection across all their children.
Notable Quotes
It's not about love, it's about identification— Deborah Bellota, psychologist
What remains unspoken settles into the unconscious and acts from there— Deborah Bellota, on the importance of verbalizing family differences
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
When you say favoritism isn't about love, what do you mean exactly? Aren't parents just loving one child more?
No. Love is usually there for all of them. What changes is identification—how much a parent sees themselves in a child, or how much a child's temperament aligns with what the parent finds easiest to manage. A calm child might get more warmth simply because the parent feels less friction with them.
So it's almost accidental?
Largely, yes. Parents aren't sitting down thinking, "I'll favor this one." It happens through thousands of small moments—the tone of voice, who gets more eye contact, whose achievements get celebrated more visibly. Children absorb all of it.
What about the child who knows they're not the favorite? How does that shape them?
They develop a sense of insufficiency that can last into adulthood. They internalize that they're somehow not quite enough. It's not dramatic rejection—it's more like being perpetually in the background.
And the favorite child—surely they benefit?
You'd think so, but they're often anxious. They know the expectations are higher. They feel the weight of being the one the parent is most invested in. Many become perfectionists who can't tolerate their own mistakes.
How do families actually fix this?
By talking about it. Parents need to examine what's happening in themselves and put it into words. What they don't say lives in the unconscious and drives behavior anyway. Naming it is the first step.
Is it possible to stop favoring one child?
Not entirely—temperament and identification are real. But you can become conscious of it and intentionally distribute your attention differently. That awareness itself changes how the favoritism plays out.