I’m a mum-of-9 and homeschool them all – the clever way they know I don’t have a favourite
IF you’re a mum with more than one child, chances are you often worry about showing favouritism.
So imagine the constant battle you’d face if you have 9 kids – well, that’s the reality that a woman named Jenn Hoskins faces on a day-to-day basis.
But thankfully, the mum-of-9, who homeschools all of her kids, has shared the clever way they know she doesn’t have a favourite.
In a clip shared to TikTok (@jennhoskins), she addresses her social media followers and asks: “What do you do if you have more than one child and you don’t want them to ever think that somebody’s the favourite?”
In the clip, she explains: “With 9 children, this is something that I war against because 1. I see how dramatically different each one of them are.
“And 2. I know that if I were in their position, I wouldn’t want to ever feel like I was inferior to somebody else.”
Jenn begins by explaining that the first thing she does is to tell them all the time they they’re her favourite.
“I don’t share my kids name, so let’s use my dogs,” she explains.
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“You’re my favourite Bow, you’re my favourite, Arrow.”
Next, the mum-of-nine says she’ll always say one thing she really likes about them.
“Usually I’ll say it at least once a day every time I hug them, along with something along the lines of, ‘I’m so thankful I get to be your mum.'”
She adds: “Another good thing to do is to make sure that you’re publicly recognising their strengths with other siblings around and that you’re doing it evenly distributed to everybody.
“Then they’ll see everybody getting a chance to get their strengths recognised,” Jenn explains.
The busy mum notes that another aspect is you don’t want to treat everybody “equally,” you want to treat everybody “fairly.”
“Let’s use the example of getting a gift because we all have experienced buying people gifts,” she continues.
“You don’t want to get the same gift for everybody in a crowd.
“I don’t like gifts, I’m just not a ‘stuff’ person.
“However, if somebody showed up with the Lego monorail set from 1988 that I didn’t get for Christmas, that may be a gift I’d want…but the gift is actually in somebody knowing that.
“That was something I wanted desperately and still want even 30 years later, so the gift there is knowing that somebody heard me.”
She goes on to say how others may want something handmade while some may opt for a fancy food basket.
“They’re all gifts, but they’re different,” she points out.
“It’s not equal. It’s fair.”
Jenn explains how that’s just one example, but urges people to use that in the same way.
“Whatever you are going to do for your kids, you want to make sure that your affection and your attention towards your children is equally distributed, but not equally given.”
The post has since gone viral, racking up thousands of views and several comments from parents up and down the country.
“My mum would always say your my favourite name or your my favourite age, my brother always got the your my favourite son, he’s the only boy,” wrote one.
A second enthused: “This is great advice!”
A third commented: “I don’t do the favourites thing but my teen keeps pointing out one of her sisters as her favourite and it’s making me crazy!!”
Meanwhile, a fourth added: “I constantly tell each of them that they’re my favourite right in front of the rest of them.
“Then I deny having favourites. Keep ‘em on their toes!”