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Mom or Dad Always Liked you Best

1-gus2-300x2401-150x150-largeMom or Dad always liked you best is a phrase no parent wants to hear. The Smothers Brothers became very popular with that phrase except Tommy always said Mom to Dickie. Only children don’t have this problem but once you have two or more children regardless of how fair you are to all of them, they each think you are favoring one of their siblings. With the Smothers Brothers it was a funny joke. How often have you heard “You are favoring Janie/Jimmy over me? My own children still do it and they are adults! When Miss Patty, who has one child, a son, whose niece came to stay with her to attend classes at a different college, she was amazed to see this rivalry. It was almost comical because her son loved his cousin but suddenly she was his rival. In the Good Gus Series there are only three families with more than one child. The Bands have the twins, J.C. and Bronco; the Kelly’s have four children Henry, Haley, Rose and JR the baby, Joe junior; and the Andersons have two children Andy and Katie.. I never wrote about sibling rivalry. I wanted the children to see that families could get along and not compare themselves to their siblings. I also felt it was a confidence booster for the readers to see harmony among all the children. I did write about boys versus girls because that will always exist. When our children were young boys hated girls and girls hated boys until they were older. I didn’t include that rivalry but I did write about boys being too confident at winning against girls. In “Girls Rule” the boys are sure that they don’t need to practice to win a race. The girls worked hard as they really wanted to win.  Book seven, “The New Library” introduces Heather as a new character.  The twin boys were wary of her at first but once they realized she liked to play and have fun, she became their new friend.  If you are looking for new books that will quietly teach your children that there is really no need for sibling rivalry, please check out the Good Gus Series and hopefully you won’t hear “Mom or Dad always liked you best.”

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