YOU hear all the time how damaging it can be for parents to play favourites with their children.

A lot of people grow up with self-esteem issues related to their perception that mummy and daddy loved one of their siblings better.

More talented kids often get the lion’s share of attention.

The proud parents of an unusually skilled child will funnel their time and energy into ensuring that he or she rises to the top.

At the other end of the spectrum, problem children also tend to draw attention away from their better behaved brothers and sisters, unfairly monopolising their parents’ time with their naughty antics.

So anyway, yeah, it’s not fair.

But there’s an issue that doesn’t get talked about quite as much that can have equally detrimental effect on family members: Kids can play favourites, too.

My youngest son, Skyler, has been obsessed with my wife from the moment he was born.

His first word was “mummy” and now four years later, every second word out of his mouth is still “mummy”.

After the birth of our first son, my wife lamented the fact that he seemed to be relatively indifferent towards her.

Rather lazy, rebellious and mischievous, he had more in common with me, his no-good father, than with my sweet-natured wife.

When the next son came along, she hoped that he would be more needful of her.

She got what she wanted, and how.

She also learnt that one particular lesson that people seem perpetually incapable of learning well: Be careful what you wish for.

In the morning, he insists that my wife wash him and help brush his teeth. If I try to do it, he will throw a fit. “I want mummy!”

During dinner, he demands that my wife help him eat. He knows how to feed himself, but he prefers that she be the one to hold the spoon.

Every night, at about two o’clock in the morning, Skyler will call out for my wife and every night she ends up having to share a narrow single bed with a squirmy youngster.

We’ve tried to break him of his dependence on her, but he’s stubborn.

I sometimes feel that the kid hardly knows I’m alive, so blase is his attitude toward me.

On certain rare occasions, when my wife is busy, I’m the one who has to pick him up from kindergarten and the look of disappointment on his face is heartbreaking.

“Where’s mummy?” he would ask.

And on the drive home: “Is mummy at home?”

Even when we all go out to kick a football around, the kid would rather have his tiny, unsporty mother on his team than his huge daddy.

Given the state of things, I have to take my moments of fatherly joy where I can find them.

A couple weekends ago, I was sitting on the floor in front of my home PC (it’s on a low table) watching Nosferatu in preparation for a story I was writing about vampire movies.

Skyler came in to see what I was doing, and I was surprised when he hung around to watch the classic black-and-white silent film with me.

He lay down, rested his head on my leg and slowly, slowly fell to sleep.

It seemed like a little miracle.

As the father of a mama’s boy, you take what you can get.

This article was first published in The New Paper.