ARE YOUNGER CHILDREN THE FAVOURITES?

Do parents secretly have a favourite child? I swear I don’t. In fact, I am almost neurotic in my declarations of equal love. I tell mine constantly that I love them both exactly the same, usually while one is screaming that the other has been given a bigger chipolata. But equal love is not the same as equal parenting. That, I can believe.

- Isabel Webster

When I think how I agonised over my first child’s diet, I almost laugh. He didn’t taste ice cream until he was nearly three. His little sister, by contrast, was virtually weaned on Pom-Bears because she insisted on having exactly what her older brother had, and I no longer had the strength to fight a toddler over salty snacks.