Mommy’s favorite: should parents try to love their children equally?

Scholars such as S. Matthew Liao have argued that parents have a moral duty to love their children. However, there exists an important related parental duty that has not been defended yet. Besides loving their children, or at least trying to do so, this article argues that at least during their children's childhood, parents should make efforts to love their children equally insofar as they do not already do so. After clarifying the content of this duty, I defend it by suggesting that having a preferred child is a significant risk factor for parental favoritism, which tends to undermine the wellbeing and development of disfavored children, and often that of favored children as well. I go on to consider whether equal parental love is ever permissibly realized through leveling down (i.e. by reducing one's love for the favored child), before identifying two possible exceptions to the proposed duty, both of which involve situations where one's co-parent is unable and/or unwilling to love one's shared children equally. The article ends by exploring potential further arguments for the duty to try to love one's children equally, and by proposing avenues for future research.