My Son Said He Loves Daddy More: What I Learned About Rudeness and Big Feelings
It happened on a Tuesday evening, during that ragged stretch between dinner and bath when I’m usually boiling pasta with one hand and picking socks up off the floor with the other. My five-year-old was on the kitchen rug with his Duplo bricks. I leaned down to remind him that bath time was in ten minutes, and without even looking up, he said, “I love Daddy more than you.”
I stopped. The pot was rattling. The water in the noodles was starting to foam. “What did you say?” I asked, mostly because I wasn’t sure I heard him right.
“I love Daddy more than you,” he repeated, snapping two red blocks together. Then he pointed to a blue piece and started talking about the crane he was building.
He wasn’t angry. He wasn’t testing me. He said it the same way he might tell me he wanted applesauce instead of crackers.
I’ll be honest: my first instinct was to say, “That hurts Mommy’s feelings.” I could feel the words right there in my throat. But I also knew that was a trap. If I acted hurt, he’d either feel guilty or he’d double down. And the last thing I wanted was to make his love for his dad into something he had to defend.
So I just said, “Okay. You really love your dad.” He nodded and went back to his blocks. I stirred the pasta and tried to decide whether I was fine or not.
That was the first time, but it wasn’t the last. Over the next few weeks, he announced his preference at the weirdest moments. Once, he said it while sitting on my lap. Another time, he said it at breakfast in front of his dad, who shot me a look of pure panic. My husband tried to smooth it over by saying, “Well, I love Mommy a lot,” which just made our son repeat the statement louder.
At first, I treated it as rudeness. I figured we needed to teach him that words can hurt, that he shouldn’t say things like that to people who care for him. But the more I paid attention, the more I realized he wasn’t being mean. He was being four-going-on-five. He was just saying the thing that was true in his head in that moment.
What was true in his head? That’s the part I had to sit with.
Kids don’t have much control over their lives. They don’t choose what’s for dinner, when they go to bed, or whether they have to wear a jacket. But they do get to choose who they love and how much. When my son says, “I love Daddy more,” he’s not actually measuring love. He’s experimenting with power. He’s testing what happens when he says something big and bold. He’s also figuring out if my love is strong enough to survive his independence.
That’s not an excuse for rudeness, by the way. But it’s an explanation, and explanations help me respond instead of react.
I also had to look at my own part in it. Like most families, we have little rituals around love. I’m the one who makes lunches, signs permission slips, and wipes noses. I’m also the one who says “No screens tonight” and “Please wash behind your ears.” Dad walks in the door and immediately gets down on the floor for wrestling. Of course our son wants to announce that right now, in this moment, Dad is the favorite. Dad isn’t the one who reminds him to brush his teeth.
That doesn’t mean I’m doing something wrong. It means we play different roles, and a five-year-old doesn’t have the perspective to hold both at the same time. All he knows is that love is a big feeling, and sometimes he feels it most for whichever parent hasn’t just told him to put his shoes away for the third time.
There were a few small things that helped us get unstuck.
First, I stopped asking the question myself. I didn’t realize how often I was doing it until I noticed my son mirroring me. I’d walk in from work and say, “Who missed me?” Or I’d tuck him in and tease, “You love Mommy so much, right?” That kind of playful stuff can be cute, but it also teaches kids that love is something they have to rank and prove. Once I stopped fishing for affection, there was less pressure on him to make declarations.
Second, I started putting words to the whole picture. When he says he loves his dad more, I don’t brush it off or change the subject. I say something like, “I’m glad you love Daddy so much. You’ve got a whole heart, and there’s room for lots of people in it.” Sometimes I add, “You love me too, even when you love Daddy a little extra tonight.” It’s not a lecture. It’s just a quiet reminder that love isn’t a pie with only two slices.
Third, I stopped making him feel guilty about his feelings. That part was harder. The first few times, I felt that little sting in my chest and had an urge to say, “That’s not nice.” But guilt doesn’t teach respect. It just teaches kids to hide their feelings. I’d rather he know he can tell me anything and I won’t fall apart. Even if the thing he says is a little rude.
Now, that doesn’t mean I ignore actual disrespect. If he says something with real mean intent, like “I hate you” or “I wish you weren’t my mommy,” I’ll address that differently. We talk about words and how they affect people. But “I love Daddy more” isn’t hateful. It’s just clumsy. He’s not yet skilled at softening his thoughts or understanding that his words land on someone else’s heart. My job is to help build that skill without shaming him for having the feeling in the first place.
One night, I tried something new. We were reading a book before bed, and he told me again, out of nowhere, that Daddy was still his favorite. So after the story, I told him about the day he was born. I told him how his dad held him first because I was so tired, and how Dad spent the whole night sleeping in a plastic chair just to keep an eye on him. I told him how we both took turns walking the hallway with him when he cried. I didn’t make it a lesson. I just told it like a story.
He listened quietly. Then he said, “Daddy slept in a chair?”
“He did,” I said.
“That’s funny,” he said. And then he rolled over and went to sleep.
I’m not sure he learned anything that night. But I think I did. I realized that my son’s statements about who he loves more aren’t really about me. They’re about him figuring out how love works. He’s learning that his dad is a separate person, that his mom is a separate person, and that he gets to have relationships with both of us all on his own. That’s a good thing, even when it stings a little.
He still says it from time to time. I don’t think we’ve completely moved past it, and honestly, maybe we don’t need to. The other day, he ran into the kitchen, hugged my legs, and said, “Mommy, I love Daddy more, but I love you as much as a dinosaur.” I laughed and said, “That’s a lot of love.” He seemed satisfied and ran off to find his shoes.
I don’t know if that was the right response. There’s no perfect script for these moments. What I do know is that he felt safe enough to say something complicated, and I didn’t punish him for it. That counts for something. We’re still figuring out the rest.
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