Anonymous wrote:“Wow, that was an extremely weird thing for grandma to say. There’s enough love for everyone, we don’t need to rank people we love. How odd!”
+1
But I would add “and hurtful” to the “extremely weird”
And then I’d repeat (again) the objection to my mom along with “mom—I have to assume you don’t understand the harm in what you’re doing, because thats the only rational explanation for this sort of narcissistic behavior. But I want to be sure you understand not only the oddity of ranking your loved ones by preference order, but also the emotional harm in sharing that “ranking order” with any of us.
It’s not a good feeling—even for the favored child or grandchild. And it makes you seem callous and unfeeling. We aren’t in competition for your love and we are concerned that somehow you’ve been made to feel that love is something that b needs to be rank-ordered and rationed, and that makes me sad for you. Please don’t treat your loved ones this way.”