Have you enjoyed preferential treatment before?
Humans have one common habit they all exhibit at some point in time. When someone probably did something bad or wrong, they may come up with many excuses to defend their wrong actions. Some will say they made a mistake because they were only human and no human being is above mistakes. Yes, that's true. That's why as human beings, we have one time or the other given out preferential treatment to others especially our loved ones above others. And we have also received preferential treatment above others too.
When we are given preferential treatment, it means we are treated better than those who are not given the same treatment. Preferential treatment may come in many ways, it may be through favors or opportunities. And it always comes as a result of connections or social capital. I could vividly recall many times when people are treated better because they come from someone important than others in the same gathering. In church and many other places, we tend to give out preferential treatment to people who are better off than others. That's why many reserve front seats for rich people and ask others to settle at the bank just because of monetary power and influence.
Preferential treatment happens almost everywhere. You can see it occurring in the home among siblings, in the workplace, and in society at large. Talking about giving such treatment in the home will only cause nothing but rivalry among the children. Each trying to gain the favors of their parents this engaging in unhealthy competition and fights which are harmful to their self-growth. I remembered some times ago when I had a clash with my brother. He was so bitter towards me because he thought that I was always getting better treatment from our parents probably because I was the firstborn of the family. It took much longer to convince him of the equal love that our parents shared with us. In the worst case, my brother had hated me for life if I didn't explain and comfort him then.
Do you know that such treatment brings a lot of harm, especially to those who are treated way less? It makes them feel useless and that they are not important enough. Back then in my high school days. The son of the man who happened to own the school will never queue to buy food as other students do. He just goes straight to the food vendor and buys whatever he wants to buy. But we could not talk then because of who his father was. I always muttered silently then that I wished my dad has a school too so that I won't have been bothering myself queuing for a long time before I can buy food. But even at that, most of us then concluded that he must be more important than the rest of us because his father owns the school.
We can only strive to treat others better and if possible equally. If you can't treat everybody equally then you need to treat others as well and fair as you can. Everybody wants to be respected and to be attached to importance.
