Parenting & Family Quote by Raymond E. Feist

Feist’s line sneaks a volatile idea into the gentle language of family: that love can be abundant and still uneven. The phrasing is disarmingly plain, almost proverbial, but it does deliberate work. “Only have one” turns a biological fact into an emotional law, as if firstborn-ness is less a birth order than a permanent title. Then he pivots: “You may love all your children deeply and with passion” is the preemptive apology every parent feels compelled to offer before admitting the heresy that affection has textures. He grants the moral baseline (no child is unloved) so he can smuggle in the harder claim: uniqueness isn’t the same as favoritism, but it will be mistaken for it.

The subtext is really about thresholds. The first child is the moment parenthood becomes real, when identity changes, fear becomes practical, and responsibility stops being an idea. That child carries the parents’ original projection of themselves - all the anxious vows, the beginner mistakes, the wonder of getting it wrong and surviving. Later children may get better parenting; the first gets the rawest version, the one soaked in novelty and terror. “Unique” is Feist’s careful word, a way to dignify an imbalance without endorsing it.

Context matters: Feist writes epic fantasy, a genre obsessed with lineage, heirs, and the psychic burden of “the first.” Read that way, the quote isn’t just domestic sentimentality; it’s a compact theory of origin stories. The firstborn becomes the family’s opening chapter, and nothing that follows can replicate the shock of starting.