Having always claimed that my love for my parents has been fair, I just searched my Residua website for a couple of word pairs—”my mother” and “my father.” I found three-hundred and twenty-three texts containing the first pair and two-hundred and thirty-six texts containing the second. Although the search results overlap to a large extent, the first pair wins by a wide margin—more than a third, to be precise. Besides, there are only one-hundred and forty-one texts containing the remaining pair of words of interest in this connection—”my parents.” Here, too, search results overlap quite a bit with those of the previous searches. Be this as it may, my research only goes to show that quantitative analysis of this kind has nothing whatsoever to do with fairness, and especially when love is in question. That is, I will keep claiming that my love for my parents has always been fair.

Addendum I (December 19, 2015)

For the fun of it, I just repeated the count. A bit more than twelve years later, I found five-hundred and two texts that contain “my mother,” three-hundred and seventy-two of them that contain “my father,” and two-hundred and seventy texts that contain “my parents.” Once again, the search results overlap to a large extent. Over this period, the three pairs have grown by one-hundred and seventy-nine, one-hundred and thirty-six, and one-hundred and twenty-nine texts, respectively. When all of these numbers are plotted, the chart shows that all three pairs have grown in number roughly proportionately over twelve years. Put differently, quantitative analysis shows essentially the same results one more time, but I will still keep claiming that my love for my parents has always been fair. So much for quantitative analysis, I guess. It has nothing whatsoever to do with fairness. When love is in question, it is as good as useless.

Addendum II (February 6, 2024)

Having come across this piece on one of my random walks through my writings, I quickly decided to repeat the count. More than eight years after the last one, the numbers have not changed much. “My mother” appears in five-hundred and twenty-four pieces, “my father” in four-hundred and four of them, and “my parents” in three-hundred and fourteen pieces. As noted before, there is a considerable overlap in the search results. Over the years, the three pairs have grown by twenty-two, thirty-two, and forty-four pieces of writing, respectively. In other words, “my parents” are winners over the last eight years or so, and so is “my father” by comparison with “my mother.” Perhaps the most important result of this research is that my parents remain very important in my life. And my love for them remains fair no matter what the numbers say. Regardless of what quantitative analysis shows one more time, my mother and father remain one in my mind. Period.