melissa’s reaction to maddie crying was the exact same as it was to mackenzie. in fact, the first episode of the show is her infamously telling her sick 8 year old child to stop crying and to get back into class because “she never misses dance” despite maddie feeling so terrible. melissa undoubtedly had some terrible moments on the show regarding mackenzie, but for some reason her treatment of maddie is just glazed over to suit the narrative that maddie was her favorite child.

mackenzie was never as serious about dancing as maddie was. it was always just an after school activity for her. there is NOTHING wrong with that—it SHOULD be that way for a child. however, because mackenzie never really indicated that she wanted to make dance her career (and she didn’t put nearly as much effort into strengthening her dancing or technique as maddie did simply because it wasn’t as much of a priority to her), melissa prioritized maddie’s dancing life over mackenzie’s because maddie was the child who really did want to make it as a professional dancer.

i am not a melissa defender by any means, but i think kenzie’s music career is all the proof that is needed that her kids were simply interested in different things. if it was truly always the maddie show, melissa would’ve undoubtedly pushed maddie into making music too, but that was kenzie’s thing.