Christmas is less than a week away.
I’m not dreaming of sugar plums, but I am dreaming of Oreo balls, black and white cookies, and seeing the magic in my kids’ eyes. I’m thinking of family, and friends, and all the mushy love stuff I tend to avoid the rest of the 364 days of the year. Christmas is about love, whether you celebrate the birth of Christ, or simply observe it as a day of fun, food and fellowship with those you hold near and dear.
I’ve been thinking about the concept of love ever since I read this article about a week ago. These are parents that not only truly unconditionally love their children, but also support them and fight for them. Parents who will do whatever they can to ensure that their children are happy, fully living the lives they were individually created to live.
That’s the way I want to love.
I think a lot of (most?) parents will tell you that they believe in unconditional love, but in practice it’s often easier said than done. I’ve never liked those sayings that advocate things like telling your child you love him, but dislike his behavior. Or that say we should “hate the sin but love the sinner.” Why? For one thing, that line of thinking makes it far too easy to slide into the conditionality we wanted to avoid in the first place. Perhaps more important is the fact that our actions speak the truth of our love far more loudly than our words. Our words may be saying, “I love you unconditionally,” but our actions may be saying, “I love you when you behave the way I want you to behave. I love you when you make the decisions I want you to make. I love you when you’re the person I want you to be.” It can be very difficult for a child to differentiate.
And you know what, it can be hard for an adult too.
Five months ago I pierced my nose. It was something I’d been wanting to do for a long time, so I was very excited to have finally gone through with it. I was not, however, excited to tell my parents. I knew how they felt about facial piercings and I knew what their reaction would be. (Yes, I’m about to be 38 years old, and I still think about and want that acceptance from my parents) The moment was brief, but negative as expected. Now, did I know intellectually that they still loved me? Of course. But did I feel unconditionally loved by their response? Not at all. And if it felt that way over something as silly and inconsequential as a little piece of jewelry in my nose, how much more devastating it would be to a child dealing with something as huge and life changing as the girl in the article? To someone dealing with an issue of gender? Or sexuality? Or any number of the other “big stuff” that we wrestle with in life, the things that make us want to find just one person to understand.
One person to accept us.
One person to support us.
One person to hold us and tell us sincerely not that they “love us even though…” but that they just. plain. love. us.
I want to be that person for my kids.
So sweet and honest. Thanks
Hey, I don’t have to approve your comments anymore! 🙂
Hello Jennifer.
While I agree that we want to love our children deeply, I’m wondering if unconditional love really means that we should help our children do any and all things, regardless of how we feel about those things?
There are things that I wouldn’t want to facilitate for my children, yet that doesn’t mean that I have conditions for my love for them. It just means that I have values and opinions that I’m not ready to compromise – for anyone – because I also have a right to live in accordance with my own conscience. And I don’t see why telling our children that we don’t like or approve of some things they could be doing, automatically equals to putting conditions on our love. I think we should love our children unconditionnally in the sense that they shouldn’t feel that they have to “earn” our love of course, but I don’t think unconditional love means that they should feel like we accept everything they say or do. That would make us some pretty lame and unflavored people, no? If we appear like we have no values, opinions or views? And since we do have those, we obviously express them and that will inevitably sometimes clash with those of other people, including our children.
I think that the thing is to know and understand that we can love eachother precisely in spite of our differences of view, we can “agree to disagree” as it is said – and love eachother still?
Love our children, yes I reckon we always will, but I’m not sure that we can (or should) do it any better than the “intellectual” unconditional….because for one most of us are incapable of just accepting any and everything with a smile and a “good for you”….and I’m also not sure that we even should 🙂
best wishes for the holiday season 🙂
Hmm, lots to respond to here… I’m not sure where to start.
I guess I should say I really missed making the point I wanted to make if I came across as someone “lame & unflavored with no values, opinions, or views” 😉 Anyone who knows me, including my kids, knows that I have *very* strong values, opinions, and views. It really wasn’t about helping them do any or all things, or even liking or agreeing or nodding or smiling, or any of that…. but just about making our love for them take precedence over all of the above.
oh dear, no I am so sorry if this is what my comment appeared as saying then! I was not at all taking about you – and I definitely don’t think you are someone without values and views – heh – from reading your blog the contrary should be quite obvious 😉
what I meant was that, this article got ME thinking about what I would be prepared to facilitate for my own children (and this thing precisely probably would not be one of them…) this in turn got me thinking about where the balance is – in loving “unconditionnaly” while still pointing out to our children when we think they are on a wrong path (not talking about the precise examples of your posts, but in general, as wrong paths will vary for all os us!)
what I read from your own story about your nose piercing (which btw I’m glad you finally did, I have things myself that I havn’t “dared” do or not do yet b/c of concerns about parent relationship…) was that you were saying that you think we should make our children FEEL loved unconditionnally pretty much nomatter what they do – and that just knowing it intellectually is not enough?
I guess that I probably think that it is enough to know it intellectually because realistically that’s what we’ll be able to offer. Or I maybe don’t agree that we have to love “unconditionnally” but that depends on what exactly we mean by unconditionnally…
again, I’m sorry if my comment made you feel bad or you felt I was attacking you – that certainly was NOT the intention 🙂
so, I saw you point about making our love more take precedence, but I also felt you were saying that it doesn’t take that precedence if we openly disapprove of something they say or do, or values thay would hold?
btw I much enjoy your writings and take lots of inspiration from you, thanks!
Oh no worries. I didn’t feel attacked. No need to apologize 🙂 My response was shorter than I would have liked, just because I ran out of computer time, but not because I was upset. I DO think as parents – in general – that we can do a better job of conveying unconditional love to our children, especially when it comes to things that just don’t matter (like my nose ring example) precisely because I *know* what it feels like to grow up feeling like I had to live within certain parameters to get that approval. I knew they didn’t approve, didn’t like it, etc, which of course they have every right to do…. but how is making the faces, and the comments, and the disapproving actions going to help our relationship? It’s not. For me, the relationship always come first. You can disagree with someone without being condemning about it.
“how is making the faces, and the comments, and the disapproving actions going to help our relationship? It’s not. ”
no that’s completely true. What I call “agreeing to disagree” is precisely that; doing it in a respectful and loving way. It seems that we are saying the same thing afterall 😉
Thanks once again for all your thought-provoking posts, I very much enjoy visiting here. You have a beautiful family!
Maria
Hello Jen,
What a coincidence. Only last week, I spoke to my parents who are hard-hit by my brother’s behaviour towards them, or rather the lack of. He has not spoken to either of them in two or three years. My brother is 49.
How do you tell your parents that this kind of behaviour has been sown by them by their parenting a long, long time ago? My brother is not able to verbalise the situation; for him it is an emotion which is peculiarly detached from his all his faculties he has gained throughout his life. Though, I DO remember my parents always worrying about what neighbours, colleagues, teachers would say about them, the choices they made and how their children behaved. Parenting in their time, and I believe it is still true for a lot of families, is determined by the outside world, rather than what parents feel is right for them and their own children. In my parents case I believe, that instinct has been smothered by the “education” they received, which conditioned them to always question themselves whether or not society would approve of their actions. (And I know what holds societies together, but I rather wish it was by consent- however hard it is to come by it – rather then conditioning). So, we would be punished when we did wrong and quite publicly, so that the outside world would know my parents were on top of things. My parents would exaggerate appraising one child, particularly when the other one did wrong. When people commented on our good behaviour we would be smothered by love and attention. Attention was withdrawn as soon as we stepped out of line. And from my memory, the two can occur within minutes apart – all very confusing.
I know exactly what you are talking about. My brother still craves for our parent’s approval. Do I believe my parents love all of us? Yes I do! They could not show it though for fear they lost societies’ approval, which was and is mightily important to them.
I do not believe that unconditional love means lack of guidance. I think one has to live an exemplary life, which is the guidance in itself, without imposing it on the child. What matters most, is happiness of the child! What matter your own views and standards if your child is not willing to share their lives with you because your own views are obsolete to them? What right has anyone got to impose their views on someone else. We do not own our children (what an oxymoron), we share the same path for a period of time. That path can be a very long one, or a brief one, depending on how strong our relationships are.
What matters?
Astrid
Hello Astrid,
“What matter your own views and standards if your child is not willing to share their lives with you because your own views are obsolete to them? ”
yes, true, that is why I talked about “agreeing to disagree”- which means I can tell my child (or anyone other) that I disapprove of something, while making it clear that I respect his or her CHOICE though. This is not imposing ones view on anyone, this is asserting your own stance which I believe is also part of “guiding”, because we do sometime have to speak up for or against something.
It is a complicated issue for sure.
Merry christmas to everyone 🙂
Another beautiful post. Thank you 🙂