TamraThe Ultimate Confession, Betrayal or Truth?
April 10th 2008 03:07
Okay, just for a moment, let’s take off the heavy mantle of being a perfect parent, put our feet up on the parenting manuals and sift through a few home truths…Everyone comfy? Alright, then let’s consider -
Is it possible to love one of your children more than the other? Is it probable? What does it say about you as a parent?
Now don’t freak out. There’s no microphone, no hidden camera. No-one’s going to haul you off to the parenting shame wagon for a loooong trip downtown to the lock-up. We’re just looking at a little issue, that may be relevant for none, some, or secretly relevant for most. Let’s enquire.
Parenting experts and manuals will tell you to distribute your love evenly, don’t show favouritism, but is this possible all the time? Have you got one child who does what you tell them, on occasion, you feel a connection with and is ‘easy’ to love, and one or several other children, who fight you at every turn, enjoy things you find it hard to relate to, and express their love for you by hitting, punching, biting or slamming their door?
It’s hard to like your children the same at every moment, but is it hard to love them the same? Is ‘love’ as easily definable as ‘like’? Can constant conflict wear at the love you have for your child? Sometimes only one of them seems wonderful - it’s rarer that all of them will be wonderful at the same time - but if this is an ongoing dilemma, does that change your intrinsic love for them?
Mothers, and fathers, who find it hard to bond with their children at birth must face a different kind of challenge. Post natal depression, lack of bonding must influence initial feelings of love for a child. But does that stay as part of the relationship or does this like most things get influenced and weathered by time? If one child is bonded with immediately and not another, does this suggest a greater love or simply a quicker, easier kind?
Well Mr Fraser famously said, ‘life wasn’t meant to be easy’ and perhaps love isn’t always as well.
I know there are a lot of question marks here, but I’d hate to leap in and answer these issues too quickly for parents considering them or dealing with complicated feelings. Conventional parenting wisdom tells us that if we do feel a stronger connection to one child then this should not be conveyed to any of the children. We don’t know the damage that information or feeling can have on a child’s psyche if they feel like the lesser loved child in the family dynamic.
I’ve so often found that the things I dislike in others are simply a projection of things I don’t like in myself. So could it be the child we see as possibly loving less, is simply a reflection of ourselves, a mirror a little too close to our own imperfections…
But can we improve the love we feel for a child? If we were in a dysfunctional relationship with a spouse or partner and seeking help, we’d probably ‘work on the relationship’: talk to each other, resist blaming, use ‘I’ statements, do positive things together. Perhaps these are things we can do with our child/ren as well. The outcome's not guaranteed, but it's probably every child's right to feel the undiluted love of a parent to the best of that parent's ability, isn't it? Tamra x
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