Do Parents Teach Kids To Love Them?

Kids are taught to respect and love others. Respect elders love young ones, values, humanity and all adjectives describing these qualities by parents. But among all these, we forget what is the most important aspect of life – value feelings of parents, love their dedication towards their children, respect their motive of life which is the wellbeing of their kids.

We learn everything from parents:
How to treat younger siblings?
How to treat and behave with older sibling?
How to behave with family members and elders?
How to behave with outsiders?
How to treat poor people?
How to talk to teachers?
How to treat your maid?
How to choose friends?
How to talk to small kids?
How to lead life with life partner?…the list continues about what parents teach but they forget themselves. When asked “do you love your family? Obvious answer is “yes”. Also, we think how someone can ask such a question. Following this question is another question – who all are part of your family? The obvious answer even here goes father, mother, sister, brother, grandparents, spouse, kids etc. But the main person of my family: “me” or “I” is missing. Similar miss is with parents. They forget to communicate their value, their emotional connect, their struggle for their kids, their existence, their feelings, their expectations etc. Everything related to parents which is not materialistic is not taught to kids.

A couple become parents when they decide to bring a life into this world. Their love for their baby starts from day 1. As days pass the love slowly transforms into satisfying the needs of the baby which builds a parallel world of expectation which none of them involved is consciously aware. As long as the baby is crying and learning to talk, we are happy to satisfy its needs because that is within our reach because we think we know what is required and there is no major demand. Once the baby grows up, parents become providers and kid becomes an individual who starts having a mind of its own with varied needs and demands. The relationship grows but it is not a linear growth. When I know the kid is growing, the kid is not aware of what growth is and when I the kid realises the growth, he would have forgotten that parents remained where they started. Kid no longer remains a baby but parents always remain to be our parents.  

When the kid becomes an adult for the society everything which is taught is overlooked and only the aspect which was not taught i.e., expressing love towards parents, is expected to be known. That becomes out of syllabus and individuals start reacting to situations in their own way which at times or most of the times is strange.

When the child gets his first salary parents are happy. The expectation is not materialistic, but it is emotional. Do the kid or rather a kid for parents who has now become an adult know how to express his gratitude to his parents? Are we giving a surprise test which was never told or spoken about and expecting the kid to get 1^st rank even here? Why is expression of emotions and feelings so difficult? We are taught different types of communication and the medium required for the same in school. But does that include communicating emotions? No, that is not part of any syllabus. So how did the world learn? Or did we actually learn? All these questions lead to the path which just ended in the life of an adult who overnight changed from a kid.

As parents, it is our duty to show kids that we are humans too. Even mamma gets tired, and daddy can’t buy everything. It is our responsibility to make the kid understand that saying no to a toy doesn’t decide the amount of love we have. When kids grow up as individuals from the age of 1, they start respecting everyone in the family and learn to show love, care and gratitude for others just like how they are loved. Expression of love is not one sided. Don’t let your kids take your love for granted. When I express my love to my daughter, I teach her to express her love to me as well. The way it is done is different, but the feeling remains the same. When they learn to give from such a young age, they get used to it. Allowing the child to grow by only giving to him and not letting him give anything makes the child lose the value of parents in their life as adults. We always treat parents as providers and when we become parents, we continue to be providers. The chain moves forward forgetting to realise that it is a chain, and it will remain as a chain only if the links between generation is strong.

Parent and child relationship is a give and take relationship which builds the bond. When giving becomes parent’s role and taking becomes kids’ role, the relationship becomes like a relay race. You take and run to give it to someone else. The race continues and as a team we might win but did we realise what we lost? Life is not a relay race; it is more like Chinese checker. We move from one place to other and we make place for everyone to reach the destination together by providing them path. We win only when everyone has reached the other side and if someone is left behind, we do wait for them to reach.

Love Grows when we Give.
Love Blossoms when we Share.
Love Strengths when we Bond.

Loving our child gifts them life of love.
Loving our parents bless us a life of love.