Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

Parenting

For free parenting resources please check out the Early Years Alliance's Family Corner.

Flip

Original poster

What does it mean to be in love with your children.

24 replies

littletinkers · 18/12/2010 22:29

Someone said to me the other day that i am in love with my children. If I am it's only for a few minutes before the fighting begins and reality kicks in... but well I am not really sure what it means to be "in love with" rather than to love your children. Any ideas?

OP posts:

Are your children’s vaccines up to date?

Set a reminder

carocaro · 18/12/2010 22:57

in love with them as children not as in love with them like your other half?

Splitting hairs really, my kids fill me with fill and joy and I love them, but I would not describe myself as being in love with them as it sounds, odd?! it's a given really that parents love their kids.

Original poster

littletinkers · 19/12/2010 10:47

I know bit odd. Think she meant like the way parents gaze at their newborns captivated. Captivated might have been a better choice of word. Think I had better ask her what she meant!

OP posts:

ReikiKen · 20/12/2010 16:25

Hi there, I think the person might think that you dot on your children, which shows that you are a very caring mother.

Good mothers really do go a long way to ensuring that their children have the best start in life possible, to see that they do not struggle and want for things in life that you might have had to struggle for.

It is important, however, to realise that giving absolutely everything to your children at the expense of your own happiness is detrimental for both yourself and your children should it develop that way down the line.

I am a Reiki Healer and my focus is on Energy and Empowerment for Mothers.

Interested in this thread?

Then you might like threads about these subjects:

Families General parenting

LynetteScavo · 20/12/2010 16:28

I know two parents who I would say are "in love" with their (only) child. They constantly stroke his hair/ pat his knew ect.
also they are not at all interested in anyone else's child. They only have eyes for their DS. It seems a bit strange as he is a large 12yo.

ReikiKen · 21/12/2010 19:56

I suppose being a parent must be an incredible feeling the very first time around :)

Sometimes a 'sense of reality' might go amiss! :)

anonymosity · 21/12/2010 21:30

but surely being in love with your children is intrinsic in caring for them fully? and unless another person's child is in your care (temporarily or otherwise) you wouldn't really be expected to have the same time and attention for them - that would be weird.

NemoTheRedNosedFish · 21/12/2010 21:59

I am a reiki healer too but I fail to see what that has to do with the OP's question, which was 'what does it mean to be in love with your children?'

I think it's an odd phrase to use myself.
I would say that I adore dd and dh. And quite often the dog too - lovely soppy snuggly playful dog...

Ormirian · 21/12/2010 22:05

Well I may be weird but I have moments of feeling in love with my children, and that feeling is at least as strong as any feeling I have had for any partner. They are beautiful, clever, funny ,interesting in a way that no mere man could ever be. And IME being in love with a partner demands a kind of reciprocity so it's conditional. My love for my children isn't conditional.

Zipitydoda · 22/12/2010 08:47

The 'in love' feeling is the one I get when I go into their bedrooms to kiss them goodnight before I go to bed and they are both sleeping contentedly and I can't believe these little people are my babies. I want to stay with them all night just looking at them and have to tear myself away.
Sometimes in the chaos of a normal day with 2DS age 6 and 2 I forget how much I absolutely love them.

MarianneM · 22/12/2010 14:44

I feel that I am "in love" with my children most of the time. They are so beautiful, endearing, sweet, clever and funny, and I cannot believe such lovely, gorgeous beings have come from me!

MegBusset · 22/12/2010 14:54

I don't know, to me the phrase "in love with" your children suggests you might fall out of love with them, it almost puts too much expectation onto them to be perfect, clever little darlings all the time?

Whereas I love mine even when they are grubby and daft and highlu annoying

lukewarmcupofmulledwine · 22/12/2010 16:27

Maybe they mean the feeling they get like when I catch them in the split second they are being cute and funny and beautiful and kind and clever, and I think they are the best and most amazing creatures to have ever lived, nothing else compares to it.

But then they start fighting or moaning, and I quickly revert to 'just' loving them.

Lynette - I was reading your post, thinking 'well, I stroke my dc's hair a lot, kiss and cuddle them etc'.... but then I read that the dc in question was twelve. Mine are only 3 and 1, I imagine I might have stopped by then! (or they will tell me to take a hike anyway)

pointythings · 22/12/2010 21:37

What zipitydoda said - and mine are almost 8 and almost 10.

It makes up for the times when they fight like fiends and I feel I do nothing but tell them off.

Laquitar · 22/12/2010 21:44

Maybe she reads many celebrities interviews. Did you notice they always use this phrase?

HecTheHallsWithBoughsOfHolly · 22/12/2010 21:45

I don't know. I love mine of course, but to me, "in love" is different from the love you feel for your children. It's romantic. Sexual. It's not something I would feel comfortable saying about my children.

Look at it this way. You love your parents, right? are you in love with them? "I'm in love with my dad." would you say that?

"I'm in love with my sister."

"I'm in love with my grandad."

"I'm in love with my best friend."

"I'm in love with my mum."

"I'm in love with my son."

See?

I think my point is clear

Original poster

littletinkers · 22/12/2010 22:18

Thing is we use the phrase "in love with" in lots of ways eg you can be in love with the idea of something... it has lots of meanings. I think it really means that you dote on them pure and simply - but really most mums have that feeling for moments and then reality kicks in right?! I wouldn't use it myself to be honest. I guess it describes one of many feelings you may have ....

OP posts:

OhLittleTownOfShirley · 22/12/2010 22:27

oh. Maybe I'm weird but I am utterly in love with my children.

I think that they love me, and I love them and we are in a loving relationship and I am totally in love with them. I would also say that I am in love with my mum - I really am.

Personally, for me, it is shorthand for "I am in a loveing relationship with my children or my mum or my friends or my partner or cheese.

I think part of the problem with this terminology is the whole "I love you, but I'm not IN LOVE with you" bollocks which permeates break ups.

I also think that "in love" has become a byword for sexual attraction. um.

Boo. I don't fancy my ma or my kids - but I am in love with them. Lucky me.

Lynli · 22/12/2010 22:36

I am in love with DS, he makes me smile all of the time.

I can't walk past him without kissing and cuddling him.

I kiss his clothes when I am ironing them.

I think it is because it took me 11 pregnancies to get him, or maybe it is because I am crazy.

Ormirian · 23/12/2010 08:42

In love with doesn't mean just sexual. It means that feeling you get when you love someone so much you love everything about them - even when they do things you hate. I can yell my head off at my DC but still be in love with them - they are just as wonderful to me.

HecTheHallsWithBoughsOfHolly · 23/12/2010 18:29

So you could quite see yourself saying you were in love with your dad and not seeing anything odd about that turn of phrase?

I dunno. I just think that it is sexual because that's how it's used. That's how it's understood.

When you put it in headline form, what image does it conjure up?

I am in love with my dad
I am in love with my grandma
I am in love with the vicar
I am in love with my daughter

I think that how society is known to interpret a phrase matters.

To me, "In love with" is so very clear that it feels really really weird to have it applied to any other relationship than a romantic one.

Ormirian · 23/12/2010 18:39

What phrase would you use then hec? I don't feel like this about my dad or mum, much as I love them. It's overwhelming - more so than any other relationship I have.

HecTheHallsWithBoughsOfHolly · 23/12/2010 18:47

What would I say about my love for my children?

They're my world. I love them unconditionally. There is nothing they could do that would stop me loving them and that is not something I can say about anyone else in the world. I'd die for them and I'd kill for them. I'm not actually sure there is a word or phrase that means that. "In love with" certainly doesn't, imo. "In love with" is, again imo, something that can fade, something that can change. Something that can be affected by the person's actions. It is conditional and capable of changing. Our love for our children isn't.

When I think of it, I think our feeling for our children isn't love. It is something far deeper and far more powerful and there just isn't a word for it

Ormirian · 23/12/2010 18:51

Yes. OK. Primal. I am catergorically not a mother tiger - I am quite prepared to accept when they are in the wrong and don't expect anyone else to make allowances for them, but without a shadow of a doubt, I'd shed my blood for them.

HecTheHallsWithBoughsOfHolly · 23/12/2010 18:58

primal. That's a good word.

I think you can be a tiger while still being able to see them properly and not be a "my baby wouldn't doooo that" type of parent . God knows I know when mine are being little buggers And I am well aware that the rest of the world doesn't give a shit! In fact, part of raising them is raising them to understand that the world doesn't care about their situation or their difficulties and they have to suck it up! You know?

If I found out they'd broken the law I'd grass them up!

But they could be serial killers and I'd still love them unconditionally. I'd hate what they'd done but it wouldn't stop me loving them.

I think that's what makes it not love, not like any understanding we have of 'love'. It's a different, more powerful, more frightening really! emotion.

Flip