# How to Love Them Equally

My parents have always said that they love all four of their children equally. I always thought this was a Correct Lie: that they don’t love us all equally, but they feel such a strong loyalty to us and have Specific Family Values such that lying about it is the thing to do to make sure we all flourish.

I realized this morning they are probably not lying.

The reason I originally thought they were lying is that it seems clear to me that they are on the whole more frequently delighted by some of us than others. And on the whole can relate more frequently to some of us than others. And that’s skipping over who they might be *most proud* of.

Now I grew up with a distinction between “liking” and “loving” which I have always found helpful: “Liking” is the immediate positive experiences and payoffs you get from a relationship. “Loving” is the sense of deeper connection you have with someone[^zj1bn7qwhen].

Liking goes up and down. Loving stays the same or goes up, unless you misunderstood someone’s fundamental nature entirely. You can like someone more if they are in a good mood than in a bad one. But you don’t love them more or less for it.

What do you love them for instead? For their values, their way of relating to the world, their skills and traits that are so essentially *them* that they outline every edge of their spirit. Not “spirit” as a metaphysical object, but like how some people deeply embody kindness cause they *are just that way.* There might be something in their deep values, or their reward wiring, or their instincts, that makes them so deeply kind. And *that*. That, is something you can *love*.

Now children, genetically, are 50% of each parent[^blhi0u1ysc]. If a parent loves all of themselves and loves all of their partner then ... they will naturally love all of their children.

What’s the “equal” doing though? Don’t you love some people more than others?

Yes and no. The way I think about “love” the loving feeling is the “same” for the kindness in John as for the competence in Jack. But if Jill is both kind and competent than I may love her more than John or Jack (all things being equal that is. Ha!)

And of course you can’t math the traits together. It’s an intuition of a direction of a feeling.

But I think that direction points to this: Your kids are built from all of you and all of your partner - If you love all of that, then you love all of them.

Of course, mother nature has more chemicals to solve any problem in that equation. Drugs are a hell of a drug.

But even if you lack those, then your children are roughly a mosaic of you and the person you picked to make them with.

And that means something else too: If you *don’t* love parts of yourself or your partner, then your children will see that too. If you get angry at yourself for always being late or angry at your partner for always making a mess, then your kids will see you won’t love those parts of them either.

And sure, not all genes express in all phenotypes, and nurture and experience matter too. But love is a fuzzy feeling and will fuzz out most of the difference. If the core traits are there, distributed across your children in various combinations, then each of them is Clearly Loveable. Because so are you, and so is your partner.

My parents are good at this. They clearly accept themselves fully and each other too.

I don't always accept myself fully.

But I'm working on it.

Because if my kids grow up and find any of their parts to be like mine, I want them to be able to look at me and see that I love those parts too. And maybe that will in turn help them figure out how to love themselves just as equally.

[^zj1bn7qwhen]: I’m not claiming these are the de facto correct ways to think about liking and loving. My intention is to offer a frame for these concepts that might be worth exploring. You can also keep your own definitions and think about this as alt-liking and alt-loving, and still track them as ways of relating. 

[^blhi0u1ysc]: I’m skipping over blended families here. My own family has aspects of that too and it is great and the love is as real as ever. This essay is more a messy exploration of how loving and accepting yourself can have positive effects on your bond with your children.