The Discovery of Unconditional Love
By: Alex Andra
Tags: Prompt, Love, Parenting, Unconditional Love, Family

Photo by Polesie Toys from Pexels

I was always very maternal as a child. I adored playing with babydolls, I’d spend hours looking after my babies. I still even have my favourite one to this day who lays in her little toy Moses basket. I still give her a cuddle and smell her sweet-scented head every now and then. It makes me feel warmth in my heart.

I knew from a young child that I wanted to be a mother one day, I yearned for it. I also knew that if it happened, I would shower my children with love. I wanted to make sure they always felt loved, appreciated, and I wanted to give them a real sense of belonging.

So, when I became a mother, that’s exactly what I did.

Instinctively, I adopted the attachment parenting style. I kept my babies close, held them, babywore them, bedshared with them, responded to all of their needs, never ignored them when they cried or fussed.

My family mocked me for this, they would laugh at me saying I was too soft and needed to show them who’s boss and should leave them to cry alone.

All of this went completely against my own maternal instinct.

My mother still thinks I should shout at my children and smack them when they’re “naughty”, yet I don’t even use that word in my home, as to me, children go through various stages of development, and whilst someone may think a two-year-old who tears a page out of a book is “naughty”, I see it as an action entirely normal for their stage of development and instead of scaring the child with anger, I react by moving books or other such items of importance out of reach instead.

From my own personal experience, I don’t believe that children learn respect by being shouted at or smacked. I feel they learn from being shown respect themselves, by talking to them calmly and explaining situations to them in a way that they will understand.

It doesn’t feel right to treat someone we love with anger and shouting, in an adult relationship, it would be classed as abuse, so why treat our children that way? We show them we love them through kindness, calm words, empathy, support, and understanding.

I am raising my children with all of the love in my heart and I will never hide that from them. From the moment my first child was born, I discovered what unconditional love was. I had never felt anything so strong in my being before.

I tell my children every single day, that I love them and how much they mean to me. I show them affection. I listen to them. I hold them when they hurt themselves. I ask them how they feel when they look sad or are upset. I tell them it’s good to talk about their feelings.

I discovered what unconditional love was. I had never felt anything so strong in my being before.

And as my children grow, every single day, they tell me how much they love me. They look at me like I’m their whole world. I see the honesty in their eyes and I feel the love in their hearts when they hug me tight.

And this is why the greatest gift I’ve received from my family is discovering what unconditional love is, both to have it for another and to receive the same unconditional love from my children.

©Alex Andra 2020