“Who do you like the best, Mom?” “I LIKE YOU BEST !!!” Four little words we longed to hear as little kids; four little words that havent lost their appeal, despite my status as a supposed grown-up. Four little words I will never, in spite of their efforts, utter to my children. A caution against telling children you love them the same: Imagine asking your spouse who he loves more — you or his mother. You dont want to hear, I love you both the same. You want his love for you to be unique and special and like nothing hes ever felt before. That analogy makes sense. We all want to be liked best. We want to land in our loved ones hearts and leave a mark whose likeness has never been seen. We want to be the wittiest, the bravest and the wisest. We want the most accolades. We want the most Facebook likes. WE DON”T WANT TO BE LOVED THE ‘SAME.’ Mostly kids compete with each other. See your kids angling not as an attempt to diminish the affection you feel for others, but as a defense of the affection you feel for them. That requires slowing down enough to discern whats underneath their pleas and tantrums, rather than just reacting to them. Some days you’ll be better at that than others. How to notice a soul draining toward empty. Adopt that as your first and most consequential motherly task: Notice when their little souls are draining toward empty. Heidi tells them the hospital gave her extra spaces in her heart and nobody else fits in them, because the first space is shaped like her daughter and the second is the shape of her son. As they grow, so do the spaces. Sometimes they grin and sometimes they roll their eyes and sometimes they cry anyway because its hard to watch your mom love another kid. Please dont see that as selfish or insecure. See it as relatable. See it as an invitation — an opening — to ‘fill up their souls.’ (by Heidi Stevens, Chicago Tribune - hstevens@tribune - edited by PBIM for brevity)
Posted on: Mon, 27 Oct 2014 10:35:42 +0000
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