I was not prepared for the first time I looked at my first born
I honestly thought my heart would burst
At that moment I knew I would do whatever if took to protect him
the same thing happened for the following three children
I guess I am one of the lucky ones
As I realise that for some the love isn’t instant
But when the love for your child does hit you, its powerful stuff !!!!
There are lots of reason why love isn’t always instant, perhaps you have had problems during your pregnancy, it was a difficult birth, your fear for the future of your child with no support to back you up, the only time I experienced anything close to these confusing thoughts was with my daughter, who was such hard work, did not like contact at any kind and I took it all as a rejection of me, so for a while it was as if I had to teach myself to love her. In all honesty it was quite a fight, she was such an independent and feisty young lady everyday was a battle with her, but the truth was I did love her, always did and always will. It just was a harder emotion to recognise at the time !!!!!
For those who do feel disconnected from their child, don’t feel love for their child etc, their is help, the important thing is to talk about it, if you try and hide it and feel you are the one at fault and punish yourself as being a bad parent who can’t love their child. Those emotions can take over your life. There is more and more help for parents who feel like this and it is certainly nothing to be ashamed of. Just hold on tight when that love does hit you !!
Love for your child when at its strongest, is the most powerful emotion you are ever likely to experience. it is a love like no other
As your child grows up and graduates through each level of their life span, from newborn to toddler to young child to puberty to teen ......... In each progressive part of their life they will hurt you, they will belittle you, they will embarrass you, they will be rude to you, they will insult you.............. and you will constantly forgive them. You have no choice, YOU LOVE THEM !
Don’t get me wrong there will also be plenty of times you may not like them very much, but you always love them. My oldest has not communicated with me, his grandparents, his unles and aunts for over a year, we have had post returned from him, phone calls ignored and pleas deleted. To be frank I hate what he has done, I don’t like the man he has become but I love my son, sometimes it would be easier if I didn’t love him, but I cant stop the love I feel for him
When I had just the one child, I had all the time in the world to enjoy my child, I had immense love and didn’t think it was possible to ever love anyone as much as I loved him. Then I found out I was pregnant, for a while I was overjoyed, the panic set in, what if I didn’t love this child I was carrying as much as my toddler, where would I find the love for my new baby, did I have to half the love I had for my toddler so I had love left for my newborn ?????? All the confusion all the doubts, all the assurances from people I spoke about this to, made no difference I could not stop worrying about it.
What no one told me is that for every child you have, you get a whole new heart full of love for this child. Your toddler loses none of your love. If you listen carefully you can hear all four of my hearts beating loudly !!!!!
What makes this love so precious is when you see your child looking at you with nothing but love. You see the great thing about parent/child love is its mutual !!!! Yes I know they get mad and love to tell us how they hate us and we are responsible for ruining their lives, but think of those words as attention seeking only, they want to hurt us, they want us really to wave a magic wand and make everything in their life perfect ....... and when we can’t they feel we have let them down. Sadly their motivation to hurt us WORKS and is very effective .
Unless the problems are extreme such as in my sons case and lots of other friends of mine too, their is always the “U Turn” when they think things through, realise they went too far and come to us with an apology and looking for love, which we are only too happy to give.
Love is a complex emotion and its certainly not something I could ever explain, I just know it is precious and worth taking care of. The best part of my day is always when one of mine will let me know they love me, for no reason other than simply because they DO !!!
We all can see the child that is growing up without knowing love, they are withdrawn and sad or attention seeking and naughty or maybe watchful and jealous. All I know is their eyes are empty, they are like a plant that no one takes care of and it withers and dies.
We are all meant to know love, experience love, show love and treasure love.
(March 2008) (
