Day 25 You Don't Have To Love Your Kids The Same

Loving your kids equally but uniquely is the basis for Day 25 You Don’t Have To Love Your Kids The Same. Because our kids ARE different – in attitude, aptitude and appearance. Why would we think it’s okay to love them the same?

“You love Sara more than me!”

“Anna NEVER does anything wrong…I guess I’m just your worst child!”

“You never pay me any attention once baby Ella came along!”

For moms of more than one, I would bet that we have all either heard, or will hear, comments like these…a LOT!

And it’s normal, I guess….sibling rivalry. The need to feel special. That desire to know that your mom loves YOU the most of anyone in this entire world, including those other little people she birthed.

I personally struggled with this as a child. I felt like I was always trying to find out if my mom and dad loved me the MOST (more than my 2 other sisters), which, by the way, they don’t. I even remember vividly being terribly upset when my mom explained to me that the love she had for my dad was as strong, but different, than the love she had for me!

What?! Now of course her rationale was sound, as it always was. Her feeling was that, without the love she had for my father, I would not have even existed.

But at the age of 7, all I could hear was that she loved my dad more than me.

But here’s the deal – we don’t love our kids the same. Nor do I believe we should.

For all our celebrating differences in children, we as moms feel that we need to loudly proclaim we love our kids exactly the same.

Huh?

I mean, think about it. You may have one child who craves snuggles on your lap and holding your hand. While another child may cringe at the very thought of being held that closely. So to an outsider, it may seem that you love the first child more but in reality a good mom figures out how to show her love differently.

The Languages Of Love

By now, many of us have heard about the 5 Love Languages Of Children…Words of Affirmations, Acts of Service, Receiving Gifts, Quality Time and Physical Touch. These are so spot on, it’s amazing.

They apply to both children and adults.

Think about you and your husband…how you would like for him to show you love and appreciation (words of thanks, noticing the 10 loads of laundry you did) and how he actually shows you love and appreciation (grabbing your butt).

Don’t you wish he knew it was okay to love you differently?

So for my children, I choose to love them differently.

This is NOT the same as loving them unequally. I do truly love both my girls equally but it manifests in different ways.

My older daughter, Hannah, likes to simply be with me – if she’s watching a show, she wants me near. If she is swinging on the swings, she wants me beside her. If she’s coloring, she wants me to pull up a seat and do the same. She simply wants my time more than anything.

My younger daughter, Hazel, on the other hand, is very physical in her love. She wants me to hug and kiss her non stop. She wants to always be in my lap or on my hip. For her, physical touch is the ultimate way to show love.

So you see, I would actually be doing them a DISSERVICE if I loved them exactly the same.

Does knowing this stop me from smothering my oldest daughter with kisses or being near when my younger is playing babies? Absolutely not – because I feel they need to know I love them in many ways.

But when I want to really show them my love, I speak to them each differently, in a language unique to only them and me. In a language of love that is different for each but all-consuming for both.