It was not too long ago, with a boy named Joaquim, that an interesting conversation took place.
"Mother! Who do you love more – me, my father, Pedrinho, Tereza or Bento?”
“What kind of question is that, Joaquim?!” said the mother, looking astonished.
“I love you, your brothers and your father the same. I love you all the same.”
Joaquim then remained silent for a while, thinking about his mother's answer and wondering how she could love the same if everyone is one?
He for example loves each of his brothers in one way, and his father and mother in another.
After a few moments of silence, he asked:
"Mother! How is it possible to love everyone the same if we are different?”
Now the one who was silent and with a doubtful face was the mother.
And then Joaquim continued:
“Mom, I like to sing and make up stories, Pedrinho likes to play and take care of the hens and their chicks, Tereza loves to play football and wants to be a professional player, Bento stays with his father moving cars all day.
How do you manage to like us the same way?
I love every brother of mine in a way! I love you and daddy in a different way too, which I don't know how to say, but I know I love differently, Mom."
The mother, after hearing her son saying all that, realized that it was true that each child had his own way of being and that it is precisely this unique way that gives birth to a different love for each one.
Then, with a smile on her face, she called Joaquim to her side and, looking into his eyes, replied:
“You are right, my son!
I love each of you in a way and the way you are.
But, Joaquim, loving each of you differently does not mean that I love one more than the other.
Love has no size and is not measured, my dear.
Love is felt, lived and shared.”
Joaquim smiled and hugged his mother, feeling loved and loving.
The mother had learned from that conversation that love is not equal because it is awakened and nourished by each one's own way.
He learned with his son Joaquim the importance of showing his children that although they are part of the same family and that they are children of the same father and mother, each one is one and will be loved precisely for their tastes, their way of playing, talking and living life. .
Joaquim learned that in the mathematics of love division is not subtraction, and feeling more loved than ever, he held his mother's hand and walked out talking about the love and family they had.
I wrote this story because I now have two children and in these few three months of double motherhood I have noticed and felt how each child touches me, causes me and awakens different emotions and loves.
We've all heard phrases like "I love my children the same" or "My love is the same for all my children, there's no difference between them". Even if we don't have siblings, we've heard an aunt, friend's mother, godfather say that. Anyway, raise your hand who has never heard a mother or father say that they love all their children the same way.
I've heard it several times, but only now I have a sign of the dimension of these phrases and how they can affect those who listen to them instead of a son. If you have a brother or sister, tell me how you feel and/or felt when you heard your mother/father say that he loves you the same way he loves your brother or sister.
We all want to be loved in a unique way and just the way we are! Now what happens to us when we hear from the first people we love that they love us in the same way and with the same love they feel for someone else? And worse, he loves just the same that being who invaded our space and stole the attention that was only ours before (in the case of older brothers) or that being who arrived to take away the little attention we had, because everything was already shared. with other brothers and now we have one more.
How can these children who have siblings and grow up listening to and believing in a standardized love, without nuances, intensities and singularities, build and experience their way of loving?
How do they deal with the idiosyncrasies of the loves we feel throughout life and all its ups and downs?
How will these children relate to their siblings, since they experience a form of love for each of them and know that they do not love them in the same way?
Each child affects their parents in a different way, provoking and summoning them to experience motherhood and fatherhood differently.
Being a father and mother is constantly revisiting your childhood and having to remember your experiences as children, as children, and this is not easy or small.
Children are our biggest mirrors, they show us all the time the pain we feel, the mistreatment we experience, whether by other people or by ourselves. They open wide the way we treat each other today and reveal to us without any tact the person we have become, and for these things alone it would not be possible to love them in the same way. Because each one will reveal a side of us and we certainly have more beautiful and interesting sides than others. Sides we want to access and others we don't.
Each child demands a type of attention, a type of care, a type of affection that varies according to its essence and this makes each father and mother respond to this demand as best they can.
I remember always hearing my mother say that her mother had a preference for an uncle and an aunt, that she treated them differently and that she liked them better. She even said that to my grandmother, who always defended herself saying that she liked everyone equally, but that so-and-so needed her more than the others and that's why she helped them more.
Being a mother and father requires a daily look at each child, their characteristics, way of being and reacting to the world. We need to deal with the fantasies and expectations we place in each child and how each one will respond to them in everyday life, in real life.
Comparisons are often huge traps that we set for ourselves and our children, because again each one is one and none of them is here to respond and/or live the dreams that we were not able to fulfill.
Anyway, these are just some reflections that I have had and that make me believe that saying that we love the same and without difference is at the same time an illusion, a repetition and a disregard for the person who receives our declaration.
We need to learn to simply love as we are capable of loving!
If we are different, unique and we awaken in each person around us something unique that no one else awakens and the same happens with the way we are touched by these people and if we seek daily to feel unique in the relationships we live, we need to learn to demonstrate and say without fear or worry that we love in different ways and that this is not about loving more or loving less, but simply loving differently.
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We need to look at a child and affirm that he is unique and loved for exactly that reason, that with him we will learn and experience incomparable things and situations. To say that he is not and does not need to be like his brother or sister to be loved, but that he is loved for existing as he is.
Letting our child feel loved for who he is and in a unique way by us, regardless of the number of siblings he has, is teaching him that love is of the infinite order and not of division, comparison, less or less. more. But, yes, of the trust, availability and delivery that we experience in the human relationships we live.
