Is telling your kids”I love you” really important?. My view and how it has affected me.

Source

Wow this is an interesting read a friend of mine wrote up. So I decided to put it up my blog. What do you think about this topic?. Leave your thoughts in the comment section.

Growing up as a child, I would watch so many movies and I mean so many movies, I would even try to write them down to keep track(I know it’s silly) but I would loose count because I would watch like six movies or cartoons a day, even more. I would see in the movies that the parents of the children would always kiss their kids goodnight and told them that they loved them when the movie got a little sentimental, at the time I didn’t think it was a big deal until I began to see it in so many foreign movies, however I was never the type to care about stuff like this but I still wondered why my own parents weren’t as affectionate as this, I was also never the type to voice out how I was feeling, I would just write it in a letter or just forget about it.
Of course I knew my parents loved me but at the time as I child I started to feel like I needed to hear it, you know? but that didn’t happen as my parents never said it to me once, I mean not that I remember and trust me I would remember that sort of thing, I would probably write it in my diary or something .

I don’t really remember most of the happenings in my childhood so let’s skip to when I was about thirteen or so. I transferred from a day school to a boarding secondary school. The school was a whole different place and it taught me a lot of things. The kids there were so affectionate with each other, made handmade DIY birthday cards for their friends and sometimes even their enemies just to wish them a happy birthday and I found that thoughtful and sweet yet unusual. It wasn’t strange or anything, it was just odd, I don’t know if that made sense but that’s just how it was.
It wasn’t like the school was full of rainbows and sunshine, don’t get me wrong, the school was a brutal place and I still wonder how I got through it. Its just that the classmates I had were overly sweet on some occasions especially those they were friends with. They openly told their closest and best friends that they loved them, hugged them whenever they wanted and needed to, and I just found that kind of strange because it wasn’t something I was used to, I mean even my siblings and I don’t do stuff like this, even to wish happy birthday was awkward, it was that bad, for me anyways so you can see why I found it a little odd.

However as a new student it was easy for me to adapt to the affectionate nature of my classmates because I loved the way it felt and I too was an affectionate person, just on the inside anyways. But when I say adapt I mean make DIY birthday cards for friends even though I wasn’t very artsy, hugged the people I was comfortable enough with but I still wasn’t able to say ‘I LOVE YOU’ to someone else because it would leave some kind of weird feeling or taste in my mouth just because I wasn’t used to it. Sure I would write it in their cards and stuff but it still wasn’t easy to say it.

As I was trying to understand why my classmates were like that I realized that it was like that in all the other classes, even people from different classes as far as they were friends or had some kind of connection. I started to think and ask myself why it wasn’t like that at home, why my parents were never affectionate openly and why they made my siblings and I follow in their steps. Sure siblings aren’t supposed to be lovey-dovey, it’s practically impossible but saying to my siblings that I loved them was really strange and I’m very sure It’s the same on their part. I believed that my parents weren’t affectionate people even with themselves so maybe I just thought it was just the way they were, some people don’t like to show their feelings and stuff or maybe they also didn’t grow up in a place where ‘ I love you’ was tossed around, maybe the word didn’t need to be said because they already knew? Maybe that was the case with my parents, maybe they already felt like we knew so they didn’t feel the need to say it or show it.

Now some of you might say, “They pay your school fees, clothe you, put a roof over your head, I think that’s enough affection and love stop being a brat and be grateful”

I never said I wasn’t grateful I appreciate my parents so much you have no idea, but the thing you don’t know is telling somebody that you love them feeds the relationship, keeps it alive, it reinforces your feelings and helps remind your loved ones whether your spouse, sweetheart, child or parent that you are there for them and that they matter to you. Now I’m not saying that my parents don’t care or aren’t good parents or didn’t bring me up well, my siblings and I turned out fine so I’m very sure they did a great job in that aspect all I’m saying is there’s so much more they could have done, maybe they were more affectionate when we were younger and I just don’t remember.

As a new student in my new school, I was closer with the other new students that got in. One of the new students we’ll be calling her “Amara”, she happened to be my bunk mate and she was really cool, we pretty much talked about anything and everything, she told me so much about her life before coming to this new school, she came from another different boarding school so she had so many crazy experience to tell while I on the other hand didn’t have much to tell compared to her own stories. So as we got closer and talked more often. In one our our convos, something she said threw me off balance, like I was really surprised. She told me she had a boyfriend and we’re going to call him “Steve”, so apparently she has been dating this guy for a while before she changed schools and her mum knew all about it, she knew his name and pretty much everything that he liked and disliked because Amara had told her mother all about him. Now of course at first I didn’t believe her and at the same time I did because she wasn’t a dishonest person and she looked really serious about the whole matter, I didn’t believe he because I couldn’t just believe it, a Nigerian mum knowing all about her thirteen or fourteen year old daughter’s boyfriend was really shocking because I believed that all those things happened in foreign movies. I tried to put myself in the girl’s situation and see if I would be able to tell my mum all of those things, I did and I just couldn’t see my self doing that, AT ALL!

I just kept on wondering about how close she was with her mum and how she could tell her anything and I wished that it was like that with my mum sometimes, I mean I didn’t even tell my mum when I started menstruating she just found out on her own. All the doubts in my mind cleared when visiting day came (This is a day during school when your parents can come visit you as a student in a boarding school. It involves lots of food and fun time😊),I went with Amara to go see her mum, to greet her and stuff. On getting there Amara jumped on her mum, hugged her so tight the woman couldn’t breathe, she told her how much she missed her an all that cringy stuff while I just stood there awkwardly. After the exchange of pleasantries, I introduced my self and all that and I started to fell less awkward because she was so welcoming and free, she talked like she had known me for years.

Amara’s mum had gotten her some new stuff, provisions, toiletries and a new underwear bag, the bad was blue in color and I’m just going to write in quotes how their conversation went when Amara saw the bag
“Mummy, do you know whose best color this is?”
“Who? Is it Steve?”
Smiling timidly Amara answered “Yes mummy it is, I thought you’ve forgotten”
Then her mum laughed and said “How would I ever forget when you will not allow me to rest with that boy”
While their convo was going on, I just stood with my mouth agape, then all my doubts had gone. It was time to go, Amara was telling her mum goodbye, her mum kissed her forehead and told her that she loved her, she got into her car and she left. I on the other hand seriously couldn’t imagine it.
I envied that kind of relationship so much but I knew it wouldn’t happen on my parents part so I knew I had to step up my game, to do something to start a good relationship with my parents, and let me just say that it failed because the whole thing was just weird and my parents were goners in that aspect

Now how did I try to step up my game? I started to make my own DIY cards for my parents for any special occasions or special days to appreciate them, told them how much I cared for them and how much I loved them, but all these were in the tiny notes I put in the card because it was still weird coming out from my mouth and writing them in those notes just made it a little less weird. Each time I gave my parents these cards all they said was thanks, I mean what was I even expecting, a hug or something, silly me. I told myself I wasn’t going to do it again because I was so mad but I still did, I still made them those tiny cards on their birthday or parents day because they deserved it, I just made the notes in them less cringy when I gave it to them I received my thank you and that was enough.

I now understood why my siblings and I would never tell my parents what we wanted to do or what we were doing because my parents were well my parents, it’s either you get angry at your self for telling them because they’ll say one thing or the other, I’m not even going to get into details but if you’re Nigerian you would know what I mean.

Now let’s fast forward to the present time, I’m done with secondary school and one day my sister and I happened to be talking about this same issue of how our parents were never affectionate with us and how it affected her she told me how friends called her ‘cold’ and someone who hides her feelings and to her she didn’t feel that way so she confided in her friend how she never grew up saying all those words and thought it wasn’t at all important because even her parents didn’t say it to her, her friend advised her to make the first move and try to start a new relationship with her parents. She heeded to the advice, she called our parents more and stuff, try to tell her the things happening in her life and of course she regretted that and once again I won’t go into details, she took a bigger step when she told our dad that she loved him and he replied with a thank you. When she told me this I laughed so hard I couldn’t stop laughing, she told me how embarrassed she was and is still weird to her when ever she thinks about it, she said she would never try it again because even our parents weren’t making any efforts.
She further went on to say how she had changed, she showed her friends so much affection and not just by writing it down on a piece of paper but also saying it. She told me to start too and then it wouldn’t be too weird to say it to her and my other siblings and even my parents. Sadly, I think that it would be easy to say it to my friends without feeling weird. Why its sad is because it’s not supposed to be so.

At this point in my life I don’t think I even want my parents to change or anything because its just too late plus the whole thing would be so strange and awkward. I wouldn’t be able to handle it. This dilemma has affected me so much in social gatherings. I would get awkward really fast and wouldn’t even be able to compliment someone I met for the first time no matter how good they looked and when they would compliment me I wouldn’t know how to answer its either the atmosphere starts to get awkward or I’ll start to have anxiety, I find it extremely difficult to tell my parents things and this didn’t affect only me it affected my other siblings too and I made a vow to be overly affectionate with my own kids and communicate really well with them so they wouldn’t think that telling their friend and family that they loved them was weird.

I still love my parents very much, I owe them for all they’ve done for me and I also understand that parenting can never be easy so I appreciate them very much and I thank God for giving them to me.