Why some parents never think their children know the meaning of love

Why do some parents think their children have no idea about the meaning of love?

Probably because these same parents assume their children’s expression of love must be what the parents expect in order for these parents to accept that what is expressed, is indeed, love.

In other words, if parents can only accept that their children expresses love through “selfless acts and obvious behaviors of gratitude,” they’re going to express a lot of disappointment when the children are still young and have not yet developed empathy or have not yet developed the concept of “self” and “other” or “selfish” and “selfless.”

If these parents are able to define “love” in the appropriate context of the development of a child, then they may be more likely to accept that an infant will express love very differently from a toddler from a 10-year old child from a 16-year old teenager from a 21-year old young adult from a 35-year old adult child. These will be parents who will know that their children know the meaning of love based on the developmentally appropriate expression of that love.

Let me turn this question on its head and ask a related question that puts the spotlight on children:

Why do children never think their parents know the meaning of “get off my back!”?

The answer is because these children make the same projection of their assumptions onto their parents — the same way parents in the above question project their own assumptions onto their children.

Hence, children who develop an awareness of their parents’ nagging as the default expression of how their parents “show love” will know that the nagging however annoying and exasperating is nothing more than their parents’ desperate way of trying to reach them to show that they care and that they do love them. Usually when children grow up and become parents, they develop this awareness.

The caveat is that even if children develop this awareness, it doesn’t make the nagging feel any less annoying, but it may allow children to be more tolerant and patient toward their parents.