Why Love Doesn’t Always Feel Like Love to a Child

As parents, we often make the mistake of thinking that it is natural, even mandatory, for our children to love and care for us as deeply as we do for them.

After all, we brought them into the world.

We carried them, endured labour pain and childbirth.

We survived sleepless nights and emergency visits to the hospital.

We raised them.

We worked to put food on the table, clothes on their backs, and made sure they got to school, practice, and home again.

We cooked, cleaned, worried, and sacrificed.

So it feels natural to assume that they will grow up feeling grateful. That they will one day look back and appreciate us. That this love will somehow return to us.

But this is a mistake.

Because love given does not create a debt owed.

Children do not come into this world to repay us. Not with love and adoration.

Not with obedience. Not with success, money, or a comfortable retirement.

They come to experience life, to become themselves, not to fulfil an emotional contract they never agreed to, let alone knew existed.

When we confuse care with obligation, love with expectation, gratitude with duty, we place a weight on them they were never meant to carry.

I once had a visit from a young woman in her early twenties, still in college. She told me she envied her housemates who couldn’t wait for the holidays, counting down the days to go home and see their parents again.

She said she had never known what it felt like to miss hers.

My heart breaks for both her, and her parents.

And this reminded me of an Instagram reel I came across once.

The person shared that after leaving home as an adult, they realised something unsettling. They did not miss their parents either.

Only later did they begin to understand why.

They spoke about growing up in an environment shaped by fear. About having to follow a path already set for them. About being told, directly or indirectly, what they could and could not do.

They said something that stayed with me. That parents can love you, and still break you at the same time.

And as someone who is both a child and a parent, this was the saddest truth I have read.

Because it forces us to face an uncomfortable reality. That good intentions do not guarantee reciprocity. That love alone is not enough if it is tangled with fear, expectation, or unexamined wounds.

And that sometimes, what a child needs most is not more sacrifice, not expensive holidays or grand birthday celebrations, but the deep assurance that they are safe to be who they are.

Safe emotionally, mentally, and relationally. Safe to feel, to speak, to choose, and to grow, without fear of punishment, guilt-tripping, or rejection.

And when that safety isn’t there,  this is what often happens:

Feelings were brushed aside, corrected, or explained away.

Questions were answered, often with “because I am your mother” or “because I say so”, but emotions were not held.

Punishments were carried out without careful explanation.

Even comfort was offered in solutions, not presence.

Care was expressed through doing and providing, rather than understanding.

Over time, connection thinned. What remained was distance.

Not because their parents did not care, but because their inner world was rarely met.

And so these children grow up carrying this understanding of love with them.

That care means providing.

That love means correcting.

That closeness comes through responsibility, not emotional presence.

When they become parents themselves, this is often the only language of love they know.

And without meaning to, they recreate a similar environment for their children. Not out of cruelty or neglect, but out of familiarity.

This was how love was shown to them.

And so this is how love is shown again.

But you might say, “But they’re adults now. Shouldn’t they know better?”

But it isn’t that simple. What we learn about love, safety, and connection is laid down early, long before we have the words or awareness to question it. And much of it lives not just in thought, but embeded in the body, the nervous system, the patterns we return to under stress.

So perhaps this post is really about two things.

First.

If you’re a parent with a close, loving family, and you find yourself not quite understanding why some of your friends have so much difficulty with theirs, or noticing silent judgments forming, it might help to remember that your friends were once children too, and some childhoods leave deeper marks than we realise. I believe this is the fastest and surest way to foster a more understanding and compassionate society.

Second.

If you’re a parent wondering why the care, closeness, or affection you hoped for from your children isn’t there, despite everything you gave and sacrificed, it may be worth pausing to consider what love felt like to your child while they were growing up.

Not as blame.

Not as fault.

Just as something to sit with.

Thank you for reading <3