A Case Against "I Love You"

I have a confession: I don't tell Felix I love him.

I am very conscious of not saying it, but if I try to say it, it feels forced and awkward and so I just don't.  I don't write about loving him, I don't talk about loving him, I don't tweet or Facebook or blog about loving him.  I freely tell other people that I love them without any hesitation, so what makes it different with my baby?

For a while I thought it was maybe that I felt silly since he couldn't understand me.  But that can't be it...I talk to him all day long, I ask him questions he can't answer, like which brand of pickles we should buy.  I tell him plenty of things that are beyond his limits of understanding.  Then I thought it was maybe that he wasn't able to reciprocate, at least in words.  But the point of telling someone you love them isn't to get a parroted response (is it?), so that can't be it either.

It isn't something that bothers me much anyway, so I let it go.



Then I read a small passage at the very end of Unconditional Parenting (see previous post for a ridiculous write-up on it), that gave me an "Aha!" moment.  I can't for the life of me find the passage again to quote from, but it was essentially suggesting that if you to say it, you aren't allowing it to be taken for granted.  I believe he was referencing another culture where a verbal expression of love would be insulting, because it is assumed and constant and shouldn't need reminding.

That, I think, is partly why I feel so ridiculous saying it out loud, because it would be like telling him that I have ten fingers or that my eyes are blue.  There is no other option.  Not to mention that stating it may actually plant a tiny seed of doubt - Why do you feel the need to say it?  Is there an alternative?  

There is also a point to be made of identity distinction.  The mother/baby relationship isn't a simple one.  Babies aren't born being self-aware, and share an identity with their mother.  As in, they literally don't perceive their mother as being a separate entity from themselves.  They release stress hormones when separated from their mother.  It isn't as widely discussed or studied (if at all), but mothers experience something similar, something that bears more weight than we tend to lend it.  I'm sure that mothers can universally attest to feeling an emptiness, a hole, a distinct discord in their souls when they are away from their little ones.  I think this is nature's way (or God's, or biology's, or whatever you prefer) of making sure we don't abandon our young.  Folks smarter than myself have studied the measurable qualities of attachment, the cascading hormonal pathways that take place when we touch our children that work to blur the line between "self" and "baby."  We're supposed to be together.

The point being that, in a way that is more real than a dreamy, romantic declaration of oneness, I am him, or at least a part of me is.  He is me, and at this age maybe entirely.  So telling him that I love him would be sort of like standing in front of the mirror and telling me I love myself.  Silly, although I'm sure some people would benefit from it.  I have a solid sense of self and self-worth, and I have no need to purposefully remind myself of it.  It just isn't necessary.

Finally - I feel awkward even putting a name to my feelings towards my son.  I feel strange even calling them feelings.  There really should be some other term.

Before I was ever pregnant, a friend of mine, a newly crowned mother, said that she had always thought her love for her baby would be butterfly love, a gushy romantic feeling like when she first met her husband.  What she actually experienced was, she said, psychotic love.  Dive in front of a bus love.  Ferocious, irrational, instinctual, primal love (okay, I'm paraphrasing now).

I always knew that mother-love was something special, but I always assumed that it was a matter of magnitude, that it was just more of what I already knew as love.  I was so, so wrong.  It is a different beast entirely.  I get overwhelmed even trying to characterize it.  Love is the wrong word.  I love my husband with all my heart; what I feel for my son comes from somewhere else.  From everywhere else.

Anyhow, I'm certainly not advocating that anyone out there stop telling their children they love them, especially if they're used to hearing it.  But maybe we should ask them whether they know it, and maybe we should ask ourselves whether they would know it if we stopped telling them, actions and words being what they are.