Rebbetzin Leah Gans
We are beginning to discuss the second set of parenting tools, those that reinforce positive behavior: “the right hand draws close.” Our first topic is extremely important; any discussion of raising a child should begin with it.
What can we compare, in its importance to a child’s development, to “mother’s milk”? What element can we call, without exaggeration, “nourishment for a child’s soul”? Without what is parenting inconceivable? Love, of course.
There are various parenting tools that some children need but that are entirely unsuitable for others. Yet every child needs love.
Rav Shlomo Wolbe, an outstanding teacher of Jewish ethics (Mussar), said that love is oxygen for a child.
If we look at young animals, we see an enormous difference between them and children. Within a month to a month and a half, a kitten already behaves like an adult animal: it goes everywhere, explores, can run and jump, and tries to hunt. And a human baby?
An infant is completely helpless! He cannot care for himself in any way. Child development specialist J. Ronald Lally compared how developed animals and humans are on the day they are born. He believes that, to match young animals in physical structure and function, a human baby would have to be born a whole year later! In other words, pregnancy would have to last a year and 9 months. Only then would a child be as developed as young animals are at birth. Why is this necessary?
Another Year of Pregnancy
The point is that animals have only physiological needs: they find their own food, hunt, and find or build shelter. For a human being to develop normally, however, food and care must be accompanied by an emotional bond, warmth, and love. For an entire year after birth, a child remains in a “social womb,” which “allows him to form a strong bond with those who care for him, draws him into intellectual exploration of the world in a safe and encouraging environment, and helps him build positive self-esteem.” A little foal can leap almost like an adult horse just a few hours after birth. An infant needs an additional period of adjustment, during which he is safe and surrounded by love. During pregnancy, the baby received warmth inside his mother’s body; now he receives emotional warmth from his mother, father, and everyone in the household. That is why Ronald Lally calls this period “the second part of pregnancy.”
Without this, a child cannot survive; it is a baby’s fundamental, vital need. It is not a luxury, a supplement, or vitamins—it is a little person’s basic nourishment, nourishment for the soul.
Love Is a Need of the Soul
A child’s soul is not yet fully formed or ready for life. Just as a child cannot find his own food at this age, he cannot independently arrange to receive love and warmth.
I personally know a family whose child was born during a difficult period for everyone. This boy is the same age as my son; they are now both 4 years old. He spent the first years of his life in a family where there seemed to be no sunlight. Of course, his parents met his needs for food and clean clothes, but nothing more. He grew up with significant developmental delays. He had to be placed in a special education preschool for children with emotional difficulties. For a very long time, he did not walk or speak. And he did not cry at all. His teacher worked with him for a long time, and she can even show you the spot where he first cried and expressed himself. Now he is slowly beginning to talk. This means that he had been living like a dried-out flower without water: no one paid any more attention to him than was absolutely necessary, or took an interest in him or his emotional state. As soon as he began receiving warmth and attention to his emotional needs, the child responded emotionally—by crying.
How Simple Is It?
Parents often do not understand what there is to discuss: “But this is so basic! It’s obvious that you should love your own child.” In practice, things turn out to be less simple, and this really does require a conscious approach, especially as children grow older.
As a rule, babies and very young children receive their parents’ love and the attention of those around them unconditionally; it is very rare for this not to be the case. A mother feels spontaneous love for her nursing baby, for her little one, even one who cries a lot, even one who is noisy and mischievous. A mother will always hug her young child and hold him close to her heart. Perhaps only people with a limited capacity for emotion are unable to share their warmth with a child even at this age. But that is more the exception than the rule.
When a child grows older, begins to be stubborn, argues with his parents, and acts against their instructions, loving him becomes much harder. Our desire to hurt him in return kicks in: “If that’s how you’re going to behave, then…” And parents show their child much less love.
This lack is very serious. It can be described in the words of King Solomon (Ecclesiastes 1:15): “What is crooked cannot be straightened, and what is lacking cannot be made up.” No matter how much we later try to remedy this (although, of course, better late than never), the lost love cannot be replaced—how can we know how much was missing? Clearly, if a child has not received love, what will he be able to pass on to his own future children?! The foundations of his development and his future are being laid now.
Love Should Not Depend on Good or Bad Behavior
A child grows and gradually separates from his mother. He goes to preschool and encounters his share of challenges there: perhaps he is laughed at, hurt, or excluded from a game; sometimes he does not understand what the other children or the teacher are saying. After such a difficult day in a group, where he constantly has to overcome difficulties and cope with tasks, he eagerly awaits the moment when he can come home, relax, and receive warmth and love.
He comes home expecting hugs and kisses from his mother. He drops his bag on the floor… And then: “What’s this? Why did you throw your bag on the floor? Go hang it up where it belongs! And your jacket!” He is expected to behave like a big boy, but he still feels little and very tired. Of course, the bag and jacket need to be hung up where they belong, but if we remind him after hugs and a kiss, accompanied by the exclamation, “I’m so happy you’re home!”, the child will hang them up with greater pleasure.
All children, regardless of age, long for love. Of course, the ways we show it may differ for a little child and a teenager, but both await it equally, and older children often even more than little ones.
The Foundation and Essential Prerequisite for Parenting
Besides being necessary for a child’s healthy development, love is also an essential prerequisite for raising him. We cannot approach a child with corrections, punishments, and reprimands that are difficult for him to bear and accept unless we show him love both alongside them and beforehand.
If a mother tells her child from early childhood how much she loves him, without making it conditional on his behavior or anything else, he knows it, and it is easier for him to accept her displeasure and criticism. A reprimand or punishment is temporary, while his mother’s love is constant.
Love is the key to a child’s heart; it opens his heart to accept his parent’s guidance.
Parents often think their child already knows that he is loved. “Why keep repeating it?! He can feel it all himself!” But if he can feel everything himself, why don’t you think he will sense the criticism himself too? Why do you voice your corrections? We express our displeasure clearly, but when it comes to love, “he’ll feel it himself”?
We need to remember that grown children also need hugs, kisses, and expressions of love. Of course, not as often as little ones, but they still need them.
Will He Understand on His Own?
A cheder rebbe said that he always tried to treat his pupils very gently. Once, he had a class in which one of the boys was his neighbor. The rebbe treated this boy with great care: when his shoe sole came loose, he glued it back on; when the boy tore his clothes, the rebbe sewed them; when he missed his ride, the rebbe personally accompanied him. In other words, he did much more than his duties as a rebbe required. One day, the rebbe asked the boy whether he had noticed this special treatment. It turned out that the boy took everything for granted, almost as though it were part of the rebbe’s duties.
Every parent knows this feeling: we invest so much in our child, give him things, buy things for him, and do things for him—surely he should understand that we love him very much! But children take this for granted; it is a parent’s job to care for children and buy clothes, food, books, and toys. “Why do my parents provide me with extracurricular activities and entertainment? Because they want to!” That is how children think.
And they still wait for us to tell them that we love them. They do not deduce it logically from our behavior.
Rav Kletzkin was giving a lecture on this subject, and one of the fathers present protested: “It can’t be that our children don’t know we love them. My wife and I try so hard for our children, work a lot, and buy them the latest and most interesting things. It can’t be that they don’t know.” He decided to check. When he arrived home late that evening, he could not restrain himself and woke his 8-year-old daughter. He felt embarrassed to ask, “Do you know that I love you?”, so he asked, “Do you know that Mommy loves you?” The girl answered, “Yes.” The father thought: “I was right, and he was talking nonsense at the lecture. My daughter has made it clear that she sees our efforts.” Still, he asked her: “And how can you tell that Mommy loves you?” She answered: “Because she gives me my clothes first in the morning.” The father was taken aback. In fact, the girl simply did everything slowly, and her mother gave her clothes first so that she would not fall behind the others, but her daughter understood it this way. She did not see her parents’ hard work or their purchases of fashionable things as expressions of love at all. The father returned and told this story at the class.
A Child Who Is Loved Forgives Unfairness More Easily
Proverbs (10:12) says: “Cover all transgressions with love.” This is true with children as well. We try so hard to be good, sensitive parents: to restrain ourselves, overlook things, and avoid getting angry—but we are human. And we still make mistakes. We may lose our temper, especially if we are tired after a long day.
If a child knows that his parents love him, he will forgive them more easily when they unfairly accuse him of something he did not do, or shout at him more than necessary out of fatigue and irritation. A child who feels love, hears about it, and receives visible expressions of it will be able to “cover” unpleasant experiences with it and “move on.” He may be angry for a little while, but will soon forgive them (“Mom/Dad is human too”) and forget about it.
But if a similar mistake is made with a child who does not feel loved, he will add it to his list of grievances against his parents as yet another sign that they do not love him. “No one here understands me. They hate me here…” The child grows up with these thoughts, and the results are distressing.
Satisfying Emotional Hunger
When we feel hungry, we go looking for food. Since love is no less important to a child than food, when he feels emotionally hungry, he goes looking for love. If it is not there at home, if he does not receive it from those close to him, he goes looking for it in “other fields,” G-d forbid.
A child often misjudges the situation, deciding that he is unloved at home simply because the adult and the child speak different love languages. But the child has already come to believe that he is not loved at home. Some children will seek love among their friends; others will go “out onto the streets.” Children begin to treat home as a temporary shelter—a place to eat and sleep—while moving their lives elsewhere.
Of course, a child can go spend time at a friend’s house or go out with friends, but he should receive warmth and love at home.
to be continued
Prepared by — Mrs. Zissi Skarzhinskaya