Love for one’s child is the biggest illusion.

A friend said this on a phone call today morning. It was an interesting discussion. 

It’s true, isn’t it? Think about everyone you know in your life, is there anyone who you really 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 like? And compare that with the love for your child. The love we experience for children is in most cases, quite unconditional. And that is not because we are capable of unconditional love, oh no not at all – but because we actively reject and deny every aspect of our child which we don’t like. 

We allow the parts that we accept as ‘part of being a child’, of course, most parents go crazy at how naughty their kids are, how they drive them up the wall, etc etc, but no, that’s not what I’m talking about. As parents we actively reject the idea that our child may be the sort of person we wouldn’t really have liked hanging out with. It is an area we’re too afraid to explore. ‘I really don’t like you, but I love you because I gave birth to you’ – is really not an option. Some people, when they painfully realise that their adult children are people they don’t like, just reject the child outright as a waste of investment. Others try to force them into becoming what they thought they always were. “You’ve changed so much, your friends are brainwashing you.” 

Even scientific studies show that parents have the least perspective on the true personality of their child. Because to allow yourself to love your child unconditionally, you’ve created and fallen in love with an illusion that does not exist. The person you are in love with is a figment of your imagination, not your child. Scary right? 

It doesn’t have to be. If we felt free to dislike the person our child was, and didn’t expect the child to be what we wanted them to be, then we can teach them freedom and teach them how to respect differences between people – something that is starkly missing in the society today. And our children will also grow up completely self-assured that they are loved no matter who they are, and no matter how much their parents dislike their personalities or disapprove of their choices. Imagine that kind of freedom