FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS Learning How to Love in New Ways
by Elizabeth Spencer
W hen my youngest child was a teenager, she taught me some new ways to love. My second and last baby is my strong- spirited child who’s called me “mom” (as opposed to “mommy,” like her older sister) for a long time. She’s fascinating, intricate, determined, and so insightful. She’s a complex puzzle worth putting together and a dance worth every tricky step. I love—the feeling—both my children fiercely and in equal measure, if a mother’s love is something that can be measured. But I do not love—the action—my children in the same way, because love has to look and sound like something to the person being loved, and my two children see and hear love in different ways. With my youngest child, I needed to find ways to love a child I wasn’t always sure even liked me. I needed to learn how to give love that was not always obviously given back. This was love the choice, the decision, the action, and I had to learn how to do it as I went along. I learned to still say the words “I love you.” I learned to say them even when I didn’t feel like saying them. I learned to say them when they were only returned with a mumbled “love you” as my daughter bolted out of the car in the school drop-off line. I learned to say them when they were not returned or acknowledged. I learned to still say them because no matter what, they were (and are) still true.
106 SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE • VOL 25 ISSUE 4
INNOVATION • SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE 107
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