A Balancing Act

My mother told me recently it was difficult for both my parents to say they loved each other. She said she had found both my sisters had the same problem saying words of love to their husbands. Either they can’t say it or they don’t say it often enough. I know it is the same for me, for both my husband and my children.

Both my parents came from generations where such things were never discussed by their own parents. Such situations naturally get handed down from generation to generation. The nearest thing to affection my grandfather showed my mother was his belt. My parents never hit me or my sisters, but still their affection was kept at an arms length.

My husband grew up to be an only child. Admitting she was never a maternal woman, his mother would leave him alone to cry when he was a baby while she went out for a walk. Either that or she would leave him alone with strangers. Both his parents worked throughout his childhood, leaving my husband to care for himself. He grew up never knowing much about expressing affection as his parents would never tell him that they loved him.

Picking our children up after school, I witness how other parents and their children show signs of their affection. I have seen some mothers kiss their children or children running up to their parents in excitement and give them a big hug. One child in kindergarten who kicked the teacher on her first day, can casually tell her parents that she loves them. Another child sees his father and cries out ‘Daddy’ with such enthusiasm, that when questioned when was the last time his son saw him, the father replies ‘What time is it now?’

Seeing such acts of affection, I wish I could be the same with my children. I hug them and praise them whenever necessary and kiss them goodnight every night, but I continue to find it hard to tell my children (and my husband) that I love them. My mum said about herself and my father once that they may find it hard to say but they show their affection in other ways.

When I was going away for a couple of days, my husband said something that horrified me. He said that while I’m away the children would be able to have a bit more freedom. Asking him to elaborate, he then let me know that I can be a bit hard on them. I know I can be tough on them at times, but I refuse to be aggressive. Sometimes being assertive is necessary as children do need discipline, but I then begin to wonder if I am giving them too much.

Since that time, whenever I go away to see my obstetrician in the Blue Mountains, I jokingly tell my husband that it should be peaceful while I’m gone. I may laugh on the outside, but I’m aching on the inside. It makes me sound like a horrible mother to my children. I find it hard to find the right balance between discipline and giving my children a free reign.

My husband finds it difficult to maintain an equal balance of a different nature. One night he threw his hands up in defeat, after he had been at logger-heads with our son.

‘What do I do with him?’ he cried. ‘Is it because I play with him that when I tell him to do as he’s told he refuses to listen? Am I supposed to be like other fathers, including my own, that the only time you spend with your dad is when you’re in trouble?’

In our house both I and my husband have very different parenting styles. We both have to work on taking pages from each other books to help even it out. I guess, in our own ways we are telling the children we love them, though practising to tell them more often would eventually make it easier.

As for my husband and I to say that we love each other, that too takes time. We tend to get caught up in what we do as both parents and individuals, that communication gets eaten away by other matters. We need to find time for ourselves again, as a couple.

We are yet to find that even balance, for both our sakes and our children, without repeating the mistakes of past generations. Otherwise, yet another generation could continue this tradition.

© Debbie Johansson 2007

About the Author

Debbie Johansson is the author of young adult mystery novels and historical fiction. She has written two young adult novels, which are both in the editing stages. Debbie has also written short stories, articles and has been known to dabble in poetry whenever the mood strikes her. She lives in country NSW, Australia with her husband, two young children, a psychotic pomeranian and six paranahs heavily disguised as goldfish.

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