Parental Love – Form and Function

February is usually associated with romance and things that lovers get up to. And because of that it can blind us to the broad spectrum of love. That is why I would like to focus on family love this time. I would like to look at the love of parents for their children, from the perspective of the children i.e. how it is experienced.

I really believe children are meant to be raised by two parents, because of the nature of loving they require. Children need to know and experience expressed warmth and fondness (i.e. affection) and children also need boundaries and structure (i.e. function). I think they thrive in an environment where there is both affection and function. This is the form and shape love takes on for them. I am also inclined to believe that no one person can entirely fulfil these. We generally have a leaning towards one or the other.

Some of us are more affectionate and express love more sentimentally, by being. Some are more functional and express love more structurally, by doing. And children need to experience both … love that is and love that does.

It used to be that affection was associated with mothers while function was associated with fathers. Mothers were seen as the ones who soothe, comfort and nurture while fathers would protect, discipline and provide. Those roles worked well when the responsibility of running the home was more clear-cut, in that fathers went out to work to provide and mothers stayed home to nurture. These also worked well when the personalities of the parents involved aligned with the parenting expectations, meaning the woman was more affectionate by nature and the man more industrious by nature.

But life has shown us that this is not always the case. Not every woman is naturally affectionate just as not every man is naturally industrious. And so, in some homes you find that the father is the one who hugs, plays with and laughs with the children while the mother is the one who lays down the law. And it works well if the parents are in sync because the children will still experience both the affection and the function aspects of love. (That is probably why people tend to marry their opposites, it creates that balance.)

Unfortunately, with time things changed and this affected the family structures.

Industrialisation took the mother out of the home, whether due to progress (women discovering that they can do more) or out of necessity (families needing more than one income). Meaning that the children would experience one aspect of parental love (provision and function) but not the full spectrum. This left a gap which regrettably prejudiced the children especially in environments where there was no extended family to lean on.

The trade off with a two income home is that affection is sacrificed at the altar of function. You see, affection requires presence and time and attention and these cannot be replaced. Even as parents try to augment it with things, which may placate the children short term, this does not cover the affection gap.

Advancement has also meant that women are now more in demand in workplaces than men. Taking women even more out of the home. This however has not meant that men automatically slot into the gap in the home. And so, affection suffers further. You find some mothers still trying to play this role, trying to balance between assisting with function and provision while also trying to catch up on the affection side.

What has further complicated things is the increase in single parenting. As already established it is difficult for one person to fulfil all the love needs of children. Single parents generally lean more on the functional side of parental love, ensuring provision and the well being of their children and once more affection lags behind.

Please note I am not saying the parents in these scenarios do not love their children, I am rather showing the experience of that love from the children’s perspective.

Over the last couple of generations we have seen a cycle perpetuate itself. Children raised with more function than affection, then growing up to be parents who overcompensate the affection, probably at the cost of function. They, in turn, have raised a generation of people who lead with affection probably at the cost of function. (The biggest complaint you tend to hear these days is about how ‘highly emotional’ and ‘overly sensitive’ people seem to be these days.)

I don’t know what the solution is, all I know is that for children to be well rounded fully functional human beings they need to experience love both in its form i.e. affection and in its function i.e. structure.