Should I Draw You a Picture?

The popular expression “Do you want me to draw you a picture?” can sound disrespectful, but it may also have resulted from an interesting reflection.

What is obvious to you might not be to others.

If what we say may be interpreted in more than one way, imagine our feelings. I’ve been thinking a lot about that, and a lot more about love as well.

I realized that love tends to get lost in our daily routine, that whenever I get distracted and turn on my autopilot mode, love gets lost in dirty laundry, cooking, school activities, meetings, assignments, and repeated requests, such as “keep your voices down because I can’t even hear my own thoughts.”

Love hides away because we need to be open and committed for it to show through our actions.

Maybe you just thought that every activity I mentioned above is in fact done with love. Yes, maybe. But then I ask you, are your children feeling this love? Does that and only that make your children feel loved?

The truth is that the obvious is not so obvious.

There’s a huge gap between the love we feel and the love they receive; a gap that is bigger than we would like it to be. Children don’t feel loved because your work is done, the school fee is paid, and there’s food on their table.

Children understand love as active listening, hugs, admiring looks, time spent together, cuddling, a sincere “I love you”, that’s when they feel that they don’t need to make an effort to get all this love.

Every night, when I go to bed, I think about the time I spent with my children and I ask myself if I connected with the love I feel for them at some point during the day and if, in turn, they felt my love for them.

And when the answer is no, I embrace my human imperfections and try to figure out how to make it better the next day. One day at a time.

When we change, the world changes, people change and so do ideas, fortunately.

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So, state the obvious and repeat the obvious because between the love that we feel and the love that our children receive, many things can get lost in the way.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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