I Started Seeing My Parents’ Love Differently
When I was a child, it seemed that my mother always knew what to do and my father could solve almost any problem. I never wondered whether they were tired, what they worried about or how often they put their own plans aside because of us. I began to understand many of these things only after becoming a father myself.
I Started Seeing My Parents’ Love Differently
When you are a child, your parents’ care feels ordinary. Someone waits for you at home, asks where you are, reminds you to eat, tells you off for your mistakes and worries when you are late. At that age, you do not always see these things as love. With time, you begin to understand them differently.
This is not about parents who never made mistakes, and it is not about children owing gratitude for everything. It is about my mother and father and the things I only began to understand as I grew older.
I was born and raised in a village. People whose childhood fell in the 1990s will probably remember a similar kind of life: friends, bicycles, football until dark, scraped knees and your mother telling you to be home on time.
We did not sit around thinking about how much work our parents had, where the money came from, why our mother was tired or what our father was thinking about after work.
Our parents were simply there. They worked, dealt with things at home, raised us and handled whatever ordinary life brought.
Only much later did I begin to understand how much work, worry and decision-making stood behind things that seemed completely normal to us as children.
As a child, you think your parents always know the answer
Children rarely think about the fact that their mother and father may not know what the right decision is. That they can worry, doubt themselves and be afraid of making a mistake.
I thought adults simply knew more. If there was a problem, they would solve it. If something went wrong, they would work it out.
Now that I have three children of my own, I understand that parents do not have ready answers.
You make the decision that seems right at that moment and think about how it may affect your children.
What I understood later
- Parents became tired too
- They did not always know what was best
- Some rules came from worry
- Not every warning was about control
- They often postponed their own plans
- Many decisions were made with the children in mind
My mother worked as a teacher her whole career
She taught Ukrainian language and literature, prepared lessons, checked exercise books and was also a class teacher.
As a child, I did not think about how much time and energy that work required. To me, it was simply my mother’s everyday life: school, pupils, lessons, exercise books and one task after another.
I now understand that a teacher does not work only with textbooks. There are children with different personalities, conversations with parents, responsibility and situations that do not end when the final lesson is over.
After school, my mother came home, where her own children, household tasks and our questions were waiting for her.
My love of books came from my mother
There were always books in our home. Fiction, historical novels, books about faith, and works by Ukrainian and international authors.
I read a great deal. At the time, it was simply one way to spend my free time. Now I understand that those books gave me much more.
Through them, I learned about other countries, different periods of history, people whose lives were unlike mine and situations I had never experienced myself.
They helped me imagine a world beyond our village, look at events through another person’s eyes and think about why people behave the way they do.
My mother did not give me long lectures about the importance of education. Reading, learning and taking an interest in something new were simply normal in our home.
I wrote about how school gives us more than grades and classroom rules in “School Taught Us Many Important Things” . In my case, however, the habit of reading began at home.
I did not like all of my mother’s warnings
Like any child, I did not always agree with my mother. Some rules seemed unnecessary. Some of her words annoyed me. Sometimes I simply wanted to be left alone.
As a child, it is easy to see only that you were not allowed to do something. It is much harder to understand why an adult is worried and what consequences they can already see.
I do not believe that every decision she made was right. Parents make mistakes too.
But many things that once felt like unnecessary restrictions now look more like attempts to protect me from situations I did not yet understand.
My father worked at a sugar factory
As a child, I often visited him at work. To me, it felt like a separate world where adults discussed things, made arrangements and dealt with practical problems.
I enjoyed standing nearby and listening to my father talk to people. I could watch him for a long time without saying very much myself.
He knew how to speak briefly. Without unnecessary explanations or complicated language. He could get to the point and make himself understood.
I think some of my own desire to explain things simply came from him. Not to make an ordinary conversation more complicated than it needs to be.
My father never gave me lessons on how to speak to people
He never sat me down and said: “Now I am going to teach you how to communicate properly.”
I simply watched. I saw how he behaved, how he answered, how he listened and how other people responded to him.
Children learn many things in exactly this way. Not through a list of rules, but through what they see beside them every day.
I notice the same thing with my own children now. They may not remember my long explanations, but they see very clearly how I behave in ordinary situations.
My parents had three children
There were three of us in our family: me and my two sisters.
As a child, you do not think about how much effort it takes to raise three children, feed and clothe everyone, get them to school and at least have some idea where each of them is.
Olena and I now have three children too. Many things became understandable without anyone having to explain them to me.
Why parents asked when you would be home. Why they worried when you were late. Why they warned you about certain people. Why they sometimes spoke more sharply than they intended.
Not everything was right. But now I see more than control in those moments. I also see parents worrying about their children.
A child’s view
Parents are supposed to be there, help, allow things and solve problems. A child rarely notices what the parents themselves are going through.
Your own experience
When you become responsible for a family, you begin to understand the cost of many decisions that once seemed simple.
A different view
With age, you think less only about what you may have lacked and notice more of what your parents did each day.
My parents did not always express love in words
In our family, we did not constantly use warm or emotional words about love.
It appeared in simpler ways. Someone waiting for you at home. Someone asking whether you had eaten. Being told to put on warmer clothes when you were sure it was not cold outside.
It was in the worry when you were late. In help you had not asked for. In ordinary food on the table and attempts to solve your problems.
A child sees all this as the normal order of things. Only later do you realise that there was a particular person behind it who was thinking about you.
Becoming a father changed what I noticed
When you have children of your own, many decisions your parents made suddenly become easier to understand.
You may be tired, but you still deal with something your child needs. You may be worried about work or money, but you try not to place all of that weight on the children.
Sometimes you have to say no, even though agreeing would be much easier. Sometimes you have to accept that your child is upset with you because you can see what may happen next.
Being a father helped me stop judging my mother and father only from the position of a child.
I wrote about what children may actually need in “Children Do Not Always Need Perfect Parents” . I now understand even more clearly that parenthood is not built from perfect answers. It is built from what you do each day.
I do not want to pretend my parents never made mistakes
Of course, we may remember some situations differently. There are decisions I might make differently today.
Every family has difficult moments, things left unsaid, hurt feelings and subjects that are not easy to discuss.
But as I grow older, I am less willing to look at my parents only through what I may have lacked.
I think more often about the circumstances in which they lived, the opportunities they had and the experience available to them at the time.
They raised us as well as they knew how. They made mistakes. They also made decisions for which I remain grateful. They were certainly never indifferent to us.
Moving abroad also made me think more about my parents
When you live far away, the possibility of simply visiting your parents no longer feels ordinary.
You cannot get into the car and be with them a short time later. Most conversations happen by phone, while visits need to be planned in advance.
Distance helps you notice how many things you once took for granted.
I wrote about how moving changed our view of family, time and everyday life in “How Moving to Norway Changed the Way We Live” .
I now want to say some things aloud more often
There are things we understand privately but do not always say. We assume our parents already know how we feel about them.
But even a simple thank you should not always be left until later.
There is no need to wait for a birthday, an anniversary or another special occasion. Sometimes you can remember one particular moment and tell them that you now see it differently.
To a parent, it may have been an ordinary event they have long forgotten. For the child, it may have remained an important memory for many years.
I can see many of the things they gave me in myself
From my mother, I kept a love of reading, respect for knowledge and the desire to understand what I do not yet know.
From my father, I probably kept the desire to speak directly, avoid making simple things complicated and pay attention to how words work in an ordinary conversation.
They did not deliberately teach me all of this. Often, they simply lived their lives, while I watched and remembered.
My own children now watch me in the same way. That thought makes me take my words and actions more seriously.
You begin to understand love through ordinary memories
Not through one major event, but through many small moments.
My mother waiting at home. My father taking me to work with him. Books lying around the house. Being asked where I was going. Being told off for coming home with another scraped knee.
At the time, these were simply parts of an ordinary day. Now they are part of my memory and part of the person I became.
Some things should not always be left until later
I now think more often that an ordinary conversation with my parents should not always wait until I have a completely free day.
Not because that is what a person is supposed to do. Time simply passes faster than we expect. And there are many things worth saying thank you for while they can still be said in person.
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