When I was a child, my mother was simply my mother and my father was simply my father. I never thought about how much they worked, what they were afraid of, what they worried about or how often they put their own plans aside because of their children. I started understanding many of these things only after I became a father myself.
I Started Seeing My Parents' Love Differently
Getting older did not make me think my parents were always right. I did not start idealizing my childhood either. I simply began to notice something I barely saw before: behind many ordinary things were their time, energy, worries and responsibility for three children.
Parents seem like people who are simply supposed to know what to do
If there is a problem, Mum or Dad will solve it. If money is needed for something important, the adults will somehow find it. If you are sick, they know what to do. If you are late, someone will be waiting at home.
A child rarely thinks that at that same moment their parents may be tired, worried or unsure of the right answer themselves.
My childhood never seemed unusual to me
The yard, friends, bicycles, football until dark, scraped knees. For many people who grew up in the 1990s, this will sound familiar.
We did not sit around thinking about how much our parents worked, where the money came from or why they were sometimes tired.
Our parents were simply there.
My mother worked at a school. My father worked at a sugar factory. There were three children in our family: me and my two sisters.
To me, that was simply how life worked. Adults had jobs. Children had school, the yard and their own things to do. There was food at home. If you went somewhere, you had to say where. If you were gone too long, people started looking for you.
Back then, I did not call any of this love.
A lot of love was hidden in things that simply looked like everyday life
Back then, that could sometimes feel annoying. Now I understand very well why my parents wanted to know where we were and when we would be back.
Such an ordinary question that a child barely notices it. But someone was thinking about you before you even thought about it yourself.
Not every restriction was necessarily right. But now I understand that behind many of them was ordinary parental worry.
As a child, it feels like this is simply what parents are supposed to do. As an adult, you start understanding how much time, energy and sometimes difficult decisions that takes.
You suddenly start understanding things nobody ever explained to you
Olena and I also have three children.
And now I know there are days when you do not know the best thing to do either. But your child still expects an answer from you.
You may be tired or worried about work or money, but your child's problem does not disappear because of that.
Sometimes saying yes would be easier, but you say no because you can see something your child cannot see yet.
Sometimes you speak more sharply than you wanted to. Sometimes you make a mistake. Then you sit and wonder whether you handled it the right way.
That was when I started looking at my own parents much less through the eyes of a child.
As a child, I saw the school. Now I also see how much energy she gave to it
My mother taught Ukrainian language and literature and was also a class teacher.
When I was a child, that was simply her job to me. Lessons, students, notebooks.
Now I understand something much simpler: after her own workday, she came home to three children of her own.
It does not really matter how many notebooks she had checked that day. What matters is that her energy also ran out, but the house and the children did not disappear because of that.
My love of books came from my mother. In our home, reading, learning and being curious about things you did not know was normal.
I have already written separately about school and what it gave me. Here, something else matters more to me: my mother passed part of who I became on to me not through explanations, but simply through the way she lived.
I liked visiting him at work and listening to the way he spoke with people
I could simply stand nearby and watch.
My father spoke briefly. No complicated words and no long explanations. Straight to the point.
He never sat me down to teach me how to communicate with people.
I simply watched how he listened, how he answered and how he behaved in different situations.
Looking back, I think that is partly where my own wish to explain simple things simply comes from.
That is another thing I received from my parents without them having to explain it.
And that is normal
When you are ten or fifteen, you see the situation from your own side.
You were not allowed to do something. You were scolded. You were made to do something you did not want to do. You did not get something you wanted.
At that age, you are not supposed to be thinking about your parents' salary, their tiredness or how many problems they are solving without involving you.
Only later does the other half of the picture appear.
That does not mean every decision your parents made suddenly becomes right.
It simply means you finally see not only what they did, but also the circumstances in which they were doing it.
You can love your parents and still understand that they made mistakes
I do not want to rewrite my childhood as if everything was right.
There are decisions my parents made that I might make differently today.
Every family has hurt feelings, sharp words, misunderstandings and things that stay in memory for years.
But for me, part of growing up is being able to remember what I did not like and at the same time see the good things I barely noticed before.
One does not cancel out the other.
When you live far away, an ordinary visit to your parents is no longer ordinary
When you live nearby, it always feels like you can visit another time. Call tomorrow. Talk when there is more time.
After moving to Norway, distance appeared between us.
Now I cannot simply get into the car and be there a short time later.
And I started understanding one simple thing even better: many things we think are permanent really are not.
The ability to stop by and see your parents. Sit together. Ask a question you have been meaning to ask for a long time. Hear an old story one more time.
While all of that is still available, it feels ordinary.
It is what happened again and again, day after day
My mother waited at home.
My father took me to work with him.
There were books in our home.
They asked where I was going and when I would be back.
They fed us, clothed us, sent us to school and worried when something was wrong.
There is no dramatic story here that belongs in a film.
But a large part of parental love is made up of exactly these things.
As a child, I took many of these things for granted. Now I understand that none of them happened by themselves.
They will remember more than the things I told them
My children watch me every day too.
They see how I speak to people. How I behave when I am tired. How I react to mistakes. Whether I make time for them.
Maybe they also take many things for granted right now.
And that is normal.
I do not want them to understand the full weight of parental responsibility today. They will have their own adult lives for that later.
What matters more to me is that years from now they have their own simple memories of home and of the people who were there for them.
Gratitude does not have to stay only in your head
You can spend years thinking that your parents already know you love them and know what you are grateful for.
Maybe they do.
But lately I have been thinking more often that a general “thank you for everything” does not always say what you really want to say.
It can mean much more to remember something specific.
Mum, I remember that there were always books in our home, and now I understand how much that gave me.
Dad, I remember standing beside you at work and listening to how you spoke with people. I think part of who I am today started there.
It is easy to leave words like these for later.
But maybe these are exactly the words that should not be postponed.
You stop seeing your parents only from the position of a child
You do not excuse everything.
You do not forget what was difficult.
You simply start seeing the people in front of you.
People who were living their first lives just as I am living mine now.
They were becoming parents for the first time too. Raising children for the first time. Solving problems they had never faced before.
And they did it with the experience, knowledge and possibilities they had at that moment.
For me, seeing it this way changed a lot.
Maybe do not try to remember “everything good”. Remember one specific thing
A moment from childhood. A phrase. A trip. An evening. A habit. Something they did again and again that you only started understanding later.
And if you can, tell them about it.
Call them. Send a message. Or say it when you see them.
Not because it is the correct thing to do. Simply because some words are better said while the person can still hear them from you.