An unsolicited advice on spousal and parental love
Spousal love is contrived based on mutual suitabilities while parental love is inherited or innate.
Last week was my last day at my former workplace. I was scheduled for a lunch with my team to celebrate my departure so my partner and I thought to get our son a minder for half of the day. If there's anything the previous week taught me, it is that you can't be minding your child just because you work from home. You'd not put in your best in either.
We were able to get my son's favourite minder, a beautiful young teenager who ESL took to the very first time she came. When she was leaving after I came back from the lunch, my son started crying profusely. At first it was amusing then it became embarrassing. I was a little embarrassed because as much as he is displeased with his mum every morning when she leaves for work, ESL has never cried.
My son might be just a year old at the moment but that incident was a tell-tale sign that didn't miss my consciousness. It reminded me that he's human and would do whatever he pleases or feel like especially when he becomes an adult and on his own. I think a parent that raises a child that can think independently as an adult has every reason to be pleased with themselves. I also know this might not always be the case because as humans when results don't go our way, we are seldom pleased.
What am I saying? When your child takes decisions you do not like or want, you can't be pleased. But because they are a child, you could circumvent such decision to reflect your own wish. After all, they are under your legal care and you're responsible for their existence. However when the child becomes an adult, you can't make such undue interference in their life's choices. Well you still can, but not without stoking unnecessary rivalry.
We see this play out all the time especially in the typical African family settings where communal sense of living is a social fabric. It is the reason tales of Mothers-in-law and their son's wives always dominate most family drama. An adult gets married and starts a family yet there's undue interference from their parents. Sometimes the interference comes subtly like being pressured for a partner or children from those already married. Now I doubt if anybody really wants this, yet we engage in silly online arguments like, who to love more; the spouse or the child?
Spousal love thrives on reciprocity. If you're not getting mutual respect, empathy and understanding for eighteen years in a marriage, the chances are such matrimony would end in a divorce or separation. At worst, ill-feeling. One can therefore say spousal love is contrived based on mutual suitabilities.
Parental love however comes from a place of inherited responsibility or innate devotion. If your child for the better part of their first eighteen years does not show you mutual respect, empathy and understanding, I’d take my chances on you still not disowning them. Safe to say parental love is inherited or innate.
Everyone with a partner and a child will at one time or the other be confounded with a decision that'd conflict between spousal and parental love. One good way to look at it is to remember spousal love is a decision you're in a position to determine what you get back from inception to a lifetime. Parental love on the other hand is more of an automated sacrifice. You may never be in a position to determine what you get back from it, even after the first eighteen years of investment. The selflessness of it might make it incomparable but it is healthier to always act in best self-interest.
Yours in Fatherhood,
Thank You La
Instructed