Loving Your Children When They Are The Least Lovable

‘Loving’ our children is what is meant to come naturally for mothers. It's up there with 'protecting' and 'guiding'. And for most of us, most of the time, it does come naturally. We rarely need reminding to love our children. The love relationship usually establishes itself in the first few hours of birth, if not before, and, with few exceptions, it develops and continues throughout our children’s lives.

This is not to say that there aren’t times for every mother when our children seem practically unlovable. I can think of many occasions when I didn’t really like my children very much. These occasions didn’t last too long, but they could be quite upsetting when they happened.

Once, late one evening when my husband Jamie was out working, my colicky baby was screaming and inconsolable and I was exhausted, leaky and frustrated, I remember feeling terrified that perhaps I didn’t really love my baby. The truth was just that my baby wasn’t being particularly lovable at the time! Another time, when one of my children deliberately lied to me for the first time, their sin was ugly and made them unlovable and I was shocked at my negative feelings towards them.

Miserable, tantrummy toddlers; angry, authority-shrugging teenagers - yes - I admit to having all those experiences. It would have been easy to have stopped loving my children during those episodes (and some were longer than momentary, sadly) had I not realised, early on in my mothering career, a couple of important truths.

The first was a well-known aphorism:
‘When your child is at their most unlovable is when they need your love the most.’

If you’ve not read it before, and I take no credit for it, re-read it. When your 3 year old is screaming in the back of the car to get out and play and you need to pick up your sick husband from work, you may not feel much love for them, but that's when they need your love the most.

To actively love them as a choice can be difficult. It may mean breathing calmly and gently repeating, why you can’t do what they want. It may mean enfolding an angry selfish child in a loving embrace and praying quietly for them. It may mean walking away from a disobedient teenager until you can speak respectfully to them again. It WILL mean active love, by choice.

By the way, I am NOT a perfect mother, and so I frequently failed to respond perfectly but, after a brief time, I drew from my well of love for these children and forced myself to respond in as loving a manner as I could.

The second idea which helped me immensely was that of remembering how God parents us. God doesn’t expect ‘first-time obedience’ or  joyful, grateful, sinless behaviour from us. He expects us to sin. He knows we will do what’s wrong, often, but, because He’s our Father, He chooses to love us in our ugly unlovability. He is ready to forgive, compassionate and gracious, long-suffering, patient and kind.

That has to be our pattern for parenthood, doesn’t it?

I would always ask myself, when my child became 'unlovable', 
'Am I perfect yet?'
'Have I stopped sinning?'
'Have I learned not to do wrong yet?'
'Has my Father stopped forgiving me?'
If these things are not true of me, an adult, then why would I expect such an unreasonable standard from my children?

These thoughts helped me to keep loving my children through the tough times. I hope, Dear Daughter, that they might seep into your consciousness, the next time you feel giving in to a loveless response, and help you to love them more.