That's that latest question I've had to answer from my 5 year-old son.
What would you answer, if you knew the shortest way to put an end to that conversation was saying the truth : NO.
But I didn't want to make my boy think that I didn't have loving parents or that I didn't love them. It's just that we didn't say "that kind of things" in our family.
I have this very vivid memory of one morning ; I was preparing for school and, just like that, I told my mum "I love you". I certainly had heard that somewhere (not on TV, we didn't have one), and I tried it out, "just to see".
Her answer was plain and simple, and certainly prevented me from saying it ever again : "children don't say these words, they are for grown-ups, for a husband and his wife, like me and daddy"
(except I NEVER heard them say that to each other (or at least I don't remember them saying).
So I grew up thinking that "these words" weren't to be told to someone unless you were married to him. What a shame isn't it?
When I was pregnant with my son I still believed that. I often thought about that and still found it odd to imagine myself saying it to a child. Even to my child.
When he was born on the other hand, I started saying it to him every time I put him in his cot. I don't know why, but I felt the need to say it, to tell him, well, how much I love him! And what better way to make that message clear than to just say it? As days passed I finally realized that what my mother had told me was totally wrong.
I tell my children I love them every single day and I am not planning to change that. A child has the right to know he his loved hasn't he? The older one says it to me and his dad too and he often adds a little "to the moon and back again", which he likes to change into "to the curtains and back again" or "as big as a truck" etc :-)
So how's it going in your family? Do you tell your children you love them too?
What would you answer, if you knew the shortest way to put an end to that conversation was saying the truth : NO.
But I didn't want to make my boy think that I didn't have loving parents or that I didn't love them. It's just that we didn't say "that kind of things" in our family.
I have this very vivid memory of one morning ; I was preparing for school and, just like that, I told my mum "I love you". I certainly had heard that somewhere (not on TV, we didn't have one), and I tried it out, "just to see".
Her answer was plain and simple, and certainly prevented me from saying it ever again : "children don't say these words, they are for grown-ups, for a husband and his wife, like me and daddy"
(except I NEVER heard them say that to each other (or at least I don't remember them saying).
So I grew up thinking that "these words" weren't to be told to someone unless you were married to him. What a shame isn't it?
When I was pregnant with my son I still believed that. I often thought about that and still found it odd to imagine myself saying it to a child. Even to my child.
When he was born on the other hand, I started saying it to him every time I put him in his cot. I don't know why, but I felt the need to say it, to tell him, well, how much I love him! And what better way to make that message clear than to just say it? As days passed I finally realized that what my mother had told me was totally wrong.
I tell my children I love them every single day and I am not planning to change that. A child has the right to know he his loved hasn't he? The older one says it to me and his dad too and he often adds a little "to the moon and back again", which he likes to change into "to the curtains and back again" or "as big as a truck" etc :-)
So how's it going in your family? Do you tell your children you love them too?