Julie Jay: It's hard to hold down a job when 60% of my day is spent kissing Ted’s face

This generation of children probably hears the words ‘I love you’ more than any other generation of Irish children who came before. Image: Vector illustration

I once grew a plant for a senior infants’ project. I remember repotting it and showering it with care, drowning it in over enthusiasm as I loved that plant to an early grave. I brought the sad, pathetic stump into school and felt even more despondent when forced to place it beside
its plant peers which were positively flourishing. Even the most annoying classmate at my table, who by his own admittance couldn’t have cared less about the fate of his flowery friend, had nurtured his plant to vegetative perfection.

Where had I gone wrong? “I think you watered it too much,” the teacher had noted. The takeaway made an indelible mark on my soul: I loved things with the kind of love that could only end in tears. Over the last two-and-a-half years, my full-on approach to parenting has elicited a wide range of comments from bystanders. There’s been the comforting “look how much your mammy loves you” to a slightly more loaded: “Surely, it isn’t good for a child to be kissed that much?”. 

I would be lying if I said I haven’t questioned whether my expressions of love for Ted are a bit over the top, especially of late, as it has become increasingly hard to hold down a job when 60% of my day is spent kissing Ted’s face and telling him he is adored.

I have started to ask myself if I am doing Ted a disservice by showering him with constant declarations of love. In my teaching days, I remember asking the mother of a wonderful former student, himself an only child, what her secret was. How had she raised a young man to be so well-rounded and kind? “He gets what he needs, not what he wants”, she answered (which begs the question, was she a member of Rolling Stones?).

Her response stayed with me: parental love is about answering needs rather than indulging wants. The problem lies, of course,  in discerning the difference between what constitutes a need and what constitutes a want, a grey-enough area when standing in the middle of a Smyths Toy
Store aisle and faced with a toddler who has just discovered the Lego section.

It is safe to say that in the 80s, expressions of love were seen as so positively indecent they bordered on unconstitutional. Of course, parents loved their children, but public expressions of such were hardly du jour, perhaps because, as a nation, the notion of emotions made us downright uncomfortable.

For many years, Irish people felt they could only be loved by others when they were under a legal obligation to do so. Perhaps this is why we were so slow to legalise divorce and give people a potential ‘out’ when they discovered our true imperfect selves, or heard us expel gaseous fumes for the first time.

Parents today don’t love their children any more than the parents who have gone before them, but they are freer to express that love. Whether it be smothering your munchkin in kisses or driving them to extra-curricular activity after extra-curricular activity, our openness in showing that love is liberating for us as parents and for our children. This generation of children probably hears the words ‘I love you’ more than any other generation of Irish children who came before. They are lucky, but we are also fortunate we get to say it, free from judgement and raised eyebrows.

Nowadays, as our relationship with our cousins stateside has changed, so too has our approach to raising kids, and what was once dismissed as American gush is now seen as a central tenet of parenting.

There is no doubt that some of these Americanisms are perhaps best left to our New World friends (baby showers and gender-reveal parties are lovely in theory, but given that we had to take out a credit union loan to pay for your Irish wedding Siobhán, I think a registry for baby gifts is a step too far). However, other Americanisms are a welcome addition to how we talk, not just to our kids but to ourselves. Most notably, the American tendency to express emotions and exalt praise on even the most minuscule triumphs.

When I worry I am suffocating Ted with the grá, I remind myself that the ultimate goal as a parent is to nurture your child and hope they grow into their own separate person, capable of self-realisation. Knowing you are wholly loved and supported, no matter what, can only serve a child well.

I want Ted and prospective Baby Number Two to know that even if they become the kind of person who is into Formula 1, or the kind of roommate who uses your toothbrush, I am still going to be their number one fan and love the bones of them.

During the week, I decided to rewrite my plant-parent story and purchased not one but two ferns. Five days in and so far my kill count is zero. I haven’t yet told them I love them, because if my former disastrous love life taught me anything, it is to play it cool early on, and keep watering to a
minimum.