Did Your Parents Tell You They Loved You?

Every minute of every day.

Neither parent ever said that to me nor even indicated it.

Yes, my parents told me they loved me, and they told my siblings. My grandparents, aunts, uncles and so on said they loved us and sent gifts for Christmas, birthdays and graduations.

We were fucked up in other ways, don't worry about it.

[quote] Our parents felt they did us a favor by birthing us

While there are cultural and socio-economic factors at work here, I think it's mostly a generational one. That attitude was predominant among Greatest/Silent Generation parents (generally, parents of Baby Boomers) who had first-hand experience of the Depression. Men of this generation in particular were notoriously absent from parenting and expressing affection for children.

Nope. Never.

Mom yes, my dad no.

Yes. We’d kiss each other and say “good night, I love you” when young. We still say ‘I love you’ on the phone. We’d hug and kiss Dad when he came home from work. My brother, my parents and I watched tv together after dinner in their king size bed. In the summer, we’d eat cherries while watching.

I tell my nieces and nephews I love them and they say they love me too.

Yes. We’d kiss each other and say “good night, I love you” when young. We still say ‘I love you’ on the phone. We’d hug and kiss Dad when he came home from work. My brother, my parents and I watched tv together after dinner in their king size bed. In the summer, we’d eat cherries while watching.

I tell my nieces and nephews I love them and they say they love me too.

Only after I swallowed.

Yes, all the time.

I condole you, OP.

My parents were born before the Great Depression, and raised during it, but my mother in particular was generous in all expressions of love, verbal and physical. My father was less so, but in the last 25 years of his life, he also made it a point to tell his children and grandchildren that he loved them at the end of every conversation. I guess my point is that it's not so much generational as cultural - different ethnic groups have different ways. The Japanese people never hug their children after childhood. And they are not very big on saying "I love you" either. I would say they are the extreme, but most Asian cultures are reserved in that respect. Italians will warmly hug strangers. The English and German people who settled this country were rather physically reserved - (the WASP heritage). And people in the early 20th century both in America and England were heirs to the last vestiges of Victorian prudishness - which also mandated physical reserve. But Slavic people, people from most Latin cultures, Jews, middle Easterners, and the Irish are all pretty physical and expressive - although they might need some booze to get really loosened up.

As a result of my upbringing, I'm a hugger - but I can tell instantly when people are not. I can feel their bodies tense as I get close - and sometimes, I awkwardly spin back and do a light clap on the shoulders or some other lame gesture because I can tell they are utterly horrified. My Japanese niece-in-law married into this big family of huggers, and the most she can tolerate is a very wide A-frame hug - as brief as humanly possible.

Not until I went away to college. Then my parents who basically let me raise myself for a decade suddenly became all loving and hugging. Yes, they were the Silent Generation.

My Mom said it, and both of them showed it, all the time. They were very much in love with each other, and I always knew I was loved. It still helps me now that I only have memories to hold on to.

OP your family sounds very sad and joyless. I could not imagine having children and not saying I love you. That’s just crazy to me.

In my family we didn’t say I love you all the time but often enough. I received lotta hugs from my mother. My father sometimes. I received gifts from relatives for Christmas and my birthday. Nothing that extravagant but the thought was there which is great. I felt loved and valued.

My mom did but dad never even once.

R7 - That's very sweet. Keep it up with your nieces and nephews - it's nice bonus for them to have a loving relationship like that with their aunt or uncle. Your comment made my day.

This again?

Sounds like my family, OP. My father was born in the early 1930s and my mother later in that same decade. Both were raised on farms in the northern plains with ancestors who were German Catholics from the Black Sea area. They may not have said or shown that they loved us kids, but they would die for us. And one of them actually did.

Parents?

Three or four times over a lifetime, and strictly as a guilt-tripping tactic.

Of course, those three or four times didn't have much of an impact, as about 80% of our total time together has been devoted to them criticizing me.

I am fascinated by how parenting styles change over time.

Were there parents in that Greatest Generation group who understood self-esteem as a value and tried to instill it in their children? Was there some larger Judeo-Christian notion that children were just wild animals who must be tamed and "broken" to fit into society more effectively? What was the philosophical goal behind depriving children of affection or respect?

Well, my parents were Irish Catholic - my mother born & raised in a family of 11, my father was a convert from some generic Protestant religion who didn’t speak much (I mean *really* didn’t speak much).;

My husband’s Jewish & his mother is always slobbering all over him, kissing him & telling him she loves him & he’s the most wonderful person in the world.

It’s like a Tale of Two Cities. It was the worst of love; it was the way, way way too much best of love. .

[quote] Were there parents in that Greatest Generation group who understood self-esteem as a value and tried to instill it in their children?

My mother’s motto to her children was “Don’t go getting your hopes up, because you know what’s going to happen.”

They wouldn’t save to send me to college because they didn’t go to college, so why should I? We’re perfectly fine people & we didn’t need college. Do you think you’re better than we are?

Add me to the mom did, dad didn't list. I knew he cared in his own way but mostly I grew up with him being scary. Before he died I wasn't afraid of him anymore.

[quote]We’re perfectly fine people & we didn’t need college. Do you think you’re better than we are?

This POV is interesting to me, because it's a complete 180 degrees on the cherished American notion of self-sacrificing parents who strive for their children to enjoy a better QOL than they did. Were your parents native-born, R24? Immigrants?

I got most of my nurturing from my TV parents -- Ward and June Cleaver, Donna and Alex Stone and Andy Griffith.

Yes. Every day. Even as an adult, my parents always kissed me goodbye when I would leave them to return home, and tell me they loved me. I was very lucky.. my parents were wonderful.

We never heard that. My mother is trying to pull this shit at the end of phone calls, "I love you"

She was a nasty evil bitch. I can't say it back because it makes me want to puke.

Never - older, repressed, WASPs. I still find it smarmy. I have friends families who say it ALL them time - like teenage girls. Makes it seem so superficial and meaningless. Maybe its cultural and age related. But I’m very happy not having to act like we are constantly singing kumbaya. We exist together - and we always show up for each other. Words are cheap.

Is this another Meghan and Harry thread?

I was very lucky to be in a loving household with boundaries, rules, loving guidance, needs met, and love. Many times I have said, “Thank you, Mom and Dad,” when I’ve seen the “real world.” Someone once told me maybe I had too good of a childhood. I don’t think there’s such a thing other than the shock of the meanness of many people once left home.

^Mean people suck.

"Emotions" are traditionally the woman's job in a family.

No. Not that I recall. Nor were we kissed or hugged. But we did receive great gifts on our birthdays and at Christmas. We did shake hands with the men in the family, but that was about it. I have no regrets because that seemed to be the norm from my baby boomer generation peers.

No. And this thing of saying "Love you!" 100 times a day makes me puke.

No. My mother was a WASP, and my father is a veteran who saw some shit.

My parents were very open with their affection for one another and they would always tell us they loved us as children. They were warm and openhearted, even if they struggled with mundane things like housework and earning good money. Sometimes there were chaotic situations but we felt loved and secure.

As adults all six of us say "I love you" on the phone or at the end of visits to those who live out of town. My husband's family wouldn't know how to say it if there lives depended on it. It makes me sad. He is thrilled when all of my siblings tell him that they love him when we visit my hometown.

Never.

Always. They weren’t perfect, but they loved me unconditionally. I miss them terribly.

Yes. Not every day, but frequently enough with Mom and at important times for sure with dad.

R2 here. well, OP , no wonder I understand, my parents were irish catholic too, actial Irish, immigrants not Americans. my father was a decent guy, he just lived in his own world and was out of his depth as a parent. my mother tho' was relentlessly degrading from my earliest memories in a way that, i discovered, was typical of the little area she grew up in. no excuses though, she was an enslessly abusive shit who would have done me a favor strangling me at birth.

Yes, of course they did. Even after I set the kitchen on fire (joke).

every day

No. Never.

No children, but if I did have a child, I would tell him/her that I loved them.

On the other hand, it loses meaning when you say it too much. IMO. You need to show your love by actions, large and small.

I never heard the words from my parents. Not even a hugX

This is why I am constantly saying I love yo to my nieces and nephews and giving them hugs

No, neither one of them ever said it, but their parents never said it to them, either. My father busted his ass to make sure we had everything we needed or wanted, so I know he cared.

I think my sisters have broken the chain with their children.

Do you all tell your kitties and doggies that you love them? Does their expression change when you say Who's A Good Boy??!????

Never, ever

never?

Funny you say that, R48. My hubby and I always chuckle when we hear one another say that to our dog (which we both do multiple times a day) and have commented to each other that we tell her we love her more times in a day than either our parents told us between our first memories and their deaths (except my mother is still alive and in reaching old age, says it a lot more frequently than she used to). Our dog also thinks one of her names is "sweetheart".

They did not tell me they loved me when I was younger, but now that they are bother older they do tell me this at the end of our phone conversations (as do I).

After I was an adult and moved to a different city, ended every conversation with ‘I love you”. Nada as a kid.

No, they never did. When my mother died, I told my father I loved him. He got embarrassed and just waved me away. He died not long after she did. Since they've been gone, I have aunts and uncles telling me all the time they love me.

Parents started telling their offspring they 'loved' them because of Dr Benjamin Spock and those nauseatingly sugary movies about chilly, absent fathers—'Mary Poppins' and 'Sound of Music'.

Dr Benjamin Spock repeated Freud's dictum that chilly, absent fathers created homosexuals.

My parents were like r24. They had four kids and didn't think any of them would want to attend college because they didn't. My sister was the first to graduate college. I was the second. My younger brothers didn't finish high school.

My parents were not particularly affectionate. If I was sick or something they would attempt to comfort me by giving me ice cream or cookies instead of a hug. As a result, I have had a lifetime struggle with my weight and eating too much sugar as a way to comfort myself when things are bad. I'm 51 now and I recently called my mother to tell her about a friend who died from Covid. She could tell I was upset and actually said, "Go have some ice cream. It will make you feel better." It's funny because right at that moment, I got really angry. There it was. My whole life in one sentence. I told her that's not what I needed and got off the phone.

She would say that she loved us, all the while allowing us to be abused by her poor choices in men. And kicking each of us out of the house one by one because my step dad got "tired" of dealing with her kids.

She says it now when I talk to her on the phone and I know it's just so that we have to say it in return. My father does the same thing and it's creepy. I just say it even though I don't mean it. Any love I had for them was destroyed a very long time ago because of abuse.

My mother did almost daily. My father only said those words once. After my mother died and his health deteriorated very quickly it was left to me, the gay one, the one he mistreated the most, to make sure he was being taken care of. At the end of his life 1 1/2 years after my mother died he had to have surgery on a foot. They had to remove a sizeable portion of his foot and he knew he might have to rely on a wheel chair once he was home and he was afraid. I was at the hospital one morning, and he was talking about how things would be once he went home in a few days. My older brother and sister obviously weren't going to step up. They just wanted him to die asap so the estate could be settled. I told him not to worry, and thatI would make sure he had whatever was needed for him to be comfortable. Finally he said "I know I haven't said this to you much (you mean never), but I love you. All I could do after all those years of mistreatment was just look at him and smile. That evening at 8pm I got a call from the hospital telling me I needed to come asap. When I got there they had his arms strapped down and he was writing in pain. A doctor took me to another room and told me it appeared a section of his intestine had ruptured (he'd had severe intestinal issues for decades), and there wasn't much they could do but give him morphine. I called my siblings and they both told me they'd be there in the morning. Driving those few miles to the hospital was just too much for them I guess. A little after 11pm he was comfortable enough that I decided I could go home and come back in the morning. Before I got out of the hospital a lady at the reception desk stopped me and told me I needed to go back to the room. When I got back there was a whole group of people around his bed and as I came in the room the told me he had died.

So, it took over 40 years, but at least I finally heard those words come out of his mouth.

Not very often, but surprisingly it was my father who said it more. I don’t think they wanted kids but I think they felt they had to have them. I make sure I let people know I love them specifically for that reason: I want them to know I appreciate them.

[quote] My father only said those words once. After my mother died and his health deteriorated very quickly it was left to me, the gay one, the one he mistreated the most, to make sure he was being taken care of.... I called my siblings and they both told me they'd be there in the morning. Driving those few miles to the hospital was just too much for them I guess.

R57, It sounds like you did get "closure" with your father. It sounds like your father may have mistreated all of his children, including your siblings. If so, I can understand a bit why maybe your siblings didn't rush over to be by your father's side. I went through something similar with a mean grandparent and I chose not to rush over. If one of my siblings had asked: "Can you be here for me (and not our grandparent)?", I would have gone over. But there were enough people there to comfort each other.

[quote] Parents started telling their offspring they 'loved' them because of Dr Benjamin Spock

Dr. Spock also told parents to have their baby sons circumcised. He knew fuck all.

20th century American medicine (and psychiatry in particular) still have SO much to answer for.

Followers of Freud et al. believed fathers withholding affection would make sons gay, and conversely, mothers lavishing attention and affection on sons would do the same....

At the same time, many parents were advised that too much attention, affection, etc. would make their children (particularly their sons) "soft," spoiled, and dependent (and boys "effeminate.")

And lest you all think this is ancient history, I knew of at least one practicing psychologist who subscribed to Freud's theories about absent fathers = homosexuality.... into the 1990s.

My father has told me that he was "afraid" to hug my brothers because he believed it would turn them gay. Turns out, his two daughters are gay.

I heard from two elder ladies that Dr. Spock caused the degradation of our respectful, civil society and it has only got worse in the following generations.

Love is much more powerful when it is shown, not spoken.

I tell my sons every other day that I love them. Those aren't empty words. And they know it.

No op never. We've never been an affectionate demonstrative family and now it's unraveling. I'm happy about it.

My dad told me he loved me but never my mother. She loved my older sister. I was not the favored child and it was quite apparent. It sucked, but dad made things better I guess.

Rarely, as in every two or three or four years rarely, there would be some contretemps about whether I could do something (to which their answer was "no.") If it became a really sore point my mother would blow the dust off the "Because your father and I love you we don't want to..." My father may have tried this on once or twice but it didn't much suit him.

Never "I love you," and only a few instances of "because we love you."

My father, though he could be outwardly gruff, was very demonstrative of his love for my mother, and in his own way for his children. He wasn't entirely unmoody but for the most part he always seemed happy in the company of his children. In candid photos with his kids he is always beaming and looking at them, never at the camera. He would say that he was proud of something (and it was usually a quality rather than a specific achievement), or he would take care to show that he appreciated some talent or quality or interest in each of his children; he knew he lacked for elegant words but thought it through and figured a way to express what he (rightly I think) were the important things for his children to know and I never had any doubt that he loved me.

My mother, though she did most of the speaking of behalf of the parental firm, was very mean with compliments and when they came they about how nice I looked (in the clothes she had laid out and insisted I wear) or, more specifically, "how good that sweater looks on you" shifting the compliment in the direction of the garment that she had bought. There are no really candid photos of her with her kids; instead she is always tightly posed, usually with a stiff grip on the kid/s to herd them into the frame, composing the picture from her end of the camera. She always wore a nervous smile-for-the-camera smile that was something of a key to understanding her: eager to be friendly on the outside but internally a bundle of nerves.

Yes. And I’m very glad that the last words I spoke to them before they died were “I love you, too.”

Things were certainly not perfect, but I’ve never doubted that my parents loved me. I am not a perfect parent, but my children know that I love them, and how much.

It wasn’t only Dr.Spock’s influence. My parents grew up in another country and their parents were too busy providing for the family and there was no talk of love. My parents had fewer kids and they wanted to raise us differently. They told us they loved us and it wasn’t just empty words.

Mom, most definitely. Dad, seldom. Boomer here. My Mom, we said I love you and her response was “I love you more”. We even had “I love you more” on her headstone. It’s even said by here great grandkids that she never met

Mummy would ring the telly and ask Cook or Laundry Lady to say it. But I never felt it was genuine and from the heart.

I still have one grandma still living (she's 92, in a nursing home, has dementia).

Her parents, born in 1892 and 1894, had a truly miserable marriage, and unfortunately, divorce was not an option back then (they were informally separated, which was a pretty big deal). My great-grandmother used to tell my grandma (her only daughter), that she "hated girls and never wanted a girl." I think she (great-grandmother) might have been abused or molested as a kid; only way I can understand where such pathological/self-loathing behavior might have come from.

Anyway, Grandma is 92 with dementia, but when I talk to her on the phone nowadays, I tell her I love her (which I never did when she was in her right mind). She loves hearing it. I don't know if she even knows who I am anymore, but there's some part of her very fragile mind that craves to hear someone say that, because she grew up with such the opposite.

I think we all have that need. It's human.

When my mother died I went to FL with my sister to clean out her belongings. There was a big poster board on her hallway wall with pics on it. There was my sister’s 8th grade graduation photo, my nephews‘ school photos, my mother’s best friend who had died, my father’s retirement photo, my grandparents, my dead aunt and a photo of some old woman standing in front of a building that the church supposedly built for her with donations including my mother’s donation of several thousand dollars. There were no photos of me. Soooooo....I was not the favorite. My sister stood watching me as I looked at that poster board with a little smirk on her face. She knew there were no photos of me.

Oh yeah, there were some photos of my adult cousins when they were school kids, too.

r74 A photo of you would just be a reminder of how she failed as a mother.

R74 wow, your sister sounds evil.

No, but they did tell me that they held my equanimity and critical sensibilities in high regard.

My dad would always say "I love you, baby boy" when I was riding him.

Mom, yes.

Dad, no. Shit. I remember when he hugged me at graduation for undergrad. I was fucking shocked. It was the first of maybe six times he hugged me in his life.

[quote]R12 My Japanese niece-in-law married into this big family of huggers, and the most she can tolerate is a very wide A-frame hug - as brief as humanly possible.

Has anyone told her to pull the stick out of her ass, or just stay home?

They need to.

[quote]R12 My Japanese niece-in-law married into this big family of huggers, and the most she can tolerate is a very wide A-frame hug - as brief as humanly possible.

Has anyone told her to pull the stick out of her ass, or just stay home?

They need to.

R12 Some people are proud not to be affectionate and don’t tolerate affection from others.

They have the right to be as they are but it’s not necessarily a good thing.

Yes and my son, husband and I have an unspoken rule to say it whenever one leaves the house or goes to bed. My son didn’t start saying it until about four years ago (as sophomore in HS) and it just about exploded my heart the first time he said it on his own. My parents divorced when I was young so while I never doubted their love for me, it was the 70s and kids didn’t go to therapy or get support for that back then so I felt very untethered and frightened.

They did but it was conditional.

I don't hear it at all now that they are part of Cult45.

It was said by my mom. I don't recall it being said by my dad.

However, it kind of alters your perception of how much such statements mean when they don't treat you like they love you, when the history doesn't back any of it up. The least it does is make you cynical as hell.

My parents were born in the 1930's and I was an "ooops!" baby--born when they were in their late 30s/early 40s and after my mother had been told she could have no longer have children after troubles with the birth of their third and allegedly "last" child. That sibling is 11 years older than me.

They both regularly told me they loved me, and curiously, my blue collar, ex-Navy dad was actually the more affectionate of the two. Not that mom didn't give out hugs and "I love yous" but she was more of the disciplinarian of the two, while Dad was only called in for the BIG issues. My older siblings gave them so much trouble as teens and young adults, I think they were relieved that I was a low key, easy going kid who never really got into any trouble. It was truly like being an only child--I was the only kid in the house from about age 10 or 11 on.

My older siblings often thought I was "spoiled" (not true) or the "favorite" (probably true)...They are all pretty decent people NOW, but the shit they put my parents through was pretty bad. I was the only sibling with each parent when they died, and I am grateful that I was there and was able to tell them both how much I loved them before they were gone.

[quote] Dad, no. Shit. I remember when he hugged me at graduation for undergrad. I was fucking shocked. It was the first of maybe six times he hugged me in his life.

Wow.

My dad never went to any of my graduations.