Why I Love My Kid More Than My Husband
I love my daughter more than my husband—and he's OK with that.
And while we loved—and still love—each other, when we looked at the little bundle placed in my arms in the delivery room, we were—as a couple—hopelessly, totally gone. We love each other as two best friends who have shared passion and triumph and had a meeting of the minds. In the other, we found our other half, and we were fulfilled.
And we love our daughter, too. Fiercely. And in ways that we can't love each other. It's partly because we created her—although I firmly believe that parents who adopt have as strong a claim to the love of a child as we do. It's also because we chose her—we actively made a decision to become parents.
Since our daughter was born, love is Saturday mornings when I stay in bed while he gets up to turn on cartoons and pour cereal in bowls; it's the Sunday mornings I let him doze while I cuddle on the couch with our toddler and a pile of books. It's a kiss and a hug on the way out the door to work . . . followed by a high five, as directed by the three-year-old who gets the same routine. And I love him all the more for letting her play cruise director.
My husband and I became parents because we want to give everything we have to our daughter, and the reward will be watching her walk down a graduation aisle, get married, have children of her own. When she makes a mistake or lets us down, it doesn't decrease the love, it makes us work harder.
But perhaps the biggest difference lies as much in the past as it does in the future. With a child, you will always be her parent. Without me, there is no her. With a spouse, there is still that life before you met, the period of time when you were two distinct people. I am still me without my husband. Our daughter isn't.
Together we fell in love and made a child. Together, we fell in love with that child. As my husband says, "it's just a different kind of love completely." He calls how he feels about our daughter a complete attachment, a bond that he never saw being created and yet can't imagine ever undoing. He picked me (well, he asked me out!), he dated me, and he slowly fell in love with me, but he loved our daughter from the second she came screeching into the world.
So when my three-year-old works her way into my lap and asks "Do you love me the best Mama?" I wrap my arms around her and reassure her, "Yup, Mommy loves you more than anything else in the whole wide world."
Because I do. And her Daddy is OK with that—because he does too.
Discussion
Many parents get the feeling sometimes that they don’t love my child there are also periods of time when parents don’t like their child because of a certain stage their son or daughter might be going through—adolescence, for example.
I would love my child or children more than the children's father because they are a gift from someone that I love or loved. Of course you would teach them how to love, honor and respect. During their innocence, they will learn from what's right and what's wrong, and of course, they will decide whatever is right for them when they become adults. It is just the cycle of life.
I am sorry, but the love I feel for my child, is untouchable, only is it akin to the love I feel for my own mother. I am madly in love with my husband, but there is no love in the world like that a mother feels for her child. While he is my husband, he isn't my flesh and blood. She is my world, and I am her home, and there is no one above her, no one. Husband or not...
Can we quantify love with an amount? I don't think we can. The two loves in question are completely different. Maybe she'd be better off saying "I love both my husband and child incredibly, but I would sacrifice most for my daughter." And that's how it should be. Is there a parent out there that wouldn't go into a burning building to save their kid? If you'd willingly sacrifice your own life for a child, it's not a leap to imagine that if the choice had to be made, you'd sacrifice a spouse to save a child. Losing a life partner is the second-worst thing that can happen to a person in life; I think losing a child is the absolute worst thing that can happen to anyone in this life. It's not a matter of 'degree' here, but priorities. We have to love ALL of our family as much and as well as we can, while we've got them. Children have to see mom and dad love each other every day; when it comes down to the wire, their security rests in knowing that BOTH their parents would do anything for them, including giving up each other.
Its a different kind of love...I think. I know for a fact that my mom didn't love my dad, the same way she loves me. She loves(loved) my dad for being the man she created me with, but the type of love you have for a child is one that is totally indescribable. Its a different kind of indescribeable than the one you have for your siginifcant other though. It the kind you can't explain, the kind that makes your heart warm when you see a piece of yourself, embodied in another little person. My mom would go to ends of the earth for me, my boyfriend(husband), I'd like to hope so, but I know for a fact my mom would. There's something about a connections between a parent and child that can't be compared to that of a wife and husband(significant other).
I want my wife to love me the most. If that isn't the case how we can we teach love to our children? Also, children grow up and move away, they're not toddlers forever, if my wife doesn't love me more than anything, I'll find someone who does.
Huh. It sounds perfect right now, but I don't know if that mindset works as you have more kids, as they get older, and as more love has to be passed around. Your man might be OK now, but in the end all you might be left with is a friendship. And where's the sex in that?
Well i have no kids but for me i don't think that you should choose.just be sure to tell your son that you love him every day.
I disagree. You will not always be a parent. There will come a point in your relationship with your daughter when you will need to step down from that parent role and into a new role as a friend. She will need to seperate from you, because that's healthy. Kids need their own identity. And when I hear people rationalize this kind of thinking, I worry that you are pinning your entire identity on only ONE facet of who you are as a person. Parenthood isn't all of who you are. Or it better not be, because the moment she leaves you, what will you be left with?
Loving your kids is different from loving your sweetheart, but it's not about loving one more than the other. Parents would do anything for their kids and we make all kinds of sacrifices for them. Our love is unconditional and often unreasonable. We're proud when they do amazing things like, you know, talk. We know that other people love their kids, but deep down we think ours really are the cutest.
On the other hand, my husband is a grown-up. He is the one who calls up and invites me to meet him for lunch when I'm feeling down. He's the one who talks to me about the book I'm reading or the interesting person he met at work. He's the one who calls me beautiful and kisses me and makes me happy.
We both adore our kids and that makes us love each other more. We have, however, found that we really need to put time into our marriage, hanging out together, fighting, having sex. When we had a newborn it was easy to forget this and put our baby first in everything.
At some point I think you have to move away from making baby the center of the universe for the sake of your marriage as well as your own sanity. This is hard to believe when you are a new parent and amazed by your baby. In the long run, though, the trite things everyone says are true. Happily married parents are better parents. Your kids will grow up and go away and you don't want to look across the dinner table and see a stranger.
And I definitely think it's not good for your kids to tell them you love them more than your sweetie. What are you teaching them about how much they'll love their own husband or wife? When they're older, will they feel burdened by the idea that they're central to your happiness? Will they wonder if you're going to get divorced since you don't love each other that much? What happens when you have a second child???? Well, we used to love you the most in the world, but NOW our hearts are big enough to love two people in different ways?
I've read a lot of very opinionated articles about this same topic that seems to cause a big stir amongst men, women, moms, feminists and so on. I appreciate the way you removed most of the drama and just stated something so simply wonderful, it makes perfect sense!
