By Thuso Masikhwa | Contributor, Africa –
SOUTH AFRICA (Heartmenders Magazine) – From the minute we are born to the minute we die, human beings have an innate hunger to be touched, kissed, hugged, accepted, smiled at, and loved.
In Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the need for love comes just above the need for physiological comfort and safety/security.
The first place that this hunger ought to be properly and fully catered for and satisfied is, of course, in the family setting. Our parents/primary caregivers are the first people who pour this precious, much-needed resource into us, filling us up in all the right places and helping us grow into valuable, constructive members of society. Then come our immediate family members, brothers, and sisters, or those we live with. And after that, we begin to seek the love and acceptance of extended family, friends, teachers, schoolmates, and society at large.
Two main things usually go wrong in our lives related to our need to love and be loved.
The first is the unfortunate fact that sometimes, at the root and beginning of our love journey, things go wrong. Many parents, for various debatable reasons, are unable to give, receive, demonstrate, and teach love effectively. In the hustle and bustle and many battles of life, many parents/caregivers are rarely conscious, present, and attentive enough to give the right amount and type of time, attention, care, and guidance that each child needs. Many parents are too busy staying afloat and putting food on the table to consider “love” a crucial element in their children’s growth journey. What most parents also fail to realize is that most children perceive and spell love as T I M E. Children do not see love as money and provision as many parents assume, but as the time parents prioritize to spend with them.
In a child’s little mind, if a parent does not spend time with them, they may assume it is because the parent does not love or care about them or does not enjoy spending time with them. And as a result, the child begins to think that the parent does not love them because they are somehow unworthy of being with. The child blames themselves for the parent/caregiver’s withholding of time and attention. Numerous studies lay out the deep, wide-reaching impact of touch, attention, edifying words, and spending time with on babies, toddlers, teenagers, and young adults. Marked differences are easily pointed out and demonstrable between those children who received these whilst growing up, and those who did not, even in adulthood.
Further research also demonstrates implications for performance, positive contributions to society, adult relationships, and crime, in direct proportion to the extent and amount of love, care, and attention meted out early in the home.
Although there are indeed exceptions to the rule, many fail to grasp the magnitude and ripple effects of how we love, care for, and give attention and guidance to our children, society at large, and future generations.
No parent is perfect, but as society continually evolves and the world changes at an alarming rate, it has become increasingly necessary for us as parents to be very conscious and intentional about why and how we spend time with our children. This was brought into sharp focus during the recent worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. With many parents forced to stay home with their children for a few months and work from home, most have come to realize the negative impact of their extended daily absence on their children and families.
Advertisement
The second thing that usually goes wrong in the human journey of love is that in some homes, children are never taught the two most important and most impactful forms of love on a human being. Those are, first and foremost, a love and a relationship with one’s God and creator. As debatable and controversial as this is, the fact and evidence are that every human being (whether they admit it or not) has a “God-shaped hole” within them. Only love and a relationship with one’s creator can fill this hole. As much as we may not be aware of this hole, may not admit our need to fill it with God, may believe there is no God or may believe we were not created by anything or anyone, the truth is many of us end up worshipping and filling this hole with money, sex, alcohol, relationships, marriage, drugs, work, alcohol, children, hobbies, philanthropy and the list goes on. Unfortunately, none of those things is “God-Shaped” and never quite fills up the hole snugly. They may try to fill up the space, to numb, to delay the realization, but in the end, none of them, except the one shaped like the hole, can quite fit.
In conjunction with this love, many of us are never taught the need and relevance of self-love. Many of us, in fact, only come to realize, after much pain and harrow, late in life, that this form of love is in fact the base, source, and springboard of all other forms of human love. Culture and religion usually encourage us to “put others first. ” It’s only late in life that we realize we cannot be effective mothers, aunts, sons, friends, colleagues, husbands, wives, business partners, etc., if we are not able to love, care for, give attention to, and spend time with and on ourselves mainly because it is virtually impossible to draw water from an empty well and to give unto others that which you do not have, even for oneself.
We are only able to give that which we have in abundance, in overflow within ourselves. We can only give money or time to others if we have more than enough to meet our own and our families’ needs. We can only give others smiles and compliments if we can smile and compliment ourselves and receive compliments from others. We offer business help and mentorship to those who need it once we’ve reached our goals. Likewise, we can only give love and kindness and offer uplifting words to others if we ourselves acknowledge the need to love, put ourselves first, speak kindly to ourselves, and build ourselves up.
The many pitfalls that litter the landscape of our love journey often led us to search for love and acceptance in all the wrong places, at the wrong times, and with the wrong people. People who are in themselves broken and empty and searching, just like we are, to be filled up by someone else. Disastrous consequences and vicious cycles are born, leaving people even more dazed and confused about “what went wrong?”
Article edited by Heartmenders Magazine Editorial Team.
Thuso Masikhwa is a former Engineering Manager, Writer, and Entrepreneur. She lives in South Africa with her husband and four daughters.
You can reach Thuso at tmasikhwa.bm@gmail.com.