A few weekends ago my daughter and I were filling out Halloween cards to send to her friends. When we got to the closing she wanted to sign them “Love Maddie”.
Now in theory there may be nothing wrong with this. But I stopped her. Why, because I didn’t know how that phrase would have been perceived by the adults. To me, Love is such a strong emotion and I didn’t feel that she should use it so freely. After all what would the other parents say? I tried to talk her into using the word FROM, but she was not having it. She decided that she didn’t want to send out any cards after that. Did i just have a learning moment as a mom? Yes but it was Maddie who did the schooling.
My daughter is 5 and she loves her friends. There is an unconditional love that children have at this age and they should be allowed to express it. She wasn’t doing anything wrong but signing her name with this type of expressed emotion. I took all of the baggage from the 40 plus years of my life and dumped it on my child at that moment. And she didn’t deserve that.
At her age life is all about love, friends, wearing Pink, coloring and beating up your little brother. We should all strive to live a life as such.
the 5 year old
I love you Maddie. Thank you for teaching me how to live so freely.
