I don’t have scientific data to back up this theory, but I believe that our emotions grow and develop as we age. Just as the language of a child expands, so (in my experience) does his or her capacity to feel. The emotions of childhood are simpler than the emotions of adulthood, though I would argue that they do not feel simpler to the one experiencing them.
For example, two children are playing. One child has a fire truck. The second child steals the fire truck and the first child is (unfairly) sent to a time out. The first child will be angry, definitely. But I doubt he will feel an anger that fuels long smoldering revenge like the main character in The Count of Monte Cristo.
Another example involves happiness. Children feel happy—indeed I think as we age we lose some of that childhood ability to simply and wholeheartedly delight in something. But extended, not-caused-by-circumstances contentment is something we develop as we grow older.
One thing I have noticed particularly involves crying. A child will cry because of pain, frustration, fatigue, and sometimes sadness. As a child, I could never figure out why my mother seemed to cry so often. Now that I’m grown, I in turn baffle my nieces and nephew when I cry during a touching scene in a book or movie. Children just haven’t developed whatever brain chemistry connection route results in more complex emotions. I am not at all placing a value judgment on this—the emotions of childhood are no less valuable for being less complex. I am just noting the difference because it impacts relationships between children and adults.
The idea that emotions are less complex in children is especially true, I think, when it comes to love. As an adult, I love a largish group of people unconditionally. And there isn’t a quantifiable difference in the amount that I love them—I don’t love one more than another. I may have closer connections to one than another, but at root, the love is the same. That was not true when I was a child. I loved conditionally. I loved in varying amounts. I had favorites. And because that was how I loved, that was how I understood love, and that was how I assumed everyone else loved.
As I grew, my understanding of love grew also. But really the thing that has taught me most about love (and here I mean earthly, human love—how the Gospel taught me a whole new kind of love is another blog post) has been being an aunt. Honestly, before my niece Caroline existed, I did not believe that parents loved their children equally. I just didn’t. I didn’t love my parents or my siblings equally, and I assumed that parents were just being kind when they “pretended” that they loved their children the same amount. I adored my niece Abby, and I honestly worried that things would change if she ever had a sibling. But from the moment I learned of Caroline’s existence (months before she was even born), I loved her. And I literally remember thinking, “Oh! So you do love them equally!” By the time my nephew Will came into the world, I was able to just sit back and marvel at the unending amount of love I felt toward these three tiny strangers.
For some reason, when I was a child I believed love was finite. It seemed possible that it might run out at some point. As an adult, I know that the amount I can love is infinite. There is no limit to the number of people I can unconditionally adore in my lifetime. And that’s pretty awesome.
But what does all this have to do with adoption and foster care? I think it has to do with expectations. Karyn Purvis talks a lot about the importance of “felt safety.” By this she means that parents and caregivers have to work intentionally and consistently to help a child truly feel safe. When you bring a harmed child into what may be the first safe environment she has ever experienced, she won’t automatically “get” that it is safe. And so you have to teach her, in painstaking ways that may seem silly or ridiculous to someone who has not worked with kids from hard places. You have to do things that may seem indulgent or idealistic or like you are “coddling” the child. You have to operate in ways that would potentially “spoil” a child who had not experienced trauma. And you do these things to teach them what “safe” is, and to teach them that they are safe and don’t need to operate out of a fear-based fight to survive.
My somewhat longwinded point in all this is that I believe we have to have similar expectations about children’s experience of love. Children who have been raised in loving, nurturing, trauma-free homes still worry that various people in their lives love them conditionally or in measurable amounts. The familiar demands that every sibling get the exact same portions or time with a toy, etc. are one expression of this concern. When you add trauma, abuse, or neglect to the equation, it’s really astounding that these kids can comprehend love at all. And it is important that parents and caregivers tailor our expectations to their reality. We know that we love them unconditionally, just as we know that they are safe and will be fed, clothed, housed, etc. But they don’t. And so, just as we work to teach them they are safe, we must work (and I think often we must work even harder) to teach them they are loved. Our words, actions, environments, choices, priorities, all must repeat over and over again that we love this child, no matter what, for always.
Perhaps more important than managing our expectations of the children’s awareness of our love for them is managing our expectations of the children’s love for us. As an adult, I am capable of unconditional love. As a child, my love was much more conditional. If I had never experienced love, it would have been even more conditional. And so I think it is vital to enter the experiences of foster care and adoption committed to loving a child even if he/she does not love you back. In adoption, it may take months or years before your child loves you deeply and securely. In foster care, children may leave your care before they come to a point of loving you. That is a tough, tough road to walk. But it is the road that Christ walked, and I am counting on Him to give me the strength to love as He loved, with no conditions, no limits, and no expectations of receiving love in return.
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