09/28/2025
Sometimes we carry childhood wounds about our parents.
They yelled. They didn’t always give enough attention. They swatted us on the back of the head. Didn’t buy the toy we wanted. Fought in front of us. Maybe they didn’t say “I love you” as often as we needed — and yes, a therapist can tell you: you weren’t loved enough.
But how could a therapist know the details? The little things we might not even remember?
I think back to when I came home on break from college with my 8-month-old daughter. She was a restless sleeper, waking and crying at night. I’d already gotten used to it. Rock her, soothe her, repeat.
That very first night, my dad quietly showed me a “life hack,” as people say now. He brought in a rug and a pillow, laid them next to the baby’s crib, and said:
“We’ll take turns sleeping right here on the floor. It’s easier. You don’t have to jump out of bed all night. Or maybe I’ll just do it myself. It’s good for my back anyway.”
Then he casually added: “I actually slept this way for a year when you were little. Your mom was in med school full-time, I was working at the psychiatric hospital and pulling shifts on the ambulance. And every night I slept on the floor by your crib. Easier to get up fast when you cried. Safer that way.”
I never knew. He never said. Nobody told me. He didn’t swear his love, didn’t make speeches, didn’t declare: I never slept! I sacrificed everything for you!
He just… slept on the floor. And was ready to do it again for his granddaughter. Because in his mind, how else could it be? That was love.
Not every parent said out loud, “I love you.” Back then, it wasn’t the norm. Instead, they showed it in details: saving the best piece of food for us, spending their last dollars on a pair of nice shoes, running out in the middle of the night for medicine, sitting up through sickness, sleeping on a rug by the crib.
So yes, if a therapist can help us heal, that’s good. But if not, maybe we need to remember the little things before we conclude we “weren’t loved.”
Because love often is the details — the kind we don’t always notice, or even remember.
