Being Loved for a Reason

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I'm posting it in the Parents' Forum, because I'd like to get input if what my parents did is even normal. I'd say it's not, but how was I supposed to know as a child. Based on how I understood it, they told me that I was, essentially, supposed to earn their love.

When I was 10 or so, my parents launched into this tirade. It happened when they were punishing me for something. It went something like this:
Parents: "When a person is ten years old, people love him FOR A REASON. When he's three, he's loved just because he's a child. But when he's ten, he's loved FOR A REASON."
Aspie1: "Which reason? Good grades? Good behavior? For someone's personal gain?"
Parents: "For being a good person!! ! And if you don't know what you need to do to be loved, maybe you're not worthy of love!"
Aspie1: <walks away feeling destroyed, like after a street mugging>

The problem was compounded by something my teacher said to the class: "Your parents get their salary in money. You [the students] get your salary in grades." This led me to draw a somewhat disturbing conclusion: just as my parents use money to buy food, clothes, etc., I use good grades and good behavior to buy their love, and by extension, have the desired food and clothes trickled down to me. How did I come to that conclusion? Because they elevated me practically to sainthood when I got good grades (A's and B's only), and treated me like the Antichrist when I got bad grades (anything else, even one C among all A's).

This is also the time when I started begging my parents for a dog or cat. As I got older, the bar for earning love (actually approval) got higher and higher. So I started viewing love the way most people view electricity: they don't really care who the supplier is, as long as the source is reliable and inexpensive. Similarly, I wanted someone to love me without me having to jump through hoops. And a dog seemed like just the ticket. I didn't care if I got love from my parents, from my non-immediate family, or from a dog. Love was love, no matter who it came from. Sadly, my parents are one of the most anti-pet people I know, and of course, they didn't let me have a pet. Well, they did a few years later, but it was a hamster. I was elated, since it was better than nothing, but interactions with a hamster are largely one-sided.

I suppose my parents made two mistakes:
(1) They mixed up love and respect/approval, or explained it in such a way that I got them mixed up. Because a pre-teen really is old enough to have to work to get people's respect, even if it's just his teachers' and classmates' respect. But family love needs to be unconditional. Not in my case, I thought. Now, 20 years later, I've never been in love, and feel the most comfortable in short-term relationships with a clear end in sight, like a fling I had on a cruise last year.
(2) My parents never made it clear if "people" refers only to people outside the family, or all humans beings in general, including family. By age 10, I already knew that "people" means "all human beings". So, with my aspie thinking, I decided that I needed to earn my parents' love too. Whether I was right, or if "loved for a reason" meant "earning people's respect", I'll never know. And I don't feel like asking my parents; 20 years passed since then, and they probably forgot.

So there you have it. Share you thoughts.

What unfortunate phrases to hear in childhood. I would've taken them the same way.

Yikes! I am very sorry.

I make it a point almost everyday, but especially when things are not going well, to let my son know that I love him unconditionally. I do not know if your parents assumed you would know they were referring to other people needing a reason to love you at 10, or not. The whole thing makes no sense to me. Do random people love other people's random three yr olds? Maybe your parents have severe communication issues.

Maybe what they meant is that there are greater expectations of a 10 yr old than for a 3 yr old, and that if you do not act as expected at 10 there are greater consequences as people expect more moral behavior and less selfishness.

The way I explain this to my son is that teachers treat children better when they make "good choices" vs. when they don't and that if you get a reputation of making good choices, people are more likely to trust you and believe the things you say. I also tell him they will have greater expectations as he gets older and, each grade will have harder rules to follow. He is not at the point where he cares what peers think, so I do not bother with that. I don't care what extended relatives think, so I only mention teachers.

Maybe your family has a lot of trouble expressing love and they love you but are just too inept to show this.

As far as grades being currency, I also do not view in this exact way, and I think the semantics do make a difference. I look at it like school is a child's "job" in the sense that they go there for almost as long per weekday as a job. They have to listen to an authority figure tell them what to do and when, so the teacher is like a boss. The analogy shuts down from there. You can't buy things with grades. Grades just enable you to get "promoted." You do not owe your parents good grades. You owe good grades to yourself, to provide you with more choices and opportunity. Parents should want good grades for your benefit, not for them.

Last edited by ASDMommyASDKid on 08 Apr 2013, 7:45 am, edited 1 time in total.

Oh dear. I grew up in a household where grades were very important, although nothing was ever laid out quite so blatantly. With my children, I have never been terribly grade oriented, and neither have they. We always valued learning above grades, and how people treat each other above everything else. My children have always known that I love them, no matter what. That doesn't mean bad behavior is accepted: it isn't. But they know that any consequences for their bad behavior were to move them toward better behavior, not to express any lack of love.

As others have suggested, your parents may have used unfortunate word choices to convey their concerns, but they are your parents - they no doubt love you even if they aren't very good at expressing themselves. It is very sad that this has interfered with your ability to form meaningful relationships, and you might want to consider seeing a therapist to work through those issues. It can make a real difference in your life.

Again, this sounds a lot like people who have an undiagnosed ASD who adapted poorly to the outside world. Keep in mind that AS was pretty much unheard of until 1994, and an awful lot of high-functioning adults were simply shamed into socially expected behavior. It doesn't excuse it, but I think they are treating you the way they were treated.

So, as someone who was raised in a similar situation, the next question is what YOU are going to do. You can't change your parents. I spent a lot of time as a young person trying to re-parent myself to make sure not only that I would be OK, but that any children I might have wouldn't suffer because of my parenting.

You are on the right track to that: question what feels wrong to you. The next step is to figure out what the right thing is - but you can't expect to get it from your parents - you have to give it to yourself. Yes, love is unconditional; I don't love my son for outcomes, I love him for who he is. Even as a parent who is still directing my son's choices for safety reasons, I respect his free will, and look forward to seeing where it takes him.

It's not all bad to be single in your 20s, but I think you can start to think about what it means to respect another person's choices and free will even if you don't agree with them.

Wow, that's terrible! Did your parents tell you they loved you every other day and maybe that day they were just delirious??? I sometimes get angry at my daughter and raise my voice but then apoligize later. I tell her i love her a million times a day but when she has been driving me mad for a few days i do feel like i wish i wasnt a parent or i wasnt cut out for this. Not sure why adults say crazy hurtful things too kids. I guess adults and parents are not perfect 100% of the time, you know?

YES there are many reasons I love my son! He is MY SON, that is #1, he is sweet, lovable, huggable, charming, strong willed, determined, hard working, funny, silly....I can go on and on.

I cant imagine EVER telling my son anything like OP wrote. Seriously? When my son bombs a test I still love him.

there are certain character traits about my son that I love more then others. there are some I don't like. but my CHILD...I love him.

If I understood my parents correctly, I think these would be suitable for reasons to love a 3-year-old child. They seem to fit under the "just because he's a child" category. I'm pretty sure I needed to do better than those at the age of 10 in order to be loved. "What reasons?", you might ask. I wish I knew, although good grades were one of them for sure. It's why I begged for a dog. This way, I could get love from my dog, and let my parents stick to food, clothes, and shelter. Much like with electricity, it didn't really matter to me who the love came from; I just wanted to be loved without having to expend tremendous effort to provide the reasons. It's also why I like flings: when a woman gets interested, it's usually pretty clear for what reason. Like during my cruise, it's because she liked my Latin dance skills. And I also don't have to keep providing reasons. Once the cruise ended, so did the fling, and the phone number exchange was largely symbolic.

Come to think of it, age 10 to 13 was the worst period of growing up for me. My parents started a crusade to eliminate all traces of childhood and "get me to grow up". Most of my childhood toys were left behind and weren't replaced, when my family moved across the country shortly after I turned 10. At the same time, I still had all the restrictions of childhood: early bedtimes, inability to decline undesired dishes, lack of permission to take city buses to museums, tight oversight during homework, etc. It was a "sandwich age", if you will. As part of my 8th grade graduation gift, bus travel restrictions were lifted, and I was allowed to take buses around town during all daylight hours.

I believe withdrawal of love (which is really what you are describing) can be just as damaging to a kid as physical abuse. I believe what your parents said to you was morally wrong. It is manipulative Children should not have to earn their parents' love. Not at 3 and not at 10. I suppose at some point, they need to earn their respect as they near adulthood. But not their love.

It's messed up.

One of my friends said this to me once (when my son was VERY difficult to deal with): "The true testament of a mother's love is that she loves him the most when he deserves it the least."

That has stuck with me. It is engraved in my heart. It is easy to "love" your kids when they are well behaved, meet your expectations, get good grades, whatever. But that's not the kind of love I want to give my kids. I want to give my kids the kind of love that keeps on ticking even when they are kicking, crying, cursing, screaming, disobedient, argumentative, and just plain difficult to be around.

I didn't figure any important stuff out until I was in my 30's, btw. And most of the healing I have done from a fairly dysfunctional childhood has been on my own. I agree with Momsparky, you are taking important first steps. Good luck to you. You can do this. If I can, anyone can.

OP I'm sorry you had that from your parents. Parents should never say things like that to a child (and it's not true that you love your child because of grades or behaviours). I think they didn't mean it, but they were trying to get you to give of your best and to grown up into a decent person - they were just very misguided in how they did it. I'm sure they loved you, but some people are just rubbish at showing their love.

Flings happen this way - but you do need to keep in mind that most relationships START in a fairly selfish sort of place and that can last for a fairly long period of time - months. It's also the case that in an equal relationship (parent-child isn't the same as two free adults) there is also some kind of mutual satisfaction and reciprocity that is expected. This doesn't mean it isn't love - you don't have to allow someone to take advantage of you for it to be love.

A good relationship with another adult is a consensual partnership. You agree to work together and stay together as a couple, and to tolerate the other person's quirks that are tolerable to you, and negotiate the things that aren't tolerable.

Last edited by momsparky on 08 Apr 2013, 8:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I didn't write the above, why does it say MMJMOM wrote it???

One of the two things: either nested quote tags parsing incorrectly or momsparky accidentally deleting one of the closing quote tags.

ok thanks.

Sorry, Aspie1 is right, I missed the nested tag. I fixed it.

OMG ^^^^^^ This! This is a parent's job. It should be in the dictionary as part of the definition.

It is never the job of the child to earn love. It is a horribly wrong and manipulative thing to impart to a child. As a child grows, he or she needs to learn how to behave more responsibly, of course, but that is subject to his/her own personality and skill set. My son is seven and has not yet grown into age appropriate toys due to different interests and lousy motor skills. If he starts playing with toys designed for 7 yr olds at 16 I have no issue with that. He can play with toys as an adult. I do, and still would even without the socially acceptable veil of parenthood.

Aspie1, our parents remind me a little of some of my in-laws in that they believe in "toughening up" a child at what I consider to be a young age even for an NT. They believe it to be an adaptive survival strategy though they would not think to word it that way. Also, the tween years are horrible, anyway, even for NTs for all the reasons you gave. I think your parents had no idea what they were doing, but probably thought what they were doing was right.