Parenting is not transactional. It’s not about getting something back, like obedience, gratitude, validation, or love, in return. It’s about giving what is needed, over and over, over and over, even when it isn’t returned in kin. Our children don’t owe us anything. And that can be a hard truth to accept, especially when the giving feels endless and the thanks are few. But our role is not to receive; it’s to nurture, guide, and support a person who is still learning what it means to be human.
When parents begin to expect emotional returns from their children, the relationship can start to wobble under that weight. Kids feel it when they are asked, even silently, to meet a parent’s unmet needs. They sense when love becomes conditional. When approval, pride, or affection depends on how they act or who they become. Those unspoken expectations create confusion at best, guilt and shame at worst, sometimes anger, where there should be safety and trust. The healthiest parent-child relationships are built on one-way giving that feels generous, not depleting, because it comes from a place of self-awareness and fullness, not need.
Of course, that doesn’t mean we parents should ignore our own needs. In fact it means we need to invest in ourselves. It means finding ways to rest, replenish, and recharge outside the parent-child relationship. Through partners, friends, community, faith, therapy, and self-care. When we care for our own emotional lives, we are better equipped to give freely to our children. We can model what emotional maturity looks like, and take responsibility for our own well-being instead of placing that burden on others.
The goal of parenting is not to raise children who make us feel good about ourselves. It’s to help them grow into people who feel good about themselves. Who can also give freely, because they’ve seen what that looks like in us, their parents. When children are loved unconditionally, they learn that love isn’t something earned, it’s something shared. That lesson, more than any rule or lecture or punishment, is what they most need.