There’s things our kids need. They need love. They need support. They need someone who believes in them. These are non-negotiables…and if they don’t get them from you, they’ll get them somewhere.
Clementine Churchill was an impressive woman (a great biography of her here), but per the aristocratic British norms of the day, she was not the most loving and affectionate of mothers. As a result, she proved this very idea that our kids will find what they didn’t get from us, elsewhere, often through means that disappoint or even alarm us.
Reproaching her son Randolph for an unseemly affair he was having with an older woman, Clementine was given a rude reminder of her own shortcomings as a mother. “I need her,” he told his mother. “She’s maternal and you’re not.”
Kids will try deficiencies of their parents with accomplishments or money or fame or substances…but even then nothing will ever adequately fill the hole or treat that wound. As Clementine’s biographer, Sonia Purnell writes, “Randolph was in search of unconditional love—the sort he assumed a mother would normally give—but from a woman who would ask for virtually nothing in return. The result was an inferno of arrogance and crushing insecurity, charm and insufferable rudeness.”
If we don’t help our kids feel secure and loved, if we don’t give them affection, help them see that they are enough, they’ll find other means of getting it. They’ll find it in drugs. They’ll find it in a cult leader or a noxious spouse. They’ll find it in chaos or fame. They’ll find it in places and people who don’t truly care for them, who may even exploit their need. The world is full of voices eager to fill the void we leave behind—some kind, but many cruel, selfish, or manipulative.
So the choice is ours. We can give our kids what they need now—love, support, belief in their worth—or we can leave them to seek it elsewhere, where the cost may be far greater than we ever imagined.
P.S. We highly recommend parents check out Sonia Purnell’s excellent biography Clementine: The Life of Mrs. Churchill and the riveting book Churchill & Son, which explores Winston’s complex relationship with his only son Randolph.
Each book has a lot to teach parents about raising kids and the legacy you want to leave behind for your family (they’re practically parenting books disguised as biographies).
Head to the Painted Porch Bookstore to grab one or both books today!
