Years ago, a friend who is also most-likely-to-participate-in-an-MLM, introduced me to the idea of the five love languages, and asserted their complete and total truth with a proselytizer’s level of fervor. Defined in the 1992 NYT Bestseller, The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts, this “theory” of love and attachment was created by Gary Chapman, a radio host and Baptist pastor, who originally published the book under a Christian publisher. I was skeptical, because I generally resist fervor, and it seemed too convenient that Chapman would also go on to write a book about the five love languages for children (and for teenagers, and for the military) as a way of extending his theory (and bestseller status). But like many types of popularized categorization (Myers Briggs, Enneagram, astrology, etc.) there’s both a gravitation towards some graspable explanation, some feeling of truth, and a resistance towards being boxed in. What more do parents do than try to understand the tiny, confounding humans that they produced, and find ways to communicate and understand their love?
I’m at fault of describing my own kids by the limited terms by which language provides us. Ada is “type A,” and “a people pleaser” and “prone to jealousy” and “a bit of a perfectionist.” Julian doesn’t “seek the validation of others” and has more of an “intense focus” and is a bit of a “wallflower.” Whether these labels are adequate or not they have currency in language, and do attempt to capture the idea that each of us share our personalities and express our affection in different ways.
Ada’s resounding love language—if utilizing Chapman’s limited five prongs—is Receiving Gifts. It makes holidays and yesterday’s Valentine’s exchange rank high on her pyramid of reasons to exist. The idea of getting twenty-five objects of any kind (trinkets, candy, pencils, stickers, pop-its, etc.) makes her salivate. She lives to receive, to open, to gift, to collect, to count, and to display her treasures and her mind is unencumbered by imagining twenty-five parents guiltily ordering trinkets on Amazon. Last night at dinner she asked everyone to raise their hand if they’d like to see all her Valentines. She recounted play-by-play the events of the afternoon at school, the agonizing wait to hand out the cards, running back to her desk to see her bounty, then opened each card, candy, and toy describing who it was from and her relationship to them.
Julian received a card from his classmate Emma, which stated plainly, “I love you Julian!” He grimaced, not ready to reciprocate, either in words or feeling, but eyed the gummy Fruit Loops from his friend Zoe, which were more his speed. He quickly discarded the Valetines from his classmates as “just fine,” and moved on to build some machines with his Legos and Magnatiles. Where Ada craves THINGS, Julian wants your hand to hold, and someone to build a complex Candy Invention Machine with him on the floor. Again, in simplified terms, this is the love language of Quality Time.
As we were preparing dinner Ada asked if I had Valentine’s cards for her and Julian. She had flat-out asked that I give her one that morning on the way to school, but I hadn’t made time to make it, and also had to work. I dug through my box of miscellaneous stationery two minutes before dinner and pulled out one that was splashed with blobs of red and pink. For Julian I picked one with pine trees. I googled “Valentine’s jokes for kids” and found some mediocre knock knock jokes (Knock knock! / Who’s there? / Olive. / Olive who? /O-live you!) on a website with excellent SEO and scribbled them into the cards. I sealed them up and put one on each dinner plate, just as Jacob pulled pizza out of the oven. Ada exuberantly shouted to Julian that there was a special Valentine on their plates. Ada read the jokes out loud to the family, then rapidly blinked her eyelashes at me—a sign of approval. In Julian’s, in addition to the jokes I’d written, “ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE!,” because he’s obsessed with the Beatles, and knew he’d know the reference. He smiled and folded up the card and quietly got to eating his pizza. I’d managed to narrowly and briefly satisfy everyone’s love language, in that very specific moment.
Recommendations for the kids:
Get tix: The NY International Children’s Film Festival is March 4-19 and tickets go on sale this week. This was the last theater event I took Ada to pre-pandemic. The shorts programs are terrific.
Weirdly delicious splurge-y snack: Effie’s homemade oatcakes are the quintessential hybrid of biscuit and cookie. My children love them but they are pricey, so they fall in the category of mostly-for-me, occasionally-for-you.
Pro tip: Get next year’s snow stuff now. I think Didrikson’s makes some terrific reasonably-priced snow gear. Ada has the Lun Kid’s Jacket and it’s waterproof, hooded warm, and comfortable to wear. They have lots of winter season stuff on sale.
Read: We’re on a Tom Gauld spree: The Little Wooden Robot and the Log Princess is a delight. Mooncop is perfect graphic satire. Goliath is a classic, remade.
(Reminder: you can shop all @kidsbookrecs on Bookshop.org.)
Recommendations for the grown-ups:
Eat: The tahini sesame cookie at Bien Cuit is understated and so damn good.
Make: These Korean cauliflower “wings” are calling my name.
Listen: This Switched on Pop episode with Sylvan Esso, my most-played artist last year.
Read: The Life of the Mind by Christina Smallwood is my favorite book I’ve read this year. It contends with navigating pregnancy loss, career aspiration and ambition, the (often depressing) space between who you are and who you think you are, and how you perceive the successes of others and how you believe they look at you. Jia Tolentino has a great write-up in the New Yorker from last year.
Subscribe/attend: The Cosmos is a newsletter centering the stories and experiences of Asian women in America. You may or may not have heard about the horrifying murder of a 35-year old Korean woman, Christina Yuna Lee, in Chinatown on Sunday. They are leading a Collective Rest for Grief AAPI Healing Circle tonight (2/15) from 7-8:30 p.m. You can register here. (If you’re also just like WTF?! then the thing I often wish is that someone would offer to walk with me or near me while exiting subways or if on a street where you’d otherwise be alone. Or do the work of finding some other way to be an ally.)
Thanks for reading till the end! Hoping you a peaceful week with spring in your sights.