the love that resizes
A parent's love usually runs a year or two younger than the child.
It learned them at a certain age, and it keeps loving that age by default. The fruit still cut into pieces for a boy who now shaves the faint beginnings of a moustache. The sweater produced in April. The hand that still reaches out at the kerb for a child who crosses alone to school every day. The love is not wrong. It is dated — a portrait the artist keeps touching up from an old photograph.
Children read this instantly, and they file it in two columns at once: loved, and not seen. Both entries are true, which is what makes the age gap worth your attention rather than your guilt.
The correction is small and goes in one direction only — forward. Hand over the knife and let the fruit be cut badly. Let the sweater stay in the cupboard and the child discover April for themselves. Retire the kerb-hand a road at a time. Each retirement stings you a little more than it stings them; that sting is the love resizing, and it is supposed to be felt.
What must never run backward is the resizing — a child spoken to as older than they are, handed worries of years they have not reached. Love that runs a size young is a small, mendable error. The other direction is a weight; keep it off the small shoulders.
Tonight, notice which age your love is currently set to. If it is running young, advance it one year, in one gesture, quietly. They will notice, and say nothing, and be glad.