Mother Love and Father Love

Last month my parents came here for a week’s stay, and then flew back. I looked from behind them as they walked towards the departure gate that day at the airport. With their backs to me, they checked in as usual. When they were almost out of my sight, nothing had prepared me to see my mum look back while my dad didn’t. The moment was engraved in my memory and I suddenly realized that there exist differences between the same unconditional loves. As the proverb goes, mother love is water-like while father love is mountain-like.
In terms ofdaily caring, it is undeniable that mother’s love is far more sensitive than father’s. In my case it is obvious in the content of their caring behavior.
When I still lived at home before college, I even can’t imagine how she memorized so many details for me for years on end. I loved semi-raw egg so she steamed an egg for exactly fifty seconds in microwave every morning without a timer; she remembered exactly on which day I would have PE lesson and always reminded me not to wear jeans to school; she tried to think of all the ways to avoid serving me eggs on exam days because of the unlucky symbolized meaning. On the contrary, a father-only home was in a mess, without schedule or arrangement. He can forget to wake me up on a school-day morning; he can mistake mom’s toothbrush for mine; he even can tell whether a dish was going bad or not; even now I am sure that he doesn’t know whether I love spaghetti or cheese cake for my breakfast. My mum used to say “What a father!” Yes, indeed!
This year I am thousands of kilometers away from home. Video chatting has become a major communicating way to connect parents and their dearest daughter. On the other end of the internet, my father always acted as a wishy-washy diplomat asking me yes-or-no questions or even seemed to have nothing to talk with me. Unlike my father’s perfunctory “what’s going on”, my mom would care about what I did yesterday, what I had for lunch today and what I would wear the next day; unlike my father’s stupid “what’s the weather like recently?”, my mom would book a daily weather forecast of Beijing and informed me from time to time; mom will even hint that I would better call my daddy in order to soothe him when he was in a bad mood. Now what I want to say is “what a mother!”
Although dad is not that good at caring me in daily life, what he has done to myeducationin his own style helps him to win a round back. Dad’s rational and practical style is totally different from mom’s sentimental and romantic one, so I always call them “sense and sensitivity”.
Dad tends to analyze everything rationally so that pros and cons are always listed respectively from his point of view. When I was to choose school and major one year ago, he helped me to make a chart and compare the advantages and disadvantages of every target universities objectively, instead of saying “just do it” as my mother did. Besides, he would even take me to observe the cause of a quarrel between neighbors while the answer was never given by him. He would patiently tell me what had happened and let me to draw a conclusion by myself. The ability of independent thinking is cultivated by his education style.
Mom tends to be more sentimental and to use more touching words. When facing some problems that need handling, she judges everything in a sensitive and romantic way. She always praises me at the right time and always encourages me to follow my heart, which is what I appreciate most. Unlike other adults, she never avoids any topics, from dream to death. She tells me “dream your dream forever”; she tells me to express my love bravely; she even tells me that we will all become watergrass at the bottom of the sea so that I should never worry about the pain caused by death and separation.
Instructing me with reasons and touching my heart with love make my education a round one. Combining their concepts together can be a process to perfect both sides of my character, sense and sensibility, reality and romance, day by day.
As for thelove expression, mother love and father love play completely different roles in my life. Water-like mom expresses love explicitly while mountain-like dad seldom uses direct words and feels like expressing his love implicitly although he loves me so much as mother do.
Mom follows a be-with-me style and just hopes to experience every important moment in my life. She designed a best route so that she can drop me off on her way to work reasonably; she waited for me two hours after two hours when I was in extra-curricular painting class and singing in a children’s choir; how could she miss the chance to keep me company during college entrance examination! Her only purpose is to be with me, to join me in my life and be a crucial part of my important moments. Besides, she never forgets to hug me every time I do a good job and says “I love you” on my birthday party.
Dad didn’t do the same as mom. He didn’t have to be with me and even have to say sweet words to me. He was busy all the time so that we can only spent time on dinner table fewer than five times a month; he never said a word to encourage me before college entrance examinations and never sent me to my weekend painting class; we two used to have dinner together in a romantic restaurant with fewer than ten words during the whole process. But I have no doubt about his love – because I was always pretending to be asleep when he kissed me goodnight and murmured “sweet dream” eighteen years without exceptions. Just like the father inThe View of my Father’s BackbyZiqing Zhu, fathers always do better in what they do than what they say.
F-A-M-I-L-Y was created by a nice idea of “Father And Mother I Love You.” Mother love and father love give me a sense of security and also work on my ability developing during my growing process. We are like small boats sailing on our journey of life, and father's love is like a mountain that is always by our side while mom's love is like river water that carries the small boats to the end of the journey. On the aspects of daily caring, education style and love expression, they seem like two completely different persons but give me complementary influence and love. Whether they choose to be detailed or brief, explicit or implicit, practical or romantic, I love them and always feel proud. It is their difference that shows the diversity of our family and makes a round person out of a naive girl.