I was thirty-two when I finally told my dad “I love you” first. Not as a response, not mumbled back after he said it, but initiated by me.
My hands were shaking as I said it at the end of a phone call, and the pause that followed felt eternal. When he finally said it back, his voice cracked just a little. That moment took three decades to arrive.
Growing up as the middle child between an older brother and younger sister, I heard plenty of practical things. “Did you finish your homework?” “Clean your room.” “We’re eating at six.”
My father worked long hours and provided everything we needed materially. We ate dinner together every single night, all five of us around the table. But looking back, those conversations stayed safely on the surface, like we were all skating on thin ice, afraid to fall through into something deeper.
It wasn’t until I had my own children that I realized how many fundamental phrases were missing from my childhood vocabulary. Not because my parents were cruel or neglectful, but because they themselves probably never heard these words growing up.
Emotional unavailability gets passed down like a family heirloom nobody actually wants.
Now, as I watch my five-year-old daughter process her feelings and my two-year-old son reach for comfort without hesitation, I see all the things I had to teach myself as an adult.
These are the phrases that emotionally unavailable parents struggle to say, leaving their children to spend years, sometimes decades, learning to speak them into existence.
1. “I don’t know the answer, but we can figure it out together”
Vulnerability wasn’t part of the parenting playbook I grew up with. Adults had answers, period. If they didn’t know something, they’d make something up or deflect. The idea of admitting uncertainty? That would have been seen as weakness.
I spent years in my twenties pretending to have everything figured out, terrified that saying “I don’t know” would expose me as the fraud I felt like. It wasn’t until I became a parent myself that I realized how liberating these words could be.
When my daughter asks why her friend’s parents are getting divorced, I don’t scramble for a perfect answer. “I don’t know exactly why, but we can talk about how you’re feeling about it.”
Teaching myself to admit uncertainty has been like learning a new language. But every time I say it to my kids, I’m breaking a cycle.
2. “Your feelings make sense”
In my childhood home, feelings were inconveniences to be managed, not experiences to be validated. If I cried about something “silly,” I was told to stop being dramatic. If I was angry, I needed to go to my room until I could “be pleasant.”
Have you ever noticed how validating someone’s feelings instantly calms them down? It took me years of therapy to understand this.
Now when my son has a meltdown because his sister touched his block tower, I kneel down and say, “You worked really hard on that tower. Your feelings make sense.” The shift is immediate. He still might be upset, but he’s not alone in it.
3. “I’m sorry I hurt you”
Parents apologizing to children? That wasn’t a thing in my house. Parents were the authority, and authorities don’t apologize. If my dad snapped at us after a long day at work, we just knew to give him space. If my mom said something sharp, we learned to let it roll off our backs.
The first time I apologized to my daughter after losing my patience, the words felt foreign in my mouth. But her response? She hugged me and said, “It’s okay, Mommy. Everyone makes mistakes.” Five years old, and she already understands something it took me decades to learn.
4. “Tell me more about that”
Curiosity about our inner worlds wasn’t part of the family culture. When I came home from school upset about something, the response was usually practical. “Did you tell the teacher?” “Just ignore them.” Never “Tell me more about how that made you feel.”
Now, “tell me more” is probably the phrase I use most with my kids. When my daughter mentions she didn’t play with anyone at recess, instead of immediately problem-solving or minimizing, I say those three words.
What pours out is always more than the surface story. It’s fears, dreams, observations about the world that blow my mind.
5. “You don’t have to be perfect”
Perfect was the unspoken expectation. Good grades, good behavior, good reputation. Mistakes were failures, not learning opportunities. The pressure was never explicitly stated, but it was there in every sigh when a test came back with a B+, every comparison to the neighbor’s kids.
Do you know how hard it is to tell yourself you don’t have to be perfect when you’ve been programmed for perfection since birth? I still struggle with this daily. But I make sure my kids hear it regularly.
When my daughter erases her drawing for the fifth time, frustrated it’s not “right,” I sit beside her and share my own imperfect doodles.
6. “I’m proud of who you are, not just what you do”
Achievement was the currency of affection in my family. Good grades got smiles. Awards got attention. But just existing as myself? That didn’t seem to register as worthy of pride.
Last week, my son spent ten minutes trying to put on his own shoes, determined to do it himself. When he finally succeeded, I found myself starting to say, “Good job!”
But I caught myself and said instead, “I love how determined you are.” It’s a small shift, but it matters. I want my kids to know their worth isn’t tied to their achievements.
7. “It’s okay to change your mind”
Decisions in my childhood were presented as permanent. Pick an instrument? You’re playing it all year. Choose a sport? No quitting mid-season. The message was clear that changing your mind meant you were flaky, unreliable, a quitter.
Teaching myself flexibility has been a journey. When my daughter wanted to quit dance after two classes, my immediate instinct was to launch into a lecture about commitment. Instead, I asked her what changed.
Turns out, she thought it would be more like the dancing she does at home. We found a different class that matched her expectations better.
8. “I love you no matter what”
Love felt conditional growing up. It was there, I knew it was there, but it seemed tied to behavior, to meeting expectations, to not causing problems. The words “I love you” were said, but they often came with invisible strings attached.
Now I tell my kids I love them when they’re mid-tantrum. When they’ve just broken something. When they’re being absolutely impossible. “I don’t like this behavior, but I love you always.” It’s a distinction I’m still learning to believe about myself.
9. “I’m listening”
Being heard, really heard, wasn’t part of my childhood experience. Conversations happened around me, over me, about me, but rarely with me in a way that made me feel my thoughts mattered.
My parents were physically present but emotionally elsewhere, preoccupied with work stress, household management, adult concerns.
“I’m listening” has become my anchor phrase. When my kids start to tell me something while I’m cooking, I stop stirring and turn to face them. When bedtime stories turn into questions about the world, I put the book down.
These moments of full presence are gifts I’m giving them and healing I’m giving myself.
Learning to speak a new language
Some days I nail it. Other days I hear my father’s dismissiveness in my voice or feel my mother’s emotional distance creeping in. Breaking generational patterns isn’t a one-time decision but a daily practice.
What amazes me most is how naturally these phrases come to my children. They tell each other “It’s okay to feel sad.”
They apologize without prompting. They express love freely and without condition. They’re growing up bilingual in a way, fluent in both emotional availability and the practical language of daily life.
For those of us still learning to say these things to ourselves, remember it’s never too late to start. Every time we speak these words, whether to our children or to our own inner child, we’re rewriting the script.
We’re proving that love doesn’t have to be conditional, that feelings matter, that imperfection is human.
The other day, my daughter looked at me and said, “Mommy, you seem frustrated. Do you want to tell me about it?” Five years old, and she’s already speaking the language I’m still learning.
Maybe that’s the real victory, raising kids who won’t have to spend their thirties in therapy learning to say what should have been said all along.
