30/05/2026
What a Four-Year-Old Child Taught Me About Love
From Marie's Journal Entry
This little girl always finds ways to surprise me.
Sometimes she picks a flower from her family's garden and brings it to me. Other times, she carefully draws a picture and proudly places it in my hands. Today, she made several little "eggs and cakes" out of playdough and brought them to me as a gift.
Holding them out with shining eyes, she said:
“Marie, I made these eggs for you. Please eat them.”
I happily accepted her freshly made pretend eggs as though they were precious treasures. Then I pretended to eat them with great delight. When I had "finished," I rubbed my tummy and let out a satisfied little burp.
The moment she saw my reaction, she burst into laughter—a bright, musical giggle that rang through the room like tiny wind chimes.
In that moment, I felt a profound sense of joy.
A child's love is so different from the love we often experience as adults.
It is pure, clean, and free of hidden motives. There are no conditions attached, no expectations, and no desire for something in return.
Love is simply love.
Children do not calculate whether giving is worthwhile. They do not keep score. They do not ask what they might receive in exchange.
They simply want to share what they have with someone they care about.
Their generosity reminds me of Ruth Bebermeyer's beautiful poem Give To (1978):
I never feel more given to than when you take from me — when you understand the joy I feel giving to you.
And you know my giving isn't done to put you in my debt, but because I want to live the love I feel for you.
To receive with grace may be the greatest giving. There's no way I can separate the two.
When you give to me, I give you my receiving.
When you take from me, I feel so given to.
Children may not be able to express these truths in words, yet they live them naturally through their actions, their sincerity, and their open hearts.
Over the years, as both an early childhood teacher and the owner of an early learning centre, one of my deepest realizations has been this:
Children continually invite us back to the purity of childhood.
They remind us to become people who are genuine rather than performative, authentic rather than artificial—people whose inner lives and outward actions are in harmony.
In walking alongside children as they grow, I have come to understand that education is far more than the transmission of knowledge.
It is the touching of one life by another.
It is one soul awakening another.
We often think we are teaching children, but in truth, children are teaching us as well.
They teach us sincerity.
They teach us trust.
They teach us gratitude.
And perhaps most importantly, they teach us what love looks like in its simplest and purest form.
This is one of the reasons I continue to fall more deeply in love with my profession.
To every child in our centre:
Thank you.
Thank you for enriching my life with your genuine love, and for reminding me, again and again, that love was never meant to be complicated.
It was always meant to be simple, pure, and freely given.
❤️ May we all keep a little of a child's innocence in our hearts, and may we learn to both give and receive love with grace.
