Words of Love at Work?

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I watched parents all around me dropping their children off at primary school. It was almost 9 am in the morning just south of Winchester in the UK. I was with my friend Lili, dropping off her 7 year old son Alex.

All the familiar dramas were present all around us – a distracted girl preferring to pick flowers than go to class, a boy walking slowly and reluctantly, an anxious little one not wanting to be left at class, an enthusiastic young scientist excited to share their project results.

Parents were trying to navigate the crowd, their child’s needs, their own schedule.

As these little dramas play out, I was struck by what I heard and saw.

Tenderness. Kindness. Literally “Love.”

“You can look at the flowers after school, Dear.”

“Come on Love, it’s time to get to class.”

“Oh Love, it’s going to be alright.”

“Darling, you did such a fine job on that. Your teacher is going to be impressed.”

This tenderness along with the use of “Love” and other diminutives caught my attention. It was in such stark contrast to numerous scenes I've observed back home in public places where anxious, fearful, stressed parents try to get their kids to comply by threatening, yelling, demeaning, and using other forms of harshness. 

Now please don't get me wrong. I raised four kids, for many years as a single parent, and I sure did the same at times. Parenting is an exhausting job and we can't know what's happening on the outside of anyone's life. 

My observation here is really about the difference tenderness can make across society. Words matter. And how we speak to each other as adults matters and has ripples into lives.

The harshness of our culture shows up everywhere - on the highway, in the grocery store aisles, at work, in public meetings, in our neighborhoods. And it also shows up in how we speak to children. All this is self-reinforcing and perpetuates fear and harm. 

I wonder what it would be like if we were tender with each other as a culture instead? 

Consider this clip featuring Sir Ian McKellen on the “Three Little Words” podcast, about calling someone “Love.” 

I know we have a history of gendered language and I'm not advocating for returning to a time when the boss calls his admin “Sweetie”. 

But words make worlds. 

And I wonder, what words might we use with each other at work, in our communities, in our families and with children to make a more loving world?