Dr. Laura:
Several days a week, my two-year-old daughter and I go to the gym together while my older kids are at school. They have a childcare room where you can leave the kids while you run on the treadmill or take a spinning class. She is never out of my sight for more than an hour, and I always check in with her to make sure she's okay.
The other day I asked her if she liked the "kids' gym" that day (that's our name for the place). Suddenly, her lip curled, she looked at me intensely, and said: "Mommy, they no talk me, the lady and babies are mad me." In her two-year-old language, she was telling me that she was ignored, and therefore she interpreted it as their being mad at her. I realized in that moment that she is so used to the love and affection from our doting family of six that this situation was totally foreign and confusing to her. The ladies in the childcare room at the gym were too busy to talk to her, and she felt it.
I thought of how you use the words "no love" regarding childcare arrangements, and that is exactly what it is. I just would never have expected a two-year-old to express it.
Melanie
