Love is not love when it does not realize that the person being loved is their own unique individual self. Moreover, as I tried to express, that the function of

Love is not love when it does not realize that the person being loved is their own unique individual self. Moreover, as I tried to express, that the function of a parent is to help that child become the best version of themselves, hence my noting: >...realization that each child is a unique person with their own potential, and hopes, and dreams... That your parents labeled how they treated you as "love" does not make it an act of lovingkindness (to pull from my wife's Master's thesis) --- it is important that people should evaluate things without considerations for labels applied by others, and then arrive at a reasoned, impartial perception which is valid in terms of logic and correlation with the facts of the past. (Q: How many legs does a dog have if you call a tail a leg? A: Four, calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg.) The drunken and enraged parent who claims, "This will hurt me more than it does you." as he unstraps his belt is lying to himself and to the child, and it is important for the child to realize that --- understanding the self-deception which makes such an act possible may be helpful, but it is more important to understand the facts of the matter --- by way of contrast, the toddler who bites another person has to be slapped because their intellectual engagement does not yet admit of other people having feelings (which is why they are able to inflict pain since they do not realize that others will feel pain), and since they are on the cusp of that realization, explaining afterwards along with some natural consequence will help guide them to that realization.