All day we are churning around our children with love words, but our parents we don't count • Shmulik Leopard has a little idea

• They also deserve // ​​Photo: GettyImages

"Dad, I love you".

I love you too, Naama.

"Dad, and I love you, too."

I love you too, Oddi.

I noticed that this ritual was repeated several times a day recently. I go home, busy with some parental task (or more likely, evading one) - and one of the kids throws a declaration of love at me, according to all the rules of the ceremony. If the other is around, he will take care not to stay behind. It was nice at first, but after a while it permeated: they didn't really understand the meaning of that statement.

They hear us tell them this all the time, understand more or less that this is the most important thing in the world, and release it once in a while, as a symbolic payment for everything we do for them. Did they do anything wrong and seek punishment relief? "Dad, I love you". Do they want a second cookie? "Dad, I love you". Just trying to be cute because they know it will pay off in the future? "Dad, I love you very much."

This week I talked on the phone with my dad. He was in a noisy place, and he didn't hear it that way either, so the conversation went on with general shouts and grit, which took me out of my tranquility. I ended the conversation with some unpleasant scream, and threw my laptop on the couch (poor kids of today, they will never understand the wonderful feeling of releasing a real phone slam). 3-year-old Oded passed me in exactly the same second: "Dad, I love you."

Suddenly the great injustice became clear: All day long we are jerking around our children, telling them we love them, which is our life. They know that they are the best thing in the world, but we don't count our parents, and they were our suckers long before we became the children's suckers.

They had dreams, they had a new way they planned to pave for themselves, they probably even saw themselves as cool and up-to-date young people, just as we saw ourselves before sinking under a mountain of laundry and educational toys. Then we arrived, and they struggled for a bit, but in the end they gave in and forgot about all the dreams.

Today they are 70 and something. It is likely that no one is mugging around them all day and telling them how much he loves them. So do it with you - flip the pyramid and tell your parents how much you love them. Unlike our children, they understand the full meaning of this statement. It may not change their lives, but it will certainly make their day. You know, they're old and everything. And with any luck, karma will come to pay off when you are in one of the least good decades of your life, and one of your children will realize that you too were once cool, dreamy young men. Just like him.