I recently read a line in a book by one of my favorite authors, Jodi Picoult, that I believe sums up parenting: “It’s funny as a mother you think the very act of giving someone life should be enough to bind you to them, but just because you love someone unconditionally doesn’t mean you don’t have to work at it.”

As parents, we’ve never been asked to put this to the test more than we have than during the pandemic. The stress on families who are trying to navigate working from home and online school with their children is just the tip of the iceberg—it’s the fact that we are always together. Lives once filled with countless activities and social engagements are now defined by large amounts of time spent together at home. Let’s face it, we’re getting on each others’ nerves.

Other WRAL Top Stories

This got me thinking about love languages. Not the kind we share with a spouse or a partner, but the kind we share with our kids. The unspoken love we show them when we engage with them in a sincere way, a way that doesn’t always involve words.

With my oldest daughter, the language has become cooking. She picks the menu, I buy the food, and then she cooks the meal. It’s a pretty good deal. I usually assist the best I can and clean up. But make no mistake about it, she is the head chef. She orders me around like a head chef too—telling me what she needs, what I can put away, and encouraging me to “get ahead” of the mess we’re making. Usually, there is music playing (hers), and there is a hustle and bustle, an energy in the room that has come to define our mother-daughter dance in the kitchen.

With my youngest daughter, the love language is games. Even when she is annoyed with me, (which is most of the time, she’s 17) I can usually get her interested in playing a game. Our most recent favorite is Bananagrams. We set it up on the kitchen table beneath the bright overhead lights. Again, music is playing (this time mine), and we share a friendly competitive spirit. After each game, we look at each other and say, One more? This goes on until I can’t keep my eyes open for one more minute.

For our family, the language we share involves taking long walks with the dog. Although lately the weather has put a damper on this. There’s nothing like cold temperatures and icy rain to make you rethink that decision not to fence-in the yard. So, you’re more likely to find us wrapped up in blankets on the couch in our den watching a movie. Finding a movie that four people will equally enjoy is impossible. After a few minutes of lively debate, someone usually says: Pick something, I don’t care. Most of the time we all end up enjoying it or falling asleep.

So, as we continue to traverse these choppy waters together with dry land still too far away to bank on yet, it’s important to remember that good parenting does not always involve words. Just being with our children, spending time together doing something is a universal love language that we can all understand.

I always tell my girls that someday when they look back on your childhood you will feel guilty for always being annoyed with me and making fun of me. The other night when I reminded my 17-year-old of this again, she said: “Mom, you always say that. And yet, I’ve never felt guilty about any of it.” I just smiled at my sweet girl, my heart full of unconditional love, and then I beat the pants off her in Bananagrams.

Amanda is the mom of two, a reporter for WRAL-TV and the author of several books including some on motherhood. Find her here on Mondays.