We talk a lot about love. Love your kids. Show up for them. Get down on the floor and build the Lego tower on Shabbos afternoon instead of taking your nap. All of it is true, and all of it matters. But in a recent conversation on my podcast with Berry Farkash, we kept circling back to something that sits underneath love — and without it, love doesn’t quite land.
That thing is safety.
A child needs to know that his father is a safe man and his mother is a safe woman. On the most basic level, “safe” means predictable. Not free of surprises — birthday surprises and trips are wonderful — but predictable in the way that counts: when I bring you something hard, something embarrassing, something I’m ashamed of, you will not come apart. You might be upset. But your upset won’t alienate me, and it won’t become one more thing I have to manage.
When that safety is missing, a child doesn’t stop loving his parents. Love, from child to parent, is almost a given. What he does instead is adapt. He smiles when you talk. He looks like he’s having a good time when you play together. He performs the connection — because he needs it, and because he needs to survive. In therapy we sometimes call this the fawning child. The love looks intact from the outside. The safety underneath has quietly gone.
This is why I’ve come to believe the most useful question a parent can ask is an uncomfortable one. When you notice your child isn’t telling you things — or worse, is hiding things — the instinct is to ask him, “why aren’t you telling me?” But the more honest version turns the question inward: what have I not created around this child that he can’t bring this to me? That’s not about blame. It’s about responsibility, which is a different and more hopeful thing.
The reason this matters so much, and the reason Berry and I keep returning to these conversations, is that the hardest things our children carry — including the confusing, shame-soaked questions that come with growing up and becoming aware of their own sexuality — only ever reach us if it’s safe to bring them. A child who senses that a topic will make his father sweat, lower his voice, or panic will simply route around it. Not because he’s defiant, but because he’s protecting the relationship. And the topics that get routed around are precisely the ones where a young person most needs a safe, steady adult walking beside him.
The same principle holds in marriage. Couples can love each other and still bypass safety — and they pay for it later, because safety, not affection, is the core of real attachment. The good news, and Berry said this beautifully, is that safety can always be reclaimed. It takes trial and error. It gets tested, sometimes for a long time, especially once it’s been broken. But it can be rebuilt.
If there’s one thing to take from all of this, it’s this: before you work on loving better, ask whether you’ve made it safe. The love is usually already there. Safety is the thing we have to build, protect, and — when it slips — patiently earn back.
This is drawn from my latest conversation with Berry Farkash on Conversations with Shloimie.