No need to say it

Yet another programme about 'toxic masculinity' recounting the sad, sad story of a young man whose father didn't say "I love you" often enough-- I don't remember my father *ever* going round saying "I love you" to his children (or to my mother, in our hearing; I've no idea what went on in private, but doing it in front of the children would have felt pretty much indecent). Come to that, I don't remember my mother ever saying "I love you" to us either; she always signed off her letters "Love from Mummy", but that was different. I'm trying to imagine her saying any such thing, and it would sound incredibly stilted.

And yet it never even *occurred* to any of us to doubt that we were very much loved. It simply went without saying; it was patently obvious. Anyone who needed constant verbal assurances about it would have been regarded as incredibly insecure and probably emotionally damaged in some way...

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