The Language My Child Speaks: What Annie Ernaux and Dr. Gary Chapman Taught Me About Love

A reflection on witnessing, wondering, and learning to love across the gap

As a speech-language pathologist, I've spent 30+ years helping children find their voice. But Annie Ernaux, the Nobel Prize-winning author, wrote something that stopped me cold:

"I will never hear the language my mother spoke."

She wrote it in A Woman's Story, her tender and unflinching account of her mother's life and death. It's a meditation on the unbridgeable distance that can exist between people who love each other - different social classes, different generations, different life experiences creating a gap that even deep love cannot fully close.

I realized something profound: I'm fluent in words - it's literally my profession - but the language I most need to hear is silence filled with presence, or the wordless vocabulary of a hug. And the people I love most can't always speak it.

This holiday season, as families gather (or feel the ache of not gathering), I've been thinking about the languages we speak, the languages we need, and the gaps between them.

Because Dr. Gary Chapman's research on the 5 Love Languages reveals something both hopeful and challenging: We CAN learn to hear each other's languages - if we're willing to investigate. But it requires something many of us find difficult: seeing clearly without blame, witnessing the distance without pretending it doesn't exist, and loving persistently even when it's hard.

The Languages We Speak vs. The Languages We Need

Here's my truth: My primary love language for giving is Words of Affirmation and conversation/Quality Time. I call my children regularly, check in, ask questions - including those adult-child connection questions I post every week. I use my professional expertise (language!) to connect.

My primary love language for RECEIVING love is Quality Time, but Physical Touch is a close second.

And there's a gap.

My three adult children live far away. My parents live six hours away. My daughter Eva has told me more than once that she doesn't like hugs. My parents aren't affectionate people. Quality Time means phone calls and FaceTime at best - not the same as sitting side by side, not the same as a hug that lasts long enough to actually land.

So I've adapted. I receive the beautiful gifts from my amazing gift-givers - Stephanie (my friend since our first day of biology lab as freshmen at GWU), my daughter Calli and daughter-in-law Karen, my mom. I appreciate them deeply. I take the phone calls without the hugs. I make the most of the FaceTime moments. I work with what's available.

I speak my language even when I can't receive mine.

This is what Ernaux meant. We never fully hear the language our loved ones speak - and they may never fully speak ours. But love persists anyway. We adapt. We receive what's offered. We keep trying.

And if we're willing to investigate - to really SEE the people we love - we can build bridges across the gap.

What This Means for Parents and Children

Dr. Gary Chapman's research identified five distinct ways people express and receive love:

Here's what matters: Your child likely has a PRIMARY language - the one that fills their tank most effectively. And it might not be yours.

The toddler bringing you rocks isn't being annoying - they're speaking "gifts."

The teenager who wants to work on the car with you isn't avoiding conversation - they're speaking "quality time."

The child who does chores without being asked isn't trying to earn praise - they're speaking "acts of service" to show they love you.

Your child might be trying to love you in THEIR language while starving for love in a language you're not speaking to them.

Wonder Before Worry: The Investigative Approach to Love Languages

This is where my Investigative Parenting framework meets Chapman's research:

Because here's what positive psychology research shows: People who feel understood - truly seen for who they are - experience greater life satisfaction, deeper relationships, and more resilience.

Investigative parenting applied to love languages IS that seeing.

It's the character strength of Social Intelligence (one of the 24 strengths from Dr. Martin Seligman's research) in action: Understanding what makes others tick. Adapting behavior to different situations. Knowing what to say and do to help others feel seen.

But here's what's often missed: Social intelligence also means knowing YOURSELF well enough to articulate what YOU need, and teaching others how to love you back.

We're not just adapting to our children. We're helping them learn to love us too. We're creating bilingual - or multilingual - relationships.

The Mismatch I Lived

I know firsthand what happens when love languages don't align - because I experienced it with my own parents.

My mom was a domestic engineer (the modern term for housewife!) managing five children and an endless list of tasks. My dad worked hard all day to support our family and came home exhausted.

They showed love the way they knew how: Acts of Service and Gifts. We had clean clothes, hot meals, school supplies, Christmas presents. They provided. They sacrificed. By every measure of mid-century American parenting, they were doing it right.

But my primary love language was Quality Time, with Physical Touch a close second. I needed to sit on my dad's lap while we shared a book. I needed my mom to stop folding laundry and just hold me. I needed hugs. I needed presence.

Without those things, I spent my entire childhood feeling like they didn't love me.

And I couldn't tell them. I didn't have the cognitive ability or language skills to articulate: "Mom, I know you're making my lunch and washing my clothes, but what I really need is for you to sit beside me and ask about my day." That's an adult insight, not a child's vocabulary.

And they couldn't know. They were parenting the way they'd been parented, doing what they thought children needed. The concept of "love languages" wouldn't be researched and named by Dr. Gary Chapman for another decade.

So we had this tragic gap: Parents showing love. A child feeling unloved. Everyone trying. Everyone confused about why it wasn't working.

This is what I want to prevent.

Not because my parents were bad parents - they weren't. Not because love languages are some magic fix for all family problems - they're not. But because this particular pain was preventable. If my parents had known to investigate what filled my tank, if they'd understood that fifteen minutes of Quality Time could matter more than an hour of folding my laundry, if they'd realized that a hug before school was as essential as the breakfast on the table...

Maybe I would have grown up feeling loved. Maybe they would have felt more successful as parents. Maybe we wouldn't have spent decades navigating the distance that childhood mismatch created.

The Two Traps (And the Third Way)

So many of us fall into one of two traps:

Trap #1: Loving others the way WE need/want to be loved

• We give what we'd want to receive

• We feel we're trying so hard

• Our kids feel unseen

• Disconnection grows despite our effort

Trap #2: Loving others the way THEY need while losing ourselves in the process

• We contort ourselves to speak their language exclusively

• It never feels authentic

• We become depleted, resentful

• We model self-abandonment (which our kids will learn)

The Third Way - The Investigative Approach: Bilingual Relationships

• Know your own language

• Investigate theirs

• Practice speaking both

• Teach them yours too

• Build bridges, not barriers

Because like learning any second, third, or fourth language, it takes practice to get better at understanding and expressing what our fellow humans whom we love need.

I'm not naturally fluent in "gifts" - but I've learned to appreciate and receive them from the amazing gift-givers in my life. I speak "words" fluently, but I've learned that my daughter Eva doesn't want long phone calls, and she wants me to respect her boundaries around physical touch while finding other ways to connect.

I'm becoming multilingual in love. Not because I'm naturally talented at it, but because I'm willing to investigate, practice, and keep trying.

And that's what investigative parenting asks of us: Not perfection. Not losing ourselves. Just persistent curiosity about the languages our children speak, coupled with teaching them ours.

How to Investigate Your Child's Love Language

Your child can't tell you their love language the way an adult can. They don't have the metacognitive ability to say, "Mom, my primary language is Quality Time, and I'd prefer 30 minutes of your undivided attention over an expensive toy."

You have to investigate.

How to Teach Your Child YOUR Love Language

You can't expect children to intuitively know how to love you if you don't teach them.

• If you need Quality Time: "I really love when we just sit together like this."

• If you need Words: "When you tell me about your day, it makes me feel connected to you."

• If you need Physical Touch: "I'm a huggy person - hugs recharge my battery!"

• If you need Acts of Service: "When you help without being asked, I feel so loved."

• If you need Gifts: "I treasure everything you make for me - it tells me you're thinking of me."

  
  

For kids who don't share your language: "I understand hugs aren't your thing. What ARE ways you like to show affection? High fives? Fist bumps? Sitting close while we watch something?"

Create space for negotiation. Build bilingual bridges.

"But I'm So Busy!" - Small Deposits in the Right Language

I hear you. My mom had five children. My dad worked full-time. They were exhausted. I'm not suggesting parents need to quit their jobs or abandon responsibilities.

What I'm suggesting is investigation + small strategic deposits.

Chapman's research shows: It's not about QUANTITY in all five languages. It's about QUALITY deposits in the RIGHT language.

My parents gave me HOURS of acts of service and provided material support constantly. But fifteen minutes on dad's lap with a book or a hug from my mom would have filled my tank more than all of that combined.

Quality over quantity when it's the right quality.

Examples of small deposits:

If your child's language is Physical Touch:

• 30-second hug before school (costs: 30 seconds)

• Tousle their hair when you walk by (costs: 2 seconds)

• Bedtime backrub while they tell you about their day (costs: 5 minutes, serves dual purpose)

If your child's language is Quality Time:

• One-on-one breakfast once a week (even if it's just cereal)

• Let them help you with a task while you chat

• 15 minutes of undivided attention daily (phone away, eye contact, presence)

If your child's language is Words of Affirmation:

• "I noticed you..." statements (costs: 10 seconds, impact: huge)

• Notes in lunchbox (costs: 2 minutes to write)

• Bedtime affirmation ritual (costs: 1 minute)

If your child's language is Acts of Service:

• Help with a frustrating task instead of telling them to do it alone

• Fix something that's been bothering them

• Anticipate a need and meet it

If your child's language is Gifts:

• Bring home their favorite snack

• Leave a small treasure on their pillow

• Create something for them

The key: These don't require massive time investments. They require INVESTIGATION (what's their language?) and INTENTIONALITY (make deposits in THAT account).

It's tough, especially because parents are so busy. But I think this is one of the most crucial things we can do as parents: to make our children feel loved in the way they receive love.

The Ernaux Gift: Witnessing the Distance

Annie Ernaux couldn't bridge the gap with her mother in life - different social classes, different generations, different life experiences created distance. But she witnessed that distance with precision, love, and no melodrama. She didn't pretend it didn't exist. She didn't blame herself or her mother. She just... saw it clearly.

Her prose is stripped of ornament, almost clinical at times, but it's that very clarity that makes it so emotional. She writes about her mother's illness and death without melodrama, as if she's documenting the facts of a life that's slipping away. Yet beneath that precision there's deep love and grief.

What Ernaux teaches us: The gift isn't closing the gap completely - it's witnessing it honestly while still loving across it.

You might have a child like my daughter Eva who doesn't like hugs when you NEED physical touch. You might have adult children who live across the country when you crave quality time. You might be naturally verbal when your child processes through action.

The investigative approach asks:

• What language does my child speak?

• What language do I speak?

• Where's the gap?

• How can we build bridges? (FaceTime dates, asking adult-child connection questions, accepting the gifts that ARE given)

• How can I teach my child MY language while learning theirs?

Ernaux wrote from "the space between knowing and not knowing, between love and estrangement." She spent decades "turning the ordinary into the profound," showing that the details of a single life can reveal truths about all our lives.

Investigative parenting does the same work: It honors that we will never completely know our children's inner worlds. But it insists that the effort to understand matters. That witnessing - clear-eyed, without melodrama, with persistent love - is itself an act of devotion.

We're not just writing about our children after they're gone, like Ernaux did with her mother.

We're investigating them NOW. We're learning their languages NOW. We're teaching them ours NOW.

We're building bridges while there's still time.

This Holiday Season: The Gift of Investigation

So here's what I'm thinking about as we move through this season of gathering, gift-giving, and (for many) family stress:

The "perfect gift" isn't about money or Pinterest-worthy wrapping.

The perfect gift is INVESTIGATION:

• Taking time to notice what language someone speaks

• Making small deposits in THAT account

• Teaching them your language so they can love you back

• Appreciating when they try to speak yours (even imperfectly)

• Forgiving yourself when you don't speak theirs perfectly

Annie Ernaux wrote: "I will never hear the language my mother spoke."

But you CAN learn to hear the language your child speaks - if you're willing to investigate.

And you can teach them yours. The gap may never fully close, but love - persistent, investigative, creative love - builds bridges across it.

Wonder before worry: What language is my child speaking that I'm not hearing?

Imagination before interpretation: Maybe they're not ungrateful - maybe they just receive love differently than I give it.

Creativity before catastrophizing: Instead of "we're disconnected," let me investigate their language and teach them mine.

This week, instead of stressing about finding perfect gifts, maybe we can give the gift of truly seeing our people. Of investigating what fills their tanks. Of making small deposits in the languages they actually speak.

Because a child who feels loved in THEIR language - even imperfectly, even with busy parents doing their best - will grow up knowing they matter.

And that's a gift that lasts long after the wrapping paper is thrown away.

Cynthia Z. Stevens Copeland is a speech-language pathologist with 30+ years of experience and the founder of Right Track Parenting. She teaches parents to wonder before they worry, to investigate before they react, and to turn the ordinary moments of parenting into profound acts of connection. She learned these lessons the hard way - and now helps parents learn them the easier way.