The Greek text of this passage does not correlate like a nursing mother caring for her little children
with gentle,
but with what follows in 1 Thessalonians 2:8, namely, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God...
It is therefore necessary to punctuate this passage differently from the way the ESV has punctuated it, so that the clause like a mother caring for her children
is linked to the clause that follows (rather than the clause that comes before). The Greek uses the construction ὡς ἐὰν...οὕτως (hōs ean...houtōs) to indicate the comparison. The ESV (as most other English translations) obscures this correlation, joining like a mother...
to gentle
and separating 1 Thessalonians 2:7 from 1 Thessalonians 2:8 by placing a full stop at the end of 1 Thessalonians 2:7.1,2
Bearing these comments in mind, we can translate 1 Thessalonians 2:5–11 as follows:
5 For we never used flattery — as you know,
nor did we use a mask to cover greed — God is our witness,
6 nor were we seeking honour from people, whether from you or from others — though as apostles of Christ we could have come with a sense of our importance;
7 but we were infants among you;
as a nursing mother caring for her own children, 8 so out of deep affection we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well, because you had become so dear to us. 9 For you remember...
10 You are witnesses, and so is God, of how holy, righteous and blameless we were among you who believed. 11 For you know that we dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children.
7 But we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children.