No, it's not genetive there, that is accusative. And these two cases are easy to mix up, because both of them have a determining question КОГО? I don't know if that can help non-native speaker out, but to distinguish one from another you should replace the animated object with an unanimated one, for example I always replace it with СТОЛ.

Я люблю (КОГО? WHO?) своего сына -------- Я люблю (ЧТО? What?) стол?

So now it's clear, that the verb takes an accusative object, because the determining questions are Кого? Что? and not Кого? Чего?