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I wanna know what love is

July 6th, 2010 · by map · 3 Comments

Dear, earnest Leah ignited a firestorm on her Facebook page the last couple days when, after posting a picture of Emmett and professing her undying love for the child, she received a comment on said picture from a friend who opined that the love a parent has for a child is a unique kind of love, unattainable to childless people.

Whether you believe such a claim, my personal experience suggests that having a child does some major stuff to one’s heart. And to one’s head. And to all the other parts, too. My take has been that the parent-child relationship, even in such high beings as humans, transcends “love.” Love is a word we use to describe the complex and profound emotional and physical sensations we have when we’ve created another life.

Lord knows I’ve written around this subject here before. And I’ve managed to do so without offending too many people, at least AFAIK. But I’m fairly comfortable coming right out and saying that I had about as much luck understanding what it’s like having a kid before I had a kid as I did understanding what it’s like to go to the moon. And I’d seen Apollo 13 and The Right Stuff!

So call it love if you like. Call that winning lottery ticket God’s will. Now you know why David Byrne encouraged us all to stop making sense.

Tags: General

  • http://www.philosyphia.com NathanPralle

    I will happily concur with the idea that one cannot appreciate the emotions and feelings associated with children until one has had them and had to deal with them in every aspect. SOs, spouses, pets — none of these come close to it. It's the combination of responsibility, unabashed love, caring, selflessness, genetic attachment, and instinctual response that creates the parent-child bond and your analogy of, “like going to the moon,” is right-on.

  • Pete

    It's like anything else, I s'pose, Mark. One can't fully understand parent/child love without being a parent, just like one can't understand addiction without being an addict; understand abuse without being abused; understand cancer without going through it; understand Neil Young without having seen him over and over (or so I keep telling my wife); and on and on.

  • http://nicheplayer.net map

    I think that's true, Pete, but the issue in L's case appears to be that a (former) “friend” of hers took exception with the notion that the love she's experienced is somehow inferior to the love a parent is able to feel. Like we have some kind of superpower, or something, because we have kids. Like I couldn't really appreciate Neil without having been at Massey Hall in '71 (would that I had been!).