Why Do I Love my Children

The beloved not only perceives the divine, the soul print of her lover, she identifies him with that divinity. She understands that as his essence. She sees and identifies her beloved with his infinite specialness.

This notion of perception identification is most clear in reference to parents and children. You love your kids. The neighbor’s kids however — well, they are just so incredibly rambunctious, annoying and immature…

In fact, we all recognize that there may be no appreciable difference between our kids and the neighbor’s kids. Why then do we love our children and not the neighbor’s? Not merely because they’re my children, but rather, because they are my children, I am invested in them. This investment causes me to focus on them more intensely than on other kids. The result — I am able to perceive them in ways other people are simply unable to do. I perceive my child’s beauty in a way that no one else is quite able to do. But perception is not enough. If I am a good parent, I know my child also has faults, and those shortcomings are real. They need to be addressed forthrightly and never swept under the rug. Remember, love is not blind. Infatuation is blind. Love is a microscope. Parents should be madly in love with their kids — they should never be infatuated with them.

Having said this — how is it that I love my children even after I know their long laundry list of faults? The answer is the second step in the formula, identification. I perceive both my child’s goodness and her not-yet-so-goodness — but I identify her goodness as the true core of who she is. All the rest I will deal with in whatever way necessary — but I know that at core the trailing clouds of glory are the essence of my child and I love her for it. With kids not our own, what we often (wrongly) tend to do so is to identify the child with his failing or acting out instead of with his infinite specialness and grandeur.

marc gafni
posted on marcgafni.com
share comments on info@marcgafni.com