A Child's Vision of What Love Truly Is

(Written May 22, 2007)

When I try and figure out what love really is, and/or what it should be, my mind almost always goes back to the thought that little children naturally understand this concept as well as anyone ever could; often better even. Where did this thought come from though? How could that be true? Surely the minds of children have not evolved beyond adult capacity as to be able to comprehend the concept of love (or any other concept, for that matter) better than we do. Plus, children are often very selfish. Isn't that kind of bordering on the opposite of love? What I think I'm beginning to understand though, is that love really is not an adult concept at all. It's more a universal concept than any other I'm aware of. It's something we're all born with. Love is an inseparable part of our souls. Everyone has the capacity to recognize and express it.

In my opinion, societal definitions often stand in the way of our understanding the "pure" definition of love. We are taught to love selfishly. The more we get from someone, the more we love them. That philosophy completely ignores the principle of loving someone just for being them. We ought not to be required to do any more than simply exist as human beings to deserve someone's love.

In the past 3 to 5 months or so, I feel like I've come to more of an understanding of what love is better than I ever had before. There are a few reasons that I can personally identify for that, but one thing that kind of bookended it was the opportunity I had to spend a lot of time with my sister's and my cousin's 8-month-old children over the past week and a half. Children that young understand the concept of being loved just for existing, because that is the exact kind of attention they get from their parents, and just about everyone else around them. They didn't do anything to deserve that, other than being born. And that is enough. Once these children get a little older, they will naturally apply these lessons they learned from their parents in their everyday interactions with their peers. After that though, they will begin to forget, or rather, simply be influenced by other elements that will supercede the natural ways in which they express love. It has always amazed me to watch young children, and the loving way that they interact with each other. I remember one time, when I was a Primary teacher in church, a kid fell down with his chair, and immediately, a little girl responded by helping him back up. No one told her to do that. She just did it naturally. There are countless other examples of children just doing things like that. As adults, I really think there's a lot that we can learn from the loving behavior of kids.

Next to children, I think parents are ones that understand the concept of love the most. I'm not a parent yet, so I can't possibly comprehend the kind of love that parents feel for each other, and for their kids. But having that--being married and having a family--is the one thing in life that I would give up all of my personal ambitions for.

In the end, I think that love is just as simple as the little things that children learn everyday. And as adults, there's no reason why we shouldn't always continue learning the same. To love is to give, to lift up, to sustain, to accept...