无条件的爱
Today I was talking with some of my co-workers about a parent's love for his child as being the only real "unconditional love".
Love comes in so many forms (for the sake of simplicity, I will not include the types of "love" between man and a non-human being/object of affection) :
1) Love between life partners
2) Love between friends
3) Love between siblings
4) Love between parent(s) and their child(ren)
Each of these types of love involves strong emotions but are fundamentally very different. But in my opinion, only the love between a parent and child can be something that is totally, absolutely and truly unconditional.
A parent may hope for a great many things from his child - some parents want their children to be first in class, to be intelligent, while others expect their child to follow in their own footsteps in becoming an entreprenuer, a business, etc. - but no matter what else or more a parent may like his child to be(come), he does not expect anything 'in return' for the selfless devotion of time, energy and emotions that he pours into the love for his offspring.
It is something that simply is.
It is also true and perhaps a little surprising that the love a child feels for his parent(s) may not actually be anywhere as "noble" and "unconditional" as the love his parent have for him. Children kind of 'expect' their parents to love them. And as a young child, he expects protection, care and attention from his parents. When he gets older, he expects financial support but also demands personal "freedom" (in terms of personal time and space) from his parents.
Not really a 'fair' deal, one may think... But I guess that's the way we live. Interestingly, one of my ex-colleague penned in her Facebook comment one time "Love pours downwards" - ie. we seem to love our children more than we love our parents.
But must that always be the case? Well, we may not be able to 'measure' and compare how MUCH we love our children versus that we feel for our parents, but that should not stop us from loving them all - just for being there for us and filling our hearts at various points in our lives, and in different ways.
This short video is one of my personal favorites.... always brings a tear to my eyes... (ops! must be smoke getting in my eyes. =P)
Love comes in so many forms (for the sake of simplicity, I will not include the types of "love" between man and a non-human being/object of affection) :
1) Love between life partners
2) Love between friends
3) Love between siblings
4) Love between parent(s) and their child(ren)
Each of these types of love involves strong emotions but are fundamentally very different. But in my opinion, only the love between a parent and child can be something that is totally, absolutely and truly unconditional.
A parent may hope for a great many things from his child - some parents want their children to be first in class, to be intelligent, while others expect their child to follow in their own footsteps in becoming an entreprenuer, a business, etc. - but no matter what else or more a parent may like his child to be(come), he does not expect anything 'in return' for the selfless devotion of time, energy and emotions that he pours into the love for his offspring.
It is something that simply is.
It is also true and perhaps a little surprising that the love a child feels for his parent(s) may not actually be anywhere as "noble" and "unconditional" as the love his parent have for him. Children kind of 'expect' their parents to love them. And as a young child, he expects protection, care and attention from his parents. When he gets older, he expects financial support but also demands personal "freedom" (in terms of personal time and space) from his parents.
Not really a 'fair' deal, one may think... But I guess that's the way we live. Interestingly, one of my ex-colleague penned in her Facebook comment one time "Love pours downwards" - ie. we seem to love our children more than we love our parents.
But must that always be the case? Well, we may not be able to 'measure' and compare how MUCH we love our children versus that we feel for our parents, but that should not stop us from loving them all - just for being there for us and filling our hearts at various points in our lives, and in different ways.
This short video is one of my personal favorites.... always brings a tear to my eyes... (ops! must be smoke getting in my eyes. =P)
posted by 北海道的大黑熊 at 9:44 PM
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