Modern Love
Why do we have the expression "Unconditional Love"? Isn't love, by definition, unconditional? Did we have to come up with "Unconditional Love" to counter "Tough Love"? How does it happen, did it happen, that even the most basic feeling one human can have for another comes with qualifications.
Love with conditions, isn't love. It's something, I guess, but it isn't love.
So what is it?
Well, I'd call it blackmail. But there you go, I'm cynical that way. Or am I just being realistic. After all, Christians are led to believe "Jesus Loves Me" - just for being Christian. Oh wait... that's a condition, isn't it.
Parental love (note qualifier, again) is pretty close to unconditional, I suppose. It is for me with my children, anyway. But I'd have to say it isn't really unconditional with my Mother. She likes me, okay - I make her laugh - but love? More to the point, I suppose, since I'm doing the questioning here - do I love her?
I did when I was a kid, that's for sure. It's the reason I stayed home with my own kids when they were younger. My mother worked when I was growing up, and although I had a secret pride in that (none of the other mothers on our street had jobs) I preferred it when she was at home paying attention to us, instead of out in the world paying attention to it.
But do I now? Well, I care about her, but I don't know if I'd call what I feel love.
I remember watching a program with Charles Templeton as the guest (I forget who was the host - Allan Gregg, maybe?) being interviewed about his relationship with religion and Billy Graham and he was talking about humanism and love and he said, "I don't think it is possible to love everybody as the Christian faith says we should. I can care about people, but that's really all I can do."
I often think of that because we are under, if you stop and think about it, a certain unrealistic pressure to love family and friends and under even more pressure in these touchy, feely times - to say it.
Why? Who came up with this ridiculous notion that if you don't tell someone you love them, and then they die, it's going to be your biggest regret ever for the rest of your life? Because I get burdened by things like that and I'm willing to bet a lot of other people do, too.
It's a lot like that hugging thing people do now. We grew up a non-hugging family and I'm pretty sure we all liked it that way. We're thin stick people. Hugging does NOT come naturally to any of us. Non-huggers R Us. Well, wouldn't you know it, but my mother, of all people, read something, I think it was by Dr. Gifford Jones of all people - again, about how hugs were good for older people. So she started hugging us. Which was her way of telling us we'd better start hugging her back to prolong her life.
So we did. At first it was really awkward. I'd sort of brace myself, stiffen, say in my head "relax, relax, relax - it's just your mother" and let it happen.
It was a while before I even figured out the hugging back part. Meanwhile, I had little kids of my own by then so I thought, "Maybe I should teach them how to hug now so they don't turn out like me when I turn out like my mother and it's just a horrible time all over again for all of us."
Well, I can tell you - genetics are an amazing thing. As I said, I'm not a hugger. But my ex is a hugger. So it played out thusly: one child is "hugged upon" still - even after a decade or more of instruction; one hugs really well, but when she was younger I remember having to peel her off me, too; the third one hugs as a favour to his mother. I can tell. Dutiful, perfunctory, let's just get this over with so I can go.
Anyway, they're my kids so the love thing is easy - I love them and they love me - now. But I remember loving my mother when I was young, too, and I can't imagine expecting them to feel the way about me, when I'm an old lady, that they do now, which - and they're teenagers - I suspect is a little less than they did when they were younger.
So there you have it. This is what I was thinking about on my way in to work this morning - the pressure we feel, thanks to pop culture, to SAY we love each other when really, what we probably feel is just a general caring for each other, and this (to me) over-the-top Hollywood insistence that you mustn't let someone close to you die without saying "I love you" so you don't go through the rest of your life regretting that you didn't.
Except, shouldn't we be saying, "I love you - unconditionally", now? I mean, since we came up with the qualifyer. Because, otherwise, you've left the person wondering, "So... he loves me - just as long as"...
And isn't that worse than not saying anything?
