Love as endurance, part two

I think this will be a post of three parts. The first part is about learning to love and live with our children. It’s one of three points I want to make. Love as endurance in that light is not only positive, but necessary.

We live in an age of convenience. Everything is about efficiency and ease. Iterations of household items and gadgets exist to make life more streamlined.

But there are no shortcuts for parenting. When I was a child, we had a washing machine with a ringer in the basement. There were no driers; we had clotheslines in the back. We had buckets and mops for the floors. Being a housewife took more time and involved more work. We could buy clothing - but that was the time during which clothing became much cheaper to buy than to make. Literally every house I ever visited as a small child had a sewing machine. Now, sewing is a hobby.

Now, there are shortcuts for almost everything else - and in contrast, it makes child-rearing a long, hard slog. We have choices now. We can choose. When I was born, birth control was illegal unless you were married.

It is absolutely true that I will never love anyone the way I love my children. I will never struggle as hard to learn to love, to work at love, the way I worked for my children. Children occupy a special place in my emotional ecosphere.

( Parental love, and why we can’t love everyone as if they’re our children )