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Dalton
Roberts |
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Art Linkletter said “kids say the darndest things” but it is equally true that they say the most insightful things. By the time we get to be adults spontaneity has been trained out of us and it is that very spontaneity that gives children special untarnished insight.
I realized this when an email brought me a page of children’s views on love. You might be inclined to think children know nothing about love due to inexperience but in these comments from their young minds you can find almost everything you need to know about love.
One child got to the basics of early love when she wrote, “Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne and they go out and smell each other.” It reminded me of my early courting days. I used more cologne in my teens than I have used the rest of my life. You cannot afford to take a chance on not smelling right to that first puppy love.
Children learn early the commitment aspect of love. An eight-year-old child observed, “When my grandma got arthritis, she couldn’t bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandpa does it for her now all the time, even when his hands have arthritis. That’s love.”
Indeed it is. It reminded me of the man who bought flowers to take to his wife who was in a nursing home in the last stage of Alzheimer’s. The clerk knew this and asked, “Does she know you at all?” and he acknowledged she did not. He said, “She doesn’t know me but I know her and I know she always loved flowers.”
There is a mystical aspect of love that is indefinable. A child recognized this when he wrote, “When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You just know that your name is safe in their mouths.” Yes, a child’s intuitional antenna can even pick up the sound of love in the speaking of a name.
There is something that goes on between a man and a woman who enjoy each other so much that it remains constant even when they are not together or touching. A child wrote, “Love is when you kiss all the time. My mother and daddy are like that. And they look gross when they kiss. But when they get tired of kissing they still enjoy being around each other or just nearby.”
I call this a sense of presence. We can love someone so deeply that just knowing they are in the house is a joy and a comfort. Each can be doing something entirely different while remaining aware of the other’s presence. It is one of the higher levels of love.
Children often pick up on the fact that people who love are always there when you need their presence and emotional support. Like the girl who wrote, “During my piano recital I was on stage and I was scared. I looked at all the people watching me and saw my daddy waving and smiling. He was the only one doing that. I wasn’t scared anymore.”
Kids even know in their heart that learning to love can be hard. A six-year-old girl wrote, “If you want to learn to love better, start with a friend you don’t like.” She already knows that all love is not a gift or a magical happening. Sometimes it requires conscious cultivation.
Eight year old Jessica spoke my sentiments about people who constantly say “I love you” at the end of phone conversations like a cashier in a store might say, “Have a good day” without really caring very much about what kind of day you have. She said, “You really shouldn’t say ‘I love you’ unless you mean it. But if you mean it you should say it a lot. People forget.”
You can now hear part of "I Wonder Whart He Wrote In The Sand" and "The Gay Dog" on Dalton's website. Go to www.daltonroberts.com
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