"A Strong, Demanding Love"

"I'm not talking about emotional bosh when I talk about love: I'm talking about a strong, demanding love." ~MLK

"The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves, the resolution not to twist them to fit our own image. If in loving them we do not love what they are, but only their potential likeness to ourselves, then we do not love them: we only love the reflection of ourselves we find in them." ~Thomas Merton

"Love is not primarily a relationship to a specific person; it is an attitude, an orientation of character which determines the relatedness of a person to the world as a whole, not toward on "object" of love. If a person loves only on other person and is indifferent to the rest of his fellow men, his love is not love but a symbiotic attachment, or an enlarged egotism. Yet, most people believe that love is constituted by the object, not the faculty." ~Erich Fromm

"The teachings about love offered by Fromm, King, and Merton," writes bell hooks, "differ from much of today’s writing. There is always an emphasis in their work on love as an active force that should lead us into greater communion with the world. In their work, loving practice is not aimed at simply giving an individual greater life satisfaction; it is extolled as the primary way we end domination and oppression. This important politicization of love is often absent from today’s writing."

I have always loved the children I taught. I love them now that they are out in the world, beyond my reach. I loved them, I realize, even before they crossed my threshold. And I already love the future children that will come my way.

I know I'm not alone in this. I've spoken with countless early childhood educators who feel the same way. Indeed, love is a prerequisite. This is not emotional bosh for us, but rather, a hooks writes, an active force. As Mister Rogers put it, "Love isn't a state of perfect caring. It is an active noun like struggle. To love someone is to strive to accept that person exactly the way he or she is, right here and now."

Love is what demands that we forget the lessons that tell us that adults must command children, that we must shape and correct and teach them obedience. It demands that we be the soil in which they can continue becoming the person they are, right now. Love is not the easiest path. The world wants these children moulded into a safe kind of sameness, to be guided toward predetermined ends, but love celebrates their uniqueness, their eccentricities, their right to be free, to live fully and well, to come alive with purpose and meaning.

It takes courage to love in this way. Thomas Mann writes, "It is love, not reason that is stronger than death." Love is the antidote to fear and fear is, as hooks puts it, "the primary force upholding structures of domination." When we love like this, we are taking a stand not just for the children, but for life itself.

"Learning to face our fears is one way we embrace love," writes hooks. "Our fear may not go away, but it will not stand in the way." This is what is meant by a strong, demanding love.

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