She discovered with great delight that one does not love one's children just because they are one's children but because of the friendship formed while raising them.
Interpretation
Love for children is rooted in the bonds of friendship developed during their upbringing.
In this quote, Gabriel Garcia Marquez highlights the idea that parental love is not solely a biological instinct but is profoundly influenced by the emotional connections and friendships built during the process of raising children. It suggests that the relationship between parents and children is nurtured through shared experiences and mutual respect, leading to a deeper, more meaningful love that transcends mere obligation.
In practice
During a family gathering, a parent might share this quote to emphasize the bond they cherish with their children.
He said that people who loved [animals] to excess were capable of the worst cruelties toward human beings. He said that dogs were not loyal but servile, that cats were opportunists and traitors, that peacocks were heralds of death, that macaws were simply decorative annoyances, that rabbits fomented greed, that monkeys carried the fever of lust, and that roosters were damned because they had been complicit in the three denials of Christ.
Amputees suffer pains, cramps, itches in the leg that is no longer there. That is how she felt without him, feeling his presence where he no longer was.
She had the revelation one Sunday that while the other instruments played for everyone the violen played for her alone .
He sank into the rocking chair, the same one in which Rebecca had sat during the early days of the house to give embroidery lessons, and in which Amaranta had played Chinese checkers with Colonel Gerineldo Marquez, and in which Amarana Ursula had sewn the tiny clothing for the child, and in that flash of lucidity he became aware that he was unable to bear in his soul the crushing weight of so much past.
Nobody deserves your tears, but whoever deserves them will not make you cry.
Both described at the same time how it was always March there and always Monday, and then they understood that José Arcadio Buendía was not as crazy as the family said, but that he was the only one who had enough lucidity to sense the truth of the fact that time also stumbled and had accidents and could therefore splinter and leave an eternalized fragment in a room.
I take my kids to school and if I go to work they visit me on set, I come home. I have dinner with my family. I have breakfast with my family. I have a very solid, a very warm home. I'm fortunate.
She wondered if this was true of every parent: if, prior to having children, they all used to be someone else.
Just as my search for my mother had in some ways shaped my life, her faith that I was alive had shaped hers. She couldn't search, but she did the next best thing: She stayed still.
My mother groaned, my father wept, into the dangerous world I leapt.
I still think it's essential for a parent to cook with their children. Weighing out the ingredients and learning where the food comes from is educational, but it also helps to place meal times at the heart of family life. We never had dinner in front of the TV.
As parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts we need to start getting out into nature with the young people in our lives. Families play a key role in getting kids outside.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.