I've sometimes thought that it's only by recalling that desperate devotion my kids once felt for me that I can maintain my own desperate devotion in the face of their adolescent sneering.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Like most parents, I think, my children have been the source of some of my most intense joys and despairs, my deepest moral dilemmas and greatest moral achievements.
The love you have for your kids is so overwhelmingly powerful that it alters your perspective. The dark things going on in the world become very poignant and vivid.
Having lived a full and stimulating life before I had my kids, I've relished every minute I've had to spend with them and felt a degree of confidence in dealing with their trials and tribulations to date.
I have often been struck by the fact that most parents who are experiencing positive and rewarding relationships with their pre-adolescent children are, nevertheless, waiting apprehensively and bracing themselves for the stormy adolescent period.
At the age when other children, I imagine, experience their first 'feeling' for a person, or for art, or for religion, I was affectionate, good, and even pious: by that I mean that under the influence of my mother, I was devoted to the Child Jesus.
I often try to tell kids to think about all the people who love you, don't cry over the one person who doesn't.
That was essential to my journey: the ability to love children while simultaneously having your heart broken.
Children show me in their playful smiles the divine in everyone. This simple goodness shines straight from their hearts and only asks to be loved.
I'm just passionately in love with my kids.
When you have children it completely shifts your focus; they become the most passionate love of your life.