Some insensitivity I perceive from parents
I hear consistently from parents, “Since you aren’t a parent you can’t understand the challenges of raising a child and how it makes doing what you do about sustainability impossible,” or words to that effect.
They often imply or even imply, though not as bluntly: “You haven’t held a newborn you created and have to care for for its survival. You haven’t felt that love. You haven’t experienced as much as I have.” No one has lived anyone else’s life so no one can know or feel what it’s like to live as someone else.
I’m not them so I don’t know exactly what they mean, but similar messages come from many sources, so I think I catch some of the pattern.
I think they think that they’ve developed the ability to love more than I have. Maybe when I write it out it feels too strong for them to say, but I can feel they think I haven’t developed in the area of loving as much as they have; that they care about the future quantitatively more and qualitatively differently.
If you’re a parent, do you think non-parents don’t have the ability to love as much as you have?
Yet none has gotten what I mean when I talk about how my living more sustainably has developed feelings of love, not just for people related to me or even just near me. I can’t put into words how powerful the feeling is of taking into account everyone affected by my actions, or that could be; to take into account everyone in everything I do. To love my neighbor as myself.
Should I think that anyone who doesn’t try to live sustainably doesn’t know love as I do? That if someone can’t or doesn’t extend their love beyond their immediate family that they haven’t developed?
I don’t feel that way because I think everyone possesses the capacity to love this amount even if they don’t practice it.
I looked up the definition of bigot to see if it applied to parents who believe a non-parent doesn’t love as much as they do. Here’s the definition: “a person who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices.” I don’t think it fits, but it’s not far off either.
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