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“I looked at my little boy when he was born and felt an unconditional love I never knew was inside me. As he grew, and I watched him stagger about, squeak his first words, and turn into a beautiful little boy, that feeling did not change.” I could have written these words about any one of my five children, but these are the touching words of author Tony Parsons.

When I think of unconditional love, I think of my friend Bruce Robinson, author of Fathering from the Fast Lane and founder of The Fathering Project. He also wrote the other fathering bestseller, Daughters & Dads. He is a few years older than me and a lot wiser.

I interviewed him in the video below. Bruce tells the story of Janis Joplin, a famous rock and roll singer of the late sixties, who led a wild and colourful life. The famous saying, “sex, drugs and rock & roll” was extremely descriptive of her lifestyle.

Janis Joplin came back to her small town in Texas for a high school reunion. Her church-going parents were so embarrassed by her lifestyle that they left town for the day. One month later, Janis Joplin was found dead in her hotel room in Los Angeles. It was a suspected suicide with high levels of heroin and alcohol in her system.

Bruce postulates, “What if her dad refused the shame of his daughter’s wild lifestyle, brought her home and showed her unconditional love?” We will never know the answer to that question, but Bruce is right to ask it. Such is the power of unconditional love. Watch the interview now.

In the above interview, I refer to a man who passionately believed in marriage as a long-term commitment, “until death do us part.” He believed that marriage was a sacred covenant. One day, that man got a call from his daughter. “Dad, I am not happy in my marriage. Things have not been going well. I am going to get a divorce. We have decided to end our lease, and I need help. Can you help me move out to a new place?”

The man I refer to was me, and it was one of the hardest days of my life to move her out of her flat. I desperately wanted to say ‘something’, but all I said was, “Sure, honey, I will be there.” My other two sons helped, and together, we got the move done in under a day. We didn’t say too much that day, but sometimes actions speak louder than words.

Bruce tells his own personal story about his eldest son, who got himself into a bit of trouble in his younger years. Bruce said to him, “I love you no matter what you do. If you get put in gaol, I won’t ring the police commissioner (a friend at the time), but I will come down, bring my sleeping bag and spend the night with you in the gaol.”

Bruce is explicit about Dads telling their children about their unconditional love for them. His favourite expression is, “You have to say it. You have to put it into words.” I agree, as it says in Proverbs, “Life and death are in the power of the tongue.”

Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl draws parallels between the human capacity to love unconditionally and living a meaningful life. Frankl writes: “Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality. No one can become fully aware of the essence of another human being unless he loves him. … Furthermore, by his love, the loving person enables the beloved person to actualize … potentialities.” For Frankl, unconditional love is a means by which we enable and reach human potential.

Viktor Frankl said, “A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life, I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth — that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire.”

Wikipedia says, “Unconditional love is known as affection without any limitations, or love without conditions… Each area of expertise has a certain way of describing unconditional love, but most will agree that it is that type of love which has no bounds and is unchanging.”

Interestingly, Wikipedia says in the same article, “In Christianity, the term ‘unconditional love’ can be used to indicate God’s love for a person irrespective of that person. This comes from the concept of God sending His only Son, Jesus Christ, down from heaven to earth to die on a cross in order to take the punishment for all of humanity’s sin… The civil rights leader and pastor Dr Martin Luther King Jr was quoted as saying, “I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality.”

Lovework

It is hard to argue with Martin Luther King Jr. Like his master, he gave his life for the cause of liberty. You could say he succeeded in great measure, but at great cost. Bruce Robinson argues every father must learn to give unconditional love to his children. I agree, but it is darn difficult. I pray and hope you do better than me!

Much Love,
Warwick Marsh

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Republished with thanks to Dad4Kids. Image courtesy of Adobe.