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.
Children make your life important.
He didn't come out of my belly, but my God, I've made his bones, because I've attended to every meal, and how he sleeps, and the fact that he swims like a fish because I took him to the ocean. I'm so proud of all those things. But he is my biggest pride.
If you have a child, I said, you have a responsibility at least to stay alive.
We're all comedy fans in my family. My parents mainly wouldn't let me watch stuff that was either annoying to them, or just garbage. My dad wouldn't let us watch 'The Flintstones' if he was home, because he said it was a rip-off of 'The Honeymooners'. But he would let us stay up really late in the summer and watch old 'Honeymooners'.
When in many societies, fathers are usually known by their sons, I am one of the few fathers who is known by his daughter, and I'm proud of it.
Motherhood: All love begins and ends there.
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