The Baby Borrowers

Thanks to a reader for alerting me to a new reality show called The Baby Borrowers. I could go off on a tirade about sensationalizing every single facet of life in order to make a TV show. But I am sure most of us agree that this, like every other reality TV show, is ridiculous, trivial, inane, etc. (Okay, I admit that I am a bit intrigued by home renovation reality shows, and I like to think that my husband and I would kick some royal home improvement butts if we were ever given the opportunity...)

But here is a thought I had when I was reading through the show's description. Watching someone else's children is nothing at all like having your own. I really don't care for other people's children. I don't like babysitting. I don't like children in general. I don't get all mushy and sentimental about them. But. BUT...I am completely head-over-heels in love with my own child. It's nothing at all like what Hallmark makes it out to be. It's very intense, very passionate. It's much more visceral and primal than romantic love.

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Musings on Love

The love I have for Zari is unlike anything else. My love for my family members is an undercurrent that never disappears, but it often gets lost beneath the flow of activities and wildly different personalities jumbled together. With my husband, my love takes on changing forms. Of course there’s romantic love. It’s important but certainly not the foundation of a marriage, as movies make it out to be. Sometimes it’s a deep sense of friendship and camaraderie. I notice this most when we’re working on a project together: perhaps repainting our guest cottage or assembling an oil filtration system for our Greasecar. At other times it’s a raw sharing of our innermost selves. Occasionally our love manifests itself as irritation or annoyance when we try to imprint our wills too strongly on the other person.

With Zari, I just love her. Deeply and simply. To say “I feel love for her” is inaccurate. When we feel something, it implies that there is an object outside or separate from ourselves: I feel the wind on my face. My love for Zari is unlike any other. I don’t have to work on it, like I do with my family. It doesn’t take on changing forms, as with my husband. It just is. It always will be. That love cannot be separated from my existence.

Our physical link began to end when we cut her cord 2 ½ hours after she was born. As long as she nurses, we will not have severed those ties completely. But the love I hold for her—the love that is part of me, that is me—will forever keep me bound to her.

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