Henrique Beier

On parental love

Every so often I think about this quote from A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara:

I have never been one of those people – and I know you’re not either – who thinks that love for a child is a superior, more meaningful, grander kind of love than any other. I didn’t feel that before Jacob, and I didn’t feel it after his birth. But it is a singular love, because it is a love whose foundation is not physical attraction, or pleasure, or intellect, but fear. You have never known fear until you have a child, and maybe that is what tricks us into thinking that it is more magnificent, because the fear itself is more magnificent.

Even though me and my wife don’t want to have kids, that always hits me.