Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French fries without making them give you any of theirs (Chrissy, age 6).

Question: Is this love?

Answer: Yes, it is love.

Question: Why, can you explain as if you were to explain this to the child?

Answer: Because he is giving away something he himself likes. It feels good for him to have it, but he gives it away.

Question: Is that a simple answer? I really want to eat it, but I give it to my friend. And this is called love?

Answer: Yes, that is love.

Comment: Another answer from the group of children who were asked what love is:
Love is what makes you smile when you are tired (Terri, age 4).

My Response: That is also love. Because by doing that, you uplift another person, elevate them, make them feel good against their will.

Question: So you are associating this with smiling for another person?

Answer: Yes.

Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he wears it every day (Noelle, age 7).

My Response: This speaks more about the love of the boy who wears the shirt toward the one who complimented it.

Question: Why is that love?

Answer: Because the boy who wears the shirt wants to please the one who likes it.

You shouldn’t say ‘I love you’ unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget (Jessica, age 8).

My Response: I don’t think such behavior should be taught to a child.

Question: But this is the child’s answer, an eight-year-old child. So if you do not love, should you say that you do?

Answer: No, you should not lie.

Question: And if you love, should you say that you do?

Answer: Probably, yes, but I think even in that case, not entirely.

Comment: The winner of the contest to find the most caring child judged by Leo Buscaglia was a four-year-old boy whose next door neighbor was an elderly gentleman who had recently lost his wife. Upon seeing the man cry, the little boy went into the neighbor’s yard, climbed onto his lap, and just sat there. When his mother asked the boy what he said to the neighbor, the boy replied: “Nothing. I just helped him cry.”

My Response: These are somewhat unbelievable stories for a four-year-old child.

Question: But helping someone cry, what do you think about this moment of compassion?

Answer: It is good.

Question: Does it really help?

Answer: Of course!

Question: So the child sits down, looks at you, and cries with you?

Answer: Yes, but that is too much. It is somewhat unreal.

Question: I see. So here is a question: where does all this go afterward? Even all these answers—they contain such childlike purity. Where does it go? How do we become haters, warriors, killers, criminals? Where does the child inside us go? This child who grew up like this?

Answer: Egoism grows and consumes everything there is.

Question: And that is it?

Answer: That is it.

Question: Does this child remain in us or does it also…?

Answer: There is a possibility to start developing anti-egoistically, to suppress this ego within us.

Question: Can we return to this child even a little?

Answer: Yes, but it will not be a child anymore.

Question: Is it an adult child then?

Answer: Yes.

Question: When you say that an old man is like a child. A wise person is like a child. What do you mean when you say that? That the child does not die in us, that it remains?

Answer: Yes, the child does not die in us and remains because we desire to experience nature and life directly, like children.

Question: Is there this spontaneity in these answers?

Answer: Yes.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 3/25/24

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